This is Italeri's 1/48 scale F-18E Super Hornet. It's built out of the box with the exception of adding Revell's F-18C cockpit and a True Details resin NACES bang seat. It was a pretty enjoyable build, with the exception of the intakes, which presented some difficulty. 

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There were also some large gaps on the underside of the wings, which I filled in a bit with white glue and primer. Overall, I wasn't looking to build a contest winner, but just more of a "hey, this is cool, let's see if I can get it done" model. 

The most exciting part of the build was deciding on the markings. The possibilities were numerous! Being a Tomcat fan, I thought it would be interesting to see how a "future" squadron might look. Since I had spare VF-102 markings on hand, I decided to build a Diamondback.

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The markings are purely fictitious, especially since VF, or should I say VFA, 102 may be getting F models, but hey, I thought they looked cool. In all, I enjoyed the build, which is what it's about anyway.

Darren