1/32 Academy F/A-18C

VFA-131 Wildcats

by Ronald Rozema

--------------------

 

This is my Academy F/A-18c, bought from Luckymodel.com.  The kit is almost straight out of the box except for the decals.  I chose these decals because this F-18 flew in a exercise here in the Netherlands during the Fighter Weapon Instructor Training (FWIT) in 1996.  With a lot of photo’s which I had taken, I could make this model.

The model is painted with an airbrush using Vallejo Air colors.  I used preshading but this went wrong when Vallejo is very tricky when it comes to laying a thin layer of paint.  I therefore used postshading to make the plane appear a bit weathered.  

Decals are from CAM and where excellent.  Very thin and good with MicroSOL.  One mishap, for this kit although, are the decals from CAM are the collision lights, they where about 3-4mm too long and don’t fit in the frames of the kit.  Also the danger triangles are not present with the CAM decals.  In the kit there are only the grey, toned down, versions.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

The kit was really fun to build and I would build one more of these.  It’s an expensive kit, but is worth the money with it’s outstanding detail and parts.

Greetings from the Netherlands, happy modelling.  

Ronald

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

Photos and text © by Ronald Rozema