75 Years Royal Netherlands Airforce

1/72 Fujimi F-16 "Retro"

by Niels Dol

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Silly Week 2008

 

Here are the four models for the celebration of 75 years of the Royal Netherlands Air Force.  Each F-16 Squadron (except 323 Squadron) brought a F-16 back into retro colours for a demonstration team. 306 Squadron decided to do a all silver F-16, in the colours of the old F-84E's with which this squadron flew in the early fifties. 311 squadron choose to honour the Royal Netherlands East Indies Airforce by doing a F-16 in the colours of a Brewster Buffalo during the 2nd world war (1942). 312 Squadron went back to the early days of aviation in the Netherlands by giving their F-16 the colours of a Fokker DVII from the early twenties. 322 squadron finaly did their F-16 in the famous colours of the Fokker DXXI from 1940, including the three white mice.

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The four planes gave a stunning demonstration during both days of the open house at Deelen airbase, after the open house all four were sent to Woensdrecht Airbase for a complete overhaul, including a repaint to their original colours.  Also a parahouse was added.

The kits used for these four models are from Fujumi.  Personally I think these are some of the worst F-16 kits around, I have a few of them left, but I don't think I'm going to build them ever again. The decals came from several sources, the detail level isn't that high, but I had the idea and wanted to build them pretty quick to have them ready in time!  The overall look is very nice though.

In Fact, there was only one F-16 in special colours during the celebration of 75 years Royal Dutch Airforce, there was also a Fokker F-27 Troopship and two NF-5A's in almost the same special scheme.  Those models will be built by me in the next couple of months and I hope I can put them online here around June, in time for the celebration of 95 Years of Royal Dutch Air Force!

I hope you all like this little article about a idea I had a few weeks ago!

Cheers!
Niels 
Lelystad, The Netherlands.

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Photos and text © by Niels Dol