Background
This is my Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) Blk 15 F-16A viper using the
1/48
Hasegawa Thunderbird kit. This kit was bought a long time ago when kits were
costing S$15 to S$20. It is a regular viper kit with the Thunderbird
decals. Due to my experience at that time in modelling, I decided to put it
into the to-do list.
Much about the Hasegawa viper has been written already and it certainly has a
long list
of "offspring". I guess you can consider this kit to be the
mother of all the Hasegawa
viper kits as its the second in the series. When I compare it side by side
with a recent
CJ kit that I have, you can appreciate the subtle wear the mold is
starting to show. But
that is evident only when you have them side by side, other then that the
wear is not
really discernible.
When a group of the regular modelling "kakis" wanted to do a
group build for Singapore's National Day, this kit came to mind. The bird I am
depicting is number 880 from 140 Squadron, which is the first viper that Singapore bought under
the Peace
Carvin program. Incidentally, this bird was involved in a mid-air collision
with her sister
ship 883 while doing some ACM over South China Sea. Word has it they were
doing more then ACM but that's another story
The official stance is they were on a routine training mission. 880 was banged
up pretty bad while 883 became home to some
fishes at the bottom of the South China Sea.
From some sources, 880 flew back with a horizontal stab with surface damage and
the starboard wing, I think, was bent ala the F-18 wing fold holding by a few
metal pieces.
Thats fly-by-wire for you ! Anyway, it went through major repairs and is now
still flying.
Read about our biggest little Air Force here at my friend Mike's web site.
The Unofficial Singapore Air Force Homepage
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/3900/
My depiction is what I think 880 was configured for that flight. 1 x training
sidewinder on
the starboard wing tip and an ACMI pod on the port wing tip.
Cockpit
Not much mod in the pit as I think the kit ones are OK. Some may argue that the
panels are wrong or whatever, but it looks like a viper pit to me, so that's
it. Just some regular painting, dry brushing and washing to bring out the details.
Construction
Fit wise there is not much to say as it is still the best viper money can buy
and currently is still the best in 1/48. The only point to look out for is mating of the
wings to the fuselage to get it even and straight. One wonders why did
they ever have done the
wings and fuselage in two parts but I guess that was the technology available
back then.
To do a RSAF F-16A viper with the kit, some modification has to be done to the brake housing. Like some of the viper operators, RSAF vipers have the
brake housing
and since the kit is basically an F-16A bird, I scratch build and added
the housing.
Could have used the kit for the Norwegian variant but no point getting another
kit just for
the housing. Besides, the housing is not hard to do, just some square
stryene and
plastic sheet. I shaped the air scoop on the housing with a square rod.
Another mod I did
was to replace the horizontal stab's pivot with wire by drilling out the
original plastic inserts. On the fuselage I added a piece of square stryene with
the hole
drilled to fit the wire on the stab. Its stronger and looks better this way. I
also added
static discharge on the wing and stabilizer as per Kaan's Tools n Tip on ARC.
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The pitot tube on
the radome was in danger of getting snapped off, so I replaced it with sewing
needle and blended the base with some putty.
The ACMI pod was
robbed from a sidewider from the spares box. The fins are removed and a section
of sewing needle was super glued to a small hole drilled into the front tip.
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Masking and
painting
The exhaust was painted with Mr colour silver on the outside. The ring near the
fuselage was sprayed with clear blue to simulate the blue tint evident from my
ref photos. I think I have over done it and ended on the heavy side but it
turned out ok after
some drybrushing to tone it down. The inside was painted off white
and airbrushed with dark grey streaks to get the typical exhaust stain found on
the viper. Some drybrushing was done to complete the tail job.
Next was to mask the
canopy. Nothing fancy here. Just regular masking with thin graphic tapes
along the edges and filling in the rest of the area with masking liquid. An
more efficient method I think then cutting strips of Tamiya tape as the
thin graphic tape
is more flexible in getting the curves. But that is personal
preference. Use whatever
method you're comfortable with.
The colours are
airbrushed free hand. Some masking was used to prevent over spray in some
area. This is the first time I am using the airbrush version of vallejo
paint for airbrushing. I have tried the brush painting version and it
works well.
The only gripe I have is the weak biting power. To overcome that, use a
primer like Mr Surfacer or rub the whole model down with 1000 grit
sandpaper to give the paint something to bite. |
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Another thing about
vallejo paints is that I think they are not really 100% FS even though
they have equivalent of some of the colours. So check the colours and not rely entirely on their colour chart. I find their FS36270 too "grey"
and FS36118 needs to be tone down a notch with some FS35375 to lighten it a bit.
After the colours went on, a coat of Mr clear was air brushed in preparation for
decals.
The decals were kindly donated by my fellow modellers Wang and Mike from their
spares box.
Decals
Not much trouble in the stencil decals. It was thin and went on well generally
with some
micro set. Some bubbles and silvering in some of the more stubborn ones
were treated
with micro sol. The sqn decal were a separate story. The sqn decals were
printed on Alps printer. Generally the decals went on ok. The only small problem is
when I sprayed the final matt coat after decalling. One of the lion head decal
developed silvering that appear like hair line cracks. After a few moment of
panic and some tea
later, I tried puncturing the affected area and applied some micro sol. It
reduce the
effect of the hair line cracks considerably. Now its almost unnoticeable unless
you stand close enough.
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Conclusion
The model is not finished yet. Although the RSAF keeps her bird in pristine
condition,
there is bound to be some grimp and dirt somewhere, so I intend to do some
light weathering around the plane before sealing the final matt coat. To meet
the date line for the group build, this is as far as any modelling work will go.
Thanks to all the modelling kakis who has helped in any way on this project like
the decals, nuggets of information and suggestions etc. People like Wang,
Mike, Desmond, Sebastian ,Gareth, Kwek and others that I did not include here.
^_^
Jer Wei
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