1/72 F-16CJ Wild Weasel 

Gallery Article by Andrew Desautels (a.k.a. "Andrew D. the Jolly Rogers guy") on Aug 2 2019

 

      

F-16CJ Wild Weasel "Col. Dan Hampton"

This is the fifth of my Wild Weasel collection, the complete series of 5 built between 2014 and 2019.

In the first Gulf War in 1991, F-16's were used in Wild Weasel units, usually paired with F-4G's as hunter-killer teams. In the second Gulf War in the new millennium, the F-16CJ became the full heir to the Wild Weasel legacy. 

As one of the most adaptable weapons platforms of the Western world, the F-16 took to its Weaseling role with all the success of its previous roles of air defense and ground attack. And so as Allied air power returned to Iraq, the Iraqi air defenses were overwhelmed by very capable F-16's in the pure Weasel role.

Some F-16 Weasel units used HARM missiles almost exclusively, although some did combine HARMs with CBU cluster bomb units to increase a SAM site's destruction. Such is the subject of this build.

Click on images below to see larger images

This is the Tamiya F-16CJ built as one of the mounts of F-16 Wild Weasel pilot and author Dan Hampton. Attached to the 77th Fighter Squadron (the "Gamblers"), his amazing book "Viper Pilot" details the role of F-16's in the Weasel role including several photos. Two of them show his bird armed with CBU's, his favorite SAM-killing weapon, along with an asymmetrical mix of three AIM-120's and a single AIM-9M. It's an eye-catching load!

The ejection seat was improved, and a metal pitot was used. The CBU-103's were very slightly modified from the very similar-looking CBU-87's from the Hasegawa weapons set. Hasegawa also supplied the AN/ALQ pod and the AAM's. 

The "Gamblers" aircraft had a slightly different variation to their gray camouflage than other F-16's, namely around the canopy and gun port. I started by painting a standard F-16C pattern, then found I was totally wrong...and had to redo it.

The "Gamblers" markings came from Authentic Decals. The tail number was spliced together from odd numbers to match the tail number of one of the Vipers visible behind the author in Hampton's book.

Thanks for looking, and I hope you enjoy my Weasel series!

Andrew D. the Jolly Rogers guy

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Photos and text © by Andrew Desautels