1/48 & 1/144 Revell F-19 Stealth Fighter 

1980s Stealth Dreams

Gallery Article by Thomas Brückelt on May 11 2020

 

      

Here is my F-19-project. The F-19 was never a real planned aircraft. Lockheed just published drawings of a stealth fighter with a good aerodynamic shape when they worked on the top secret Lockheed XST and F-117 and called it "F-19". In fact they were not able to combine a good aerodynamic shape with stealth characteristics, because the computers in those days were not powerful enough. 

A certain time ago I was in luck to buy the old 1/48 kit of the F-19 from Revell in ebay, which is very hard to get. It came without box and had no instructions, that made the kit cheap. On youtube I found a nice (french) kit review, in which the manual is shown very well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJg865i3-g8 

Click on images below to see larger images

Inside the cockpit I added a nice figure from PJ Production (F-16 / F-18 pilot seated in a/c - #481123). Revell placed a sidestick on the left side panel. I did not agree and placed it on the right side. On the left side instead I installed self made thrust levers. A wooden block with a silicone tube inside was glued inside the fuselage to plug in the rod of the display later.

The model was painted with brush. I could not use the decal sheet anymore, so I used one for F-117s from Print Scale (# 48-112). Good stuff, printed in a high quality! After I attached some decals of this sheet, I sealed the model with clear, flat varnish from Tamiya.

Further I had the idea to make three F-19-versions from the Revell kit in 1:144 and place them beside the large model.

The moulds of the kit are in a very bad condition after many years in production, so a lot of rework is necessary to make a good looking model out of this old kit.

I had the idea to make a A-version (almost out of the box), a B-version (twoseater) and a C-Verison (Navy-version with larger wing area and bubble canopy). The B- and C-versions were my own creations.

All of them got beautiful pilots from Heroes Models:
https://heroesmodels.it/ 

The cockpits were also built from scratch. For all models I made deepdrawn canopies.  For the A version I used the original canopy to make a mould out of it. The moulds for the B- and C-version I made out of wood. I painted them in shiny black to get a smooth surface. 

Also the small models were painted with brush. For the A-Version I used the decal sheet from the kit. For the B-Version I used the decal sheet of Revells F/A-18D Hornet "Wild Weasel" (#4064). The Navy-fighter got also some decals from this sheet, but the most markings I printed by myself.

It was fun to build those old kits and put some creativity into this project.

Enjoy the pictures!

Greetings from Germany

Thomas Brückelt

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Photos and text © by Thomas Brückelt