1/72 Blue Angels F/A-18A Hornet 

by Greg D. Williams IPMS #44084 

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  United States of America Independence Day 2006 

 

Hello all!  This is my secound installment to the ARC.  I wanted to share my lastest completed project, the Blue Angels F/A-18A Hornet.  What more can be said about the this amazing U.S. Navy flight demonstration team and their history?  Not much, only that they are always striving for excellence and precision- a consistant croud pleaser and an inspiration to young and old alike.  For this model, I chose the Hasegawa offering, yep the old legacy Hornet mold.  Over-all, compaired to Italeri's 1/72nd scale Hornet kits, Hasegawa's detail and shapes were more accurate.  However, If I was to going to do this kit justice, I'd have to correct inaccuracies in the shape of the nose, add minor lacking details, and overcome decaling issues to have it represent a current Blue Angels F/A-18A.   

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During pre-construction and dry-fitting, I found that the rumors and reviews about these "legacy" kits' fit problems held true.  Not discuraged, I pushed the power up, and concentrated on the Boss's "Ditty", "Puuuuush through iiiit...saaand iiiit smooooth, readyyyyyyyy, now."  I filled, sanded and reshaped areas as needed.  Problem areas were with the air intake joints, rear fuselage and the odd & inaccurately drooped nose/ radome- I discovered during dry-fitting.  I corrected it's shape by inserting a styrene shim and sanded it smooth to correct it's contour.

The kit represents an "A" model F/A-18 without the LEX fences, upper fuselage RWR's and other items that identify it as the "C."  However, current flying Blue Angels hornets have the LEX fences, installed as a result of airframe buffeting during their aggressive and often dangerous aerobatics.  None were supplied in the kit, so I fashoined a pair by tracing a spare from a "C" kit onto sheet styrene, cut to shape and attached them to the model.  Also lacking in the kit was a small ATSP (Air temperature Sensor Probe) located under the port side LEX and PITOT tubes for the port and staboard sides of the forward fuselage, just behind the radome.  These details were made from tiny strands of stretched sprue and stip styrene to shape. 

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Finally, the model was primed and sanded in prepartion for painting and finishing.  I airbrushed Tamiya X-8 for the Yellow trim on the wingtips, rudders and stabblizers.  After the yellow had thouroughly dried, I mixed a batch of dark blue for the Angel's trademark Blue Angels Blue paint, using Tamiya X-3 with a few drops of white (X-2)added.  I masked the yellow areas and airbrushed the blue and let it dry for an hour in my home-made drying oven.  Later, I gloss coated with Future and set out to decal.  The were so old in the kit that a test piece shattered into pieces once placed in water.  To solve this, I scanned the decals into Photoshop and laser printed them onto white decal paper.  After careful trimming, I applied the decals as normal.  The decals were now strong, responded well to Solva-Set and were opaque over the dak blue paint.  Minor details were picked out with enamels.  Hope you like, and remember....Honor, Courage, Commitment.....The Blue Angels. 

Greg

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Photos and text © by Greg D. Williams