Academy 1/48 F-16C By Mike Whye

Introduction

When I lifted the box top of Academy's new 1/48 F-16C (kit # 12204) Flying Razorbacks, I thought, wow, this is going to be a great kit to build. At first glance, all of the parts, which are in medium gray styrene (excepting the clear parts, of course) looked as finely made as possible. All had engraved lines and the detail was immaculate.

The only drawback, I thought upon looking at the pieces, was that the cockpit instruments are represented by decals which, to me, is a disappointment in 1/48 scale, especially in a kit that retails for nearly $30.

Unfortunately, as I went on, I found other drawbacks.

When I began assembling the cockpit (Step 1), I noticed ejector pin marks on the cockpit floor. A couple would be easily hidden once the seat was installed but two others were be quite visible just ahead of the seat. I put a thin drop of super-glue in each, let it dry and sanded it smooth. Afterwards, I sprayed the cockpit with FS 36375 (light ghost gray), as recommended by the instructions. I also painted the seat cushions a dark tan.

The ejection seat has good detail but no seat belts. The only other details in the cockpit are the throttle and joystick which went in without problem. As mentioned, the instrument panels are decals which I applied easily. There is a good pilot figure if you want to build that. Instead of installing the ejection seat at this time, I kept it out until the model was practically assembled and painted; keeping it out made it easier to mask off the cockpit with tape during the painting.

In Step 2, the main gear well had to be assembled, the cockpit installed and the upper and lower halves of the fuselage glued together. All went well there.

Assembling the Wings

In Step 3, the upper wings had to be glued on and that's where things really didn't work because when I dry fitted the upper wings, there was quite a gap between them and the fuselage. Because the upper wings fit atop the lower wings that are molded onto the lower fuselage, I figured, shave a little off the ends of the lower wings and that should snug up the upper wings to the fuselage. Nope. Failure. The gaps were still there. I sanded the edges of the wings where they were to meet the fuselage in hopes of producing a better fit. Nope again.

I really didn't want to just glue the upper wings on--that would leave gaps that would have to be filled and sanded--which would erase lots of finely engraved detail. However, that's what I finally had to do and I became one unhappy modeler at this point. Not only were the wing-fuselage gaps very visible topside but, because the upper wing parts had some lower areas already on them (leading edges, tips and flaps/ailerons), there were gaps where those met the lower wings. Oh joy.

So it was time to unstopper the super-glue and get to work, which I did and which erased must of that finely engraved detail which I had admired in this kit. I got the job done and then spent some time trying to replace the lost detail. While I don't expect to throw glue and paint into a kit box, shake everything around and have a perfect model to fall out, I also don't expect a kit with such fine details to require you to eradicate them while completing some basic steps.

The fun continued when I put on the radome.....not a good fit either because its shape did not match that of the fuselage, requiring more sanding, filling, sanding and more loss of detail.

The Intake Structure

In Step 5, I got to the intake structure. Three parts make up the intake structure--the left and right halves and Part B1, the piece that serves as the sloping inlet plate plus the front wheel well. Well, first off, the wheel well has six ejector marks, all easy to see but all hard to remove because they're between ribs. By this time I thought, okay....forget 'em...let's just build this kit....it's not going to be my finest modeling effort anyway.

But when I dry fitted Part B1 between the left and right halves of the inlet structure, I really blew a fuse. The front lip of B1 left a very noticeable step just inside the inlet and I mean a step. No matter how I fit the piece, it had a step. I sanded here and there, trying to angle that thing down to produce a somewhat smooth blend near the front of the intake without pushing up the rear of that piece, separating the left and right halves of the inlet structure. No good.

Finally, I glued the three inlet structure pieces together as best as possible and set it aside. A day later, I applied superglue to fill the step between the front of B1 and the inlet mouth formed by the left and right halves (parts A6 and A7). Then I put in some putty and proceeded to sand, scrape and work at all that as best as I could using round files and sanding sticks. By this time, I knew this effort wasn't going to produce an award-winner. A passable model of an F-16, yeah, but a knock-out? No.

A Brief Digression and Comparison

Not having built a 1/48 F-16 before, I wondered if other kit manufacturers had this much trouble with the fits of the intake structure and the wings and fuselage. Then I remembered that my stash held an Italeri F-16C (Italeri # 840) and, out of curiosity, I cut through its shrink wrap and opened the kit. This review of Academy's F-16C did not start out to be a comparison between it and others but there's a world of difference here on the areas that disillusioned me so far about the Academy kit--the upper wings-fuselage fit and the build-up of the intake structure. Because Italeri's model has wings molded to the upper fuselage and the lower wings to the lower fuselage, I guessed there should be no problem and simply dry-fitting those pieces together proved that. Ditto with the Italeri's four-piece intake structure which was a dream compared to the Academy one.

Painting and Scale Nutz Decals

Besides building the Academy F-16C, I had also been asked to review the Scale Nutz decals of the F-16C/Ds belonging to the Royal Singapore Air Force (Sheet A48017). About the decals, they cover two RSAF F-16C/Ds, a single-seat version and a two-seater, and include squadron insignia, tail bands, national markings, some fuselage insignia (such as Rescue arrows, "Lift Here" and "No Step" markings, etc.) and a host of numbers to allow you to create practically one of 11 F-16s in service with the RSAF. Printed in black, gray and red, all are in register and the printing is very clean. At this point, I set the decals aside and studied the painting scheme for the RSAF aircraft.

When I first saw the cover sheet, I thought this is one cool scheme with a white underside. However (and I don't mean to make this sound as a disappointment because it wasn't), upon reading the instructions that came with the decals, I saw that the scheme is actually has four shades of gray.

Instead of the usual three-gray scheme used by the U.S. Air Force and most other air forces that use the F-16, the four-color scheme has FS 36118 (gunship gray) for the major portion of the upper surfaces; FS 36320 (dark ghost gray) for the radome; FS 36270 (neutral gray) for the vertical stabilizer, near the cockpit, the ventral fins and the top of the intake structure; and FS 36375 (light ghost gray) for the underside. Although this is the RSAF scheme, I have seen at least one picture of a USAF F-16 painted the same way.

Before I did any more assembly, I painted the interior of the intake structure white, as called for in the instructions. I used Floquil's Railroad Colors Reefer White, the best non-fading white I've found. When that was dry, I masked off the intake's interior with transparent tape and then painted the outside of the intake structure and the entire underside of the plane FS 36275. By the way, I used Model Master enamels from here on.

Once that was dry, I painted the upper part of the intake structure FS 36270 as shown on the Scale Nutz sheets, removed the tape protecting the white interior and finally glued the intake structure into place.

Next, I painted the rest of the model as directed by Scale Nutz. After I painted the radome with FS 36320 (dark ghost gray, which some folks also call compass gray), and peeled away the tape I had used to mask the rest of the forward area of the fuselage, I thought something looked peculiar....the nose was lighter than the nearby FS 36270 (neutral gray).

I found some pictures of the RSAF F-16s on some websites and their noses are darker than the nearby forward fuselage. With this in mind, I masked the forward fuselage again and sprayed the nose with dark ghost gray that I had darkened with a few drops of black paint.

Once that was done, I masked the underside with tape and sprayed the interiors of the wheel wells with Reefer White.

Before I forget, the decals that came with the Academy kit are excellent in terms of their sharp printing and registration. They depict three F-16Cs. Two are with Air National Guard units serving in Arkansas and Vermont; the tail markings are great reproductions of a razorback's head and a Minuteman figure. These feature the usual USAF three-gray camouflage scheme. The third depiction is an F-16 with the Republic of Korea Air Force; its camouflage scheme has irregular patches of dark ghost gray on light ghost gray on the plane's upper surfaces.

Final Assembly

At this point, the painting was done and I assembled the final components--the landing gear and other little items such as the lower fins and wingtip rocket rails. Unfortunately, I noticed a number of ejection pin marks on the landing gear and the wingtip rocket rails....sigh.....but everything fit as it should.

Finally I applied the decals, using a 50-50 mix of white glue and water--something I do with any decals to help them adhere to the model and prevent silvering.

After the decals were on, I added the wing racks along with the external fuel tanks and a pair of Sidewinders on the wingtips. Also, I glued on the vertical stabilizer now (even though the instructions had long ago suggested it be glued on, I kept it off until now so I could more easily apply decals to it and take care to not knock off those fine antenna molded to it).

My last task was to spray the entire model with the acrylic version Floquil Clear Flat Finish and also shot that inside the cockpit to dull the glossy instrument decals there.

Final Assessment

The Scale Nutz decals are excellent and I don't know how else to praise them.

Likewise, the Academy decals are excellent too but I can't say the same for the rest of the kit. When I first saw it, I thought it had such promise, especially with all its richly engraved detail but there were two big drawbacks, a number of ejection pin marks that were in bad places (meaning easy to see but hard to fix) and the fit of various pieces. These deficits caused me to pull back from my initial assessment that this would be a great kit to build. Because of that, I can recommend this only to those who 1) are willing to overlook ejection pin marks; or 2) don't mind filling and sanding ejection pin marks and 3) plan to do a fair amount of work to make various parts fit well with quite a bit of filling, sanding and rescribing lines and details.

Thanks to Model Rectifier Corp. for the review sample.