USMC6094

Now for the story of the salvaged belly racks. I tried to make these look like the ones that come in the old Monogram 72nd scale kit of this aircraft, yeah that didn't work out too well so I decided to build the kit in clean configuration, only carrying a payload on the wing pylons, that is until I did some looking and found that the Tornado did carry single bombs on the belly pylons. Now before there's a heart attack, I know that most times you see an IDS loaded for bear its carrying LGB's, but since I have no 48 scale LGB's she got "dumb" Mk-84s. The pylons got my attempt at scratch bui

okay everybody, I am back with an update and pictures. progress has been slow, but I've made strides toward the ever anticipated first coat of "Desert Pink" lol I have gotten the crew permanently seated in the cockpits, the wing pylon pivots have been strengthened for a good friction fit, I salvaged the belly pylons and have built two Hasegawa Mk-84 two thousand pounders to occupy them. first some overall shots of everything but the belly pylons. Over head shot of the front offices Over head of the whole build from the side and back front

So the intakes are filled and I have finished the aircrew and installed them and thier seats in the cockpits. Next came the canopy assembly, it is now installed and being faired into the surrounding airframe.

thanks fellas, I ran into a major snag with the intakes, the Milliput wouldn't cure , so I scraped it off and put thinned Testors putty in its place, gave it a day to dry and it didn't cure or eat into the plastic So I CA'd it and will have them both filled and ready for Mr Surfacer tonight.

Thanks Joel I think everything after this one will rate as a shake and bake model lol

Looks really good so far, cant wait to see more progress

and last is the intakes, there was a MONSTER seam on both sides so I used Miliput super fine to fill the initial gaps, once sanded they'll get the usual regular putty treatment for all final filling and fairing.

Next up is the figure that's closest to being complete, again I only pre-90's reference material and went with the blue-grey flight suit for that reason, the next one I do will be right since now I have the correct color information.

made some progress the last few days. Got the out board pylon pods completed, theyre a mix of kit parts, robbed parts from a Monogram F-14 and putty. I've also attached the pylons to all the pods and fuel tanks as well finally attaching the last major parts to the fuselage, the intakes are going to be the last major head ache before I can begin painting and finishing. Anyway, here are the newest pictures. I know the ECM pods are WAY off, but I have no references for them and did the best I could with what little I had to work with, that being said, the longer of the two I took

PM sent about the 48th RF-18 and F-16A Plus

thanks spike, unfortunately I didn't have color photos of any current RAF flying gear so I guessed, but its too late now and the blue kind of looks nice and it adds some contrast to the cockpit colors. The way its looking I'll be back behind the bench Monday night.

Thanks Joel , unfortunately I wont be able to update anything until after the weekend, I'm house/dog sitting and we have a tropical storm or possibly a hurricane on its way, so once this is all past I'll be back to it

I'm not worried about the black over powering the future coats of paint, I plan on trying a few different things and on using more than one shade of sand/tan/brown before I seal her up for decals. I also got started on the crew. My final decision on flight suit color was MM Navy blue grey, it just seemed to have the right shade to me.

Now the after while I was at it I preshaded the radome as well as the upper and lower fuselage And I decided to skip the belly racks, they are a nightmare and I didn't do them as well as I could've, so she'll be slick except for drop tanks and ecm gear.

cranked up the Badger last night, I laid down a good covering of really thin black paint on the cockpit sills and instrument panel shrouds as well as the fuselage top, bottom, and radome. I masked the pits with paper towels and Micro-mask and the outside with Tamiya tape I thinned the paint more than usual and sprayed at about 12 psi making multiple passes until I had a nice even cover