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Academy F-16C Fighting Falcon 1:48 "Flying Razorbacks"


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Beautiful paint job and finish, and great application of the decals, I don't see any silvering. This isnt the critique section, but you did request it. I'll note few areas for improvement. First thing I noticed is the step at the joint between the upper wing surfaces and the fuselage (also known as the wing root), this area should be flush at the wing root on the F-16. The next thing I noticed is the wingtip launch rails, they should not hang below the wingtip, but rather sit flush at the outer end of the wings, with the air to air missile sitting at the end of that. Have a look online at some pictures of F-16s to see what I mean. One more thing, though not a big deal is the color of the exhaust nozzle, Id go a bit darker with it. Otherwise its a great build. I know the Academy kit isnt the best to work with, so you've done a nice job with a difficult kit. Excellent work considering its only your third kit. Hope this helps you. Nice Flanker too, Id love to see some pics of it too.

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Thanks you all for the comments ! much appreciated !

Beautiful paint job and finish, and great application of the decals, I don't see any silvering. This isnt the critique section, but you did request it. I'll note few areas for improvement. First thing I noticed is the step at the joint between the upper wing surfaces and the fuselage (also known as the wing root), this area should be flush at the wing root on the F-16. The next thing I noticed is the wingtip launch rails, they should not hang below the wingtip, but rather sit flush at the outer end of the wings, with the air to air missile sitting at the end of that. Have a look online at some pictures of F-16s to see what I mean. One more thing, though not a big deal is the color of the exhaust nozzle, Id go a bit darker with it. Otherwise its a great build. I know the Academy kit isnt the best to work with, so you've done a nice job with a difficult kit. Excellent work considering its only your third kit. Hope this helps you. Nice Flanker too, Id love to see some pics of it too.

My special thanks to Charlie for taking the time to point out some mistakes i did in the assembly. I could correct at least one of them:

i hope the launch rails are fine now

11.jpg

Edited by adrianosouza
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This was the first kit i build during my come back a few years ago. It wasnt a great kit, compared to the newer smaller 1/72 kits which academy produce nowdays. I remembered building 2 kit, the razorback and another with ANG markings. I didnt have a compressor then, and was working with spray cans. No pre shading, didnt know much how to weather...i had yet to discover promodeller wash.

Nevertheless, i put so much effort into it with decals etc, only to find out that the kit was not accurate. I felt, with the equipment and skills u have, you re better off building a better quality F-16 kit. As for ur Sukoi, WOW! It s amazing!

SHarkey, yes those AGM-65 comes with the kit. If i can remember strongly many years ago, i read an upgrade from an Israeli Aircraft industries that they manage to MOD a F-16 to carry 6 maverricks. This was many many many years ago. So it should be a norm by now.

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To be honest, when i built this kit those seams in the wing root were so big that i thought the actual F-16 looked like that.

Anyway, are you guys shure those seams are meant to be filled ??, i mean, in an "out-of-the-box approach" ?. I'm saying that because not only the gap is large but the wing root is actually a bit taller than the wing itself, that would produce a step in the joint and it would look worse

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To be honest, when i built this kit those seams in the wing root were so big that i thought the actual F-16 looked like that.

Anyway, are you guys shure those seams are meant to be filled ??, i mean, in an "out-of-the-box approach" ?. I'm saying that because not only the gap is large but the wing root is actually a bit taller than the wing itself, that would produce a step in the joint and it would look worse

Yeah... I'm sure those seams are meant to be filled. Those seams look almost identical to Italeri's "C" Night Falcon (1/72 scale) that I built a while ago. They are quite annoying, especially when there is a difference in thickness producing "step", which is very fiddly to fix.

Another tip for you: I'm fairly certain that Sidewinders have dark metallic coloured tip (iron/gun metal), not black. I know that a lot of kits' instruction sheet said that they're black, but looking at the pics of the real things (plus from Air Shows), they're definitely NOT black.

Edited by Mike C
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I only question if an F-16 can carry that payload? Then again, not much of an F-16 expert.

Well, it's a "real load" on some old F-16 based PC games :( Used to play "Strike Commander", in which I could load my F-16 with Mavericks in triple launcher like that. :pray:

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Mike C:

When i build my next F-16, i'll make shure to stay away from the Academy kits. That seam in the wing root is just unnacceptable. I mean, that isn't really a seam i think. It's more like an inaccurancy from a bad kit tooling

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Well, it's a "real load" on some old F-16 based PC games :tease: Used to play "Strike Commander", in which I could load my F-16 with Mavericks in triple launcher like that. :jaw-dropping:

Hey, I used to play that game too, loved it in fact. I always wanted to do an F-16 model painted up like the ones in the game.

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Mike C:

When i build my next F-16, i'll make shure to stay away from the Academy kits. That seam in the wing root is just unnacceptable. I mean, that isn't really a seam i think. It's more like an inaccurancy from a bad kit tooling

Which Academy kit did you build anyway? I heard some people say that the Academy F-16CG/CJ boxing is pretty good, with new tooling and all.

In my experience, I've only built Italeri's and Hasegawa's renditions in 1/72 scale. Obviously the Hasegawa version is much more accurate, with hardly noticeable seam at the wing root (still need a little bit of putty though). Here's the link to some pics of the Hasegawa ones that I built a little while back: http://s742.photobucket.com/albums/xx69/mc...6%20Aggressors/. Unfortunately I can't find the build thread anymore.

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You definitely have a grasp on paint, decal, and finish, you just need to work on assembly skills.

The seams all need to be worked and blended, I also notice that the thick wing root is also complicated by the poor fit of the upper to lower fuselage halves. I also noticed that you have the exhaust donut panel 1/4 turned, never seen that, they are usually installed upside down if anything.

Here is my Build Thread of a Hasegawa F-16 which has the same parts breakdown ans the Academy kit.

And also the top view of another Hasegawa F-16 to show how the wings should be blended.

HTH.

Curt

10_23_12.jpg

An Academy F-16 with upside down donut panel.

101_4279.jpg

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This is the kit i built:

ACADEMY12204.jpg

It doesn't have the same parts brakedown from the Hasegawa kit. If you take a look you'll see that the lower half comes with part of the wing and that's where the problem lives: When you attach the wings, the seam on the wing root shows up.

academy_f16-parts2-lg.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
<snipperoo>

It doesn't have the same parts brakedown from the Hasegawa kit. If you take a look you'll see that the lower half comes with part of the wing and that's where the problem lives: When you attach the wings, the seam on the wing root shows up.

academy_f16-parts2-lg.jpg

Hmmm... it's a bit strange that Academy decided to mold the bottom parts of the wing with the fuselage, but separate the top. What a pain! :woot.gif:

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