2 T-birds and an Angel

[2qwik4u]

I started these last December when I thought that the GB was starting on the 1st. Ooops. Here is the first post from the WIP thread that I had started. I pretty much stopped work on these after this post when I found out I had the date wrong. They got set aside, and then I became preoccupied with other builds. Well, I dusted them off last night and started working on them again. I didn't get any pictures though, so I'll have to take some more tonight to update the status.

Here is what I will be building:

All three builds will be OOB for the most part. The Hornet will be completely OOB, including the decals. The T-birds will be done gear up, so I will be using a couple of pilots from a couple Hasegawa F-16's. One of the F-16's and the F/A-18 will both be done as #5. (I like the solos) The other F-16 will be done up as the #1 bird, and will be given to my neighbor as a gift. He served a tour with the Thunderbirds as PR officer.

One thing can definately be said about both of these kits: needlessly complex. Trying to dryfit the Hornet together is like trying to build a house of cards in the palm of your hand. That being said, it seems to fit together well so far. You just have to take your time and let each glue joint dry before trying to fit the next part.

I started both F-16's by assembling the intakes after painting the intake trunking with Alclad white primer. I just started using this stuff as a primer as the previous paint I had been using is no longer made. I have to say that I really like it. It goes on well, and dries to a nice semigloss sheen.

Being that i'm doing both of these gear up, I also had to worry about fitting the gear doors closed. In this case, the fit is pretty good. The nose gear door needed a little bit of styrene on one side to fill the small gap. The main gear doors also fit pretty well without having to fill any gaps.

I also started on the cockpit of the F-16's. For these kits, the 'pit is glued to the bottom fuselage half, and then fits up into the upper fuselage when you close everything up. While dry fitting I noticed that they IP wasn't fitting very well, so I flipped the fuselage piece over and discovered this little guy.

After a few quick scrapes with my #10 blade, the ejector pin mark was gone, and everything fit well.

That's all I have for now. I apologize for the lack of pictures, I thought I had taken more, but apparantly not. I'll try and get a few more for next time.

Thanks for watching.

-Dave

[dkobayashi]

I think you'll enjoy the F/A-18. I'm just finishing up my CF-18 and it was really fun to build.

[2qwik4u]

Small update.

Puttied and sanded all of the pylon mounting holes on the F-16 wings:

And both F-16 fuselages together:

Also got the rear of the Hornet fuselage together. It was a little tricky getting all of the parts to line up correctly, but everything came out ok.

That's all for now.

-Dave

[2qwik4u]

Just a small update with some minor assembly done on all three models.

[HOLMES]

Dave

I am enjoying this build very much....The T-BIRDS and Angels is one of MY favorite jets so This is quite a treat.

Good neat start ..Keep it going..

Post more pics soon..

COOL!!

Edited March 15, 2012 by HOLMES

[Mike C]

VERY COOL SUBJECTS!!! I'd be watching this with great interest!

I'd especially be really interested to see how the Angel will turn out. I've got the same one in the stash. Not sure if I'll have the time to build that before the end of the GB. Work has been ridiculously busy, no bench time in the past couple of months!!