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1/48 YF-16 and F-18 Prototypes


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After reading Robert Coram's book 'Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War' I was ready to dig out my 1979 Monogram F-16 kit and make what Boyd referred to as a pure fighter. The YF-16 at that point was more like his vision, not a multirole aircraft but light, fast and maneuverable. This project got the F-18 prototype kit out too, another Monogram kit from 1980 and both in striking paint schemes (well documented as auto paint) of the time I wanted on my shelf.

 

The F-16 kit is pretty close to the YF-16, it needs nose reshaping, cockpit/seat changes and some other little things but comparing my changes to profile photos it worked well. 

The F-18 too needs some small changes, it has the open LEX slots but needs dog tooth on the elevators and revised on the wings, changes in the cockpit plus I added seamless intakes and a vac canopy as the original was too small and not the more rounded omega shape. In both kits I used the original landing gear struts, they are of the day's molding capabilities but despite some chunky areas are well detailed and even have the brake lines included.

 

Decals were from the original kits, Caracal and Vingtor. Paints were mixes of Testors enamels blues (they make the brightest gold paint), Tamiya red all over white lacquer Mr Color.

 

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Edited by paulsbrown
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Thanks! The F-18 used the Monogram console that had a few changes to the lower MFD display to match the photo I had of the prototype, it's seat was....actually I can't remember whose it is. The kit's cockpit/console/seat were very good even though I replaced some of them. The cockpit tub and instrument 'hell hole' was Black Box.

The F-16 console was an Eduard F-16A with dials added to where the left MFD was and the large altitude indicator added to the center one.  Tub was Hasegawa. Seat was replaced with an ESCAPAC that the prototype had.

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