F-111F Aardvark - Hobby Boss and Reskit

[Sodasorb]

50 minutes ago, AD-4N said:

....  But for me, I think I will wait for the Tamiya kit in 2037.  

Hysterical! 

[Cliff C]

WEAPONS BAY 

 

as I mentioned earlier, I was not planning to open the weapons bay.  That would be opening a whole new can of worms for an area you just can’t see very well and I like the look of the aircraft without the additional doors hanging open. I believe “normal’ or typical shut down procedures were to open the doors before shutting off power.  Inspecting the bomb bay is part of the walk around before each flight and if the bay is closed, they would need to be opened for preflight. Since there are lots of photos with the Pave Tac pod deployed and doors closed, I went with that option.

 

The HB kit comes with a blank cover for the bay so I used it and the drawings provided by Mr Vark to cut out the proper opening. Fortunately, these dimensions worked perfectly for the resin PT pod from Eduard that I’m using. 
 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 20 by Cliff C

[Cliff C]

Weapons bay taped into place. Once the bay was glued into place, all of the panel line details had to be filled and rescribed to make them more accurate. 
 

Edited March 20 by Cliff C

[RichB63]

On 3/19/2024 at 11:12 AM, Cliff C said:

Does anyone know when the chaff and flare buckets on either side of the engine on the under side of the fuselage were added to the jets?  They seem to be there on all the Australian aircraft, but can’t tell when or how many of the EF, E or F aircraft received this upgrade?

 

thanks,

Cliff 

Great work Cliff!

 

According to Jim Rotramel, AN/ALE-40 dispensers replaced the earlier CM suite on USAF Aardvarks during the 1990-92 timeframe.

http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/f111indetailjr_5.htm

 

Rich

 

Edited March 20 by RichB63

[Cliff C]

Thanks Rich, that’s helpful!  Having the pictures stripped out is frustrating but I found a pic of the AN/ALE-28 dispensers and since it looks like they were most likely used up and through DS, I’ll go with that variant. Part of my confusion is looking older photos, and some had the bump-out for the dispenser and others were smooth and lack the dispensers. I wasn’t sure if these were installed on every aircraft, if they were periodically swapped out or introduced somewhere during the production life.  
 

-Cliff

[Cliff C]

A few of pics with the a first coat of primer on the lower fuselage.  At this stage you can see the nose gear bay is installed, the weapons bay is installed and I added the four vents just aft of the weapons bay.  I also opened up the air exhausts under the intakes. Painted PT pod just set in place. 
 

 

 

 

Edited March 20 by Cliff C

[BastianD]

The beast is getting shape, nice work.

[Niels]

Thanks for confirming @Cliff C

[my favs are F`s]

Wowsers! I have the HB kit, and only did the MLGs to open and retract, and I thought it was the most complex and difficult part. I had no idea that there are things like that on the agenda... if I build it some day of course. 🙂 I'm saving a bookmark of your topic, hopefully, it will be very very useful one day. Thanks, and keep up the good work.