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"Eat my shorts Hussein" Finished!


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As the various members of the 363rd TFW at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina were hearing the news of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait during the summer of 1990 each one knew that it wasn't going to be a matter of if they'd deploy, but just simply a matter of when. The 363rd TFW have a commitment to that part of the world and they were trained and ready to respond quickly to just this sort of crisis. In less than three days from getting the call to deploy the 363rd and it's F-16C's were on their way to Al Dahfra in the UAE. Following the same routes and procedures they had trained for in previous exercises. There was some concern initially as to how their block 25 aircraft, the oldest operational F-16's in USAF inventory, would fair during a long deployment in the harsh climate of the Middle East. Fortunately these concerns were unfounded and the heat didn't turn out to be much of a factor as Al Dahfra afforded plenty of runway for their needs and their operational readiness continued to remain high throughout the conflict.

For this build I'll be using the 1/48 Hasegawa F-16C kit. The infamous Elite Decals for "Eat my shorts Hussein", w/ the correct TAC badge from Afterburner Decals (Thanks to Scott Brown for that) and a Verlinden ejection seat. My plan is to keep this a fairly simple and straight forward build without too much fuss. I would like to get it as close to accurate as I can without it taking me six months to build.

Here's what I've got to work with.

F-16A_363rd_box.jpg

The cockpit assembly has been attached and I've started painting it. The intake assembly is starting to take shape as well.

F-16A_363rd_bld_03.jpg

Not the most impressive cockpit work, but I've painted the consoles and IP black. Now I'm ready for a little dry brush work followed by a little detail painting. I'm going for a close canopy on this one so I'm no going to spend too much time on this aspect of the build.

F-16A_363rd_bld_02.jpg

I couldn't resist a little test fit of the assemblies so far. Even though I'm mostly a Navy/Marine Air kinda guy, I have to admit I think the F-16 is one of the coolest look'n planes out there.

F-16A_363rd_bld_01.jpg

My load out for this build will be a couple of Sidewinders on the wing-tips, a centerline ALQ-119, fuel tanks on the inner wing pylons and Mk.84's under the center wing pylons and the outer pylons will not be used.

Thanks for looking and I appreciate any input you may have regarding this build.

Mark

Edited by Rampage55
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I LIKE it! As an ex-16 maintainer, I'll be watching this one!

As you said the 16's did very well in the Gulf, both the P&W and GE's and the Blk 10's (ANG A-models), the 25's the 30's and the 40's. We had had some real concerns ourselves, between the heat and humidity, the semi-salt air (we were in Doha, Qatar) and all of that fine blowing sand - especially when you consider that we were flying during the war at a rate that every 24 days we were putting six months worth of peacetime hours on our jets.

Mike

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very nice! i like it...just finished a viper myself, and i'll be watchin you build this one! makes me want to build another one already! haha

Thanks Mav,

It's not hard to see why the Viper is such a popular modeling subject. It's a relatively simple build and once finished, they look really cool. I have a couple of Tamyia F-16's to do, but I was advised to build the Hasegawa ones first because once I build a Tamyia Viper I won't want to go back to the Hasegawa ones

I LIKE it! As an ex-16 maintainer, I'll be watching this one!

As you said the 16's did very well in the Gulf, both the P&W and GE's and the Blk 10's (ANG A-models), the 25's the 30's and the 40's. We had had some real concerns ourselves, between the heat and humidity, the semi-salt air (we were in Doha, Qatar) and all of that fine blowing sand - especially when you consider that we were flying during the war at a rate that every 24 days we were putting six months worth of peacetime hours on our jets.

Mike

Thanks Mike,

I appreciate the info and I look forward to getting your input along the way on this one... :monkeydance:

I'm sure this will be another fantastic build from you.

I'd like to do a jet from the 363rd armed with four of those ballute Mk84 bombs.

Thanks Benner,

I wanted to do an AF jet for this build and was going back and forth between this one and an A-10, but it was the Mk 84's that did it for me in the end. There was something about a relatively small jet, the F-16, carrying a massive Mk84 under it's wings...Too cool!...And I just glued the Mk 84 bomb halves together last night and those dang things are huge. I went back to check and make sure I had the right ones and I did, but there's sure plenty of room for some cool bomb graffiti though. As a former Grunt I can never resist a plane that's haul'n some heavy iron... :woo:

Thanks again for the encouragement gentleman,

Mark

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You're right, the Mk.84's do look huge under the wings of the little 16 (actually I used to think our Vipers were small until, in the Gulf, ours were parked next to a squadron of French F.1C's.)

We lost an aircraft during the war to a Mk.84. On the 21st of January '90, Jon Ball, the Lucky Devils Ops Officer, flying F-16C 87-0224, pickled off a 2,000 pounder at a target on the Kuwaiti coast. As the bomb dropped and the FMU-139 fuse spun in to arm the weapon, it didn't only arm the bomb but detonated it. The shrapnel and the shock wave tore through the F-16 with the engine immediately gone, and reports were that he lost a good portion of a wing. Jon maneuvered what was left of 224 to get 'feet wet' and ejected.

Fortunately there was a Navy helo in the vicinity that picked him up and evac'd him to an aircraft carrier. he spent a night on the boat, another being checked out in Bahrain, and was back with us in Doha the next, and flying missions soon after.

87-0224 ended up flying 10 missions and probably still rests today somewhere off the Kuwaiti coast.

Mike

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Mark, nice start, I'll be following you progress, especially to see if you change your mind at the last minute and throw some VMFA(AW)-121 decals on it. :woo: I like the Mk84 loadout, simple and loud.

Do it in less than six months? What are you going to do quit your job and work on it 24/7, or is that me? :)

mason

Edited by doupnik
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  • 3 months later...
especially to see if you change your mind at the last minute and throw some VMFA(AW)-121 decals on it.

Thanks Mason!

:rofl: That would take a fair amount of Tequila.

Do it in less than six months? What are you going to do quit your job and work on it 24/7, or is that me? :woot.gif:

I think you may be one of the few modelers I know that works slower than I do Mason. However with all of the amazing scratch building you put into one of your models more than justifies the time spent. Me on the other hand, I'm lucky to to just get it done OOB and looking decent from a couple of feet away in less than six months.

Alright!... Now that I have my Battle of Britain projects done I'm ready to turn my attention back to Operation Desert Storm.

Not a very impressive update I'm afraid but, I wanted to show that I have been making some progress on this one. I finally wrestled the intake into submission and masked it off ready to paint. I also cleaned up the joins underneath the wing and filled the seams with stretched sprue and a drop of Tamyia extra thin glue. A little more clean up and I should be ready for some paint.

F-16A_363rd_bld_08jpg.jpg

I hope to start painting this coming week.

Thanks for looking,

Mark

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  • 2 weeks later...

The bit's back between my teeth on this one and I'm about ready to proceed to the paint barn.

But before I could do that I needed to sort out the seat and HUD, polish and attach the canopy and sort out the exhaust.

Here's the Verlinden seat with some paint on it. I'm closing the canopy on this one so while it's not perfect it'll do.

F-16A_363rd_bld_09.jpg

The exhaust took me a little longer to get sorted that I originally thought, but It looks OK to me and now it's ready to be attached to the fuselage.

F-16A_363rd_bld_10.jpg

The seat has been glued in along with the HUD and the canopy has been attached. The fit here is quite good and it only required a little sanding to blend in the seam. The pitot on the nose was attached and blended in to the nose. Let's see if I can keep from knocking it off... :thumbsup:

F-16A_363rd_bld_11.jpg

The exhaust was glued in place and the associated seam was cleaned up, again there is quite a good fit here with a minimal amount of sanding required to blend it in. Once that was done I could attach the vertical stabilizer and again the excellent fit here required a minimal amount of clean up.

F-16A_363rd_bld_12.jpg

Once I get the canopy masked she's off to the paint barn... ;)

Thanks for looking,

Mark

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Thanks Benner!

It was quite a process actually, well for me anyway. I'm typically a "keep it simple stupid" kinda of a builder.

I started by painting the rear of the engine and the first part of the exhaust tube a dark, dirty brown I mixed up as a base. Dry brushed with a burnt exhaust and dusted with a brown pastel dust. This was sealed with a flat coat. Then I masked off the inside of the tail feathers and painted them an off white color and weathered that in the same fashion as the other bits and clear coated. The outside was primed with Floquill "Old Silver". After that was dry I masked the rear portion off and sprayed a slightly blueish aluminum color I mixed myself. I'm not sure what I think of it yet. It's hard to tell until the rest is painted. Once that was dry I masked it off and sprayed a light mist of the burnt exhaust color again on the tail feathers followed by a little dry brushing of aluminum and a wash of Windsor Newton oils in turponoid. Masks were removed and that again was sealed in a clear coat...Whew!

Well see how it turns out.

Cheers,

Mark

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Well she's painted, gloss coated, washed and decaled... :woot.gif:

F-16A_363rd_bld_13.jpg

The decals on the tail were tricky to get in place and aligned as each number was a separate decal. I'd also like to thank Scott Brown for sending me the proper badge for the tail... :sign_spam: The one supplied on the Elite Decals sheet is way too big and not very well done.

F-16A_363rd_bld_14.jpg

The rest of the decals went on without a hitch.

F-16A_363rd_bld_15.jpg

After I got Bart on that is. I applied this particular decal first because I was suspicious of it after hearing another modeler lament about how his nose art decal disintegrated upon hitting the water. I figured If this happens I'd rather find out up front and be able to switch to plan B without any difficulty. My suspicions were partially correct. The decal did break apart in the water but, fortunately it only broke into three pieces and I was able to coax them into place with a little effort. The art work is not that great but with the bare eye not much can be seen of it anyway.

F-16A_363rd_bld_16.jpg

I couldn't wait to remove the mask on the exhaust to see how it looks... Not too bad for a stock exhaust...

F-16A_363rd_bld_17.jpg

I also removed the plug and masking from the intake and I think this turned out fairly well also, I'm pleased with it.

F-16A_363rd_bld_18.jpg

The landing gear has been painted and is ready to attach I'm just waiting to spray the dull coat and do a bit of weathering with some pastels first.

Thanks for looking,

Mark

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perfect as usual from you.

Is that the kit intake you're using or aftermarket? if kit, how'd you get rid of that seam from the lower intake part?

Thanks Benner,

It's the kit part. I used the gloss latex paint method for the first time. There are a few spots where it's a little uneven and it took about 4 coats with a lot of drying in between until it was acceptable but, it turned out pretty well in the end.

:worship:

Mark

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Thanks Benner,

It's the kit part. I used the gloss latex paint method for the first time. There are a few spots where it's a little uneven and it took about 4 coats with a lot of drying in between until it was acceptable but, it turned out pretty well in the end.

:worship:

Mark

I don't know this method, care to explain? :P

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I don't know this method, care to explain? :cheers:

Once the intake was assembled and the seams were cleaned up as good as I could get them I filled the intake with a gloss latex paint. I poured it from the rear of the intake and let it drain out the front. Set aside and let it cure before applying another coat. After a few coats the latex paint fills in the seams and leaves a smooth glossy surface. It's messy but, it's simple and does the trick better than I could with filler and paint.

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Once the intake was assembled and the seams were cleaned up as good as I could get them I filled the intake with a gloss latex paint. I poured it from the rear of the intake and let it drain out the front. Set aside and let it cure before applying another coat. After a few coats the latex paint fills in the seams and leaves a smooth glossy surface. It's messy but, it's simple and does the trick better than I could with filler and paint.

thanks, they look great compared to what you'd normally get from the kit intake. I will have to try that with my next Hasegawa falcon.

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Thanks guy's!... ;)

After a friend gave me a book "Gulf Air War Debrief" by Aerospace publishing I found in the glossary a diagram of a Mk84 Air. I'm not sure how accurate it is but, I thought I might have a try at converting a standard Mk84 to a Mk84 Air with a proximity fuse on it.

F-16A_363rd_bld_20.jpg

F-16A_363rd_bld_22.jpg

F-16A_363rd_bld_21.jpg

What do you guy's think? I know it's not completely accurate but, is it even close? All I have to go by is a diagram. I don't have any photo's and I'm holding off on converting the other Mk84 until I get some confirmation I'm heading in the right direction.

Thanks,

Mark

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I think you're definitely on the right track. Don't forget that little rectangular piece on the back like on the Mk83 AIR.

Thanks Ben!...That's good enough for me.

Why Hasegawa chose to mold these pylons and fuel tanks this way is strange. It may provide a strong join between the tank and pylon but it looks like crap. I decided to fill in the slots on the pylons and trim away the stubs from the tanks and drill in pins to hold it in place.

F-16A_363rd_bld_23.jpg

A flat coat has been sprayed and some weathering with pastel dust has been applied. This was again sealed with a final dull coat. At which point I felt it was save to remove the masking from the canopy. I still need to paint the canopy frame between the front and rear sections.

F-16A_363rd_bld_24.jpg

After I had sprayed the dull coat on I realized that I had forgotten to apply the mission markings to the right side of the nose in front of the canopy. My question is, were these mission markings applied one at a time after each mission as the war progressed or were they applied all at once at the end of the conflict for their return home?

Thanks,

Mark

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Why Hasegawa chose to mold these pylons and fuel tanks this way is strange. It may provide a strong join between the tank and pylon but it looks like crap. I decided to fill in the slots on the pylons and trim away the stubs from the tanks and drill in pins to hold it in place.

F-16A_363rd_bld_23.jpg

don't forget to clip the back corner of those fuel tank fins.

After I had sprayed the dull coat on I realized that I had forgotten to apply the mission markings to the right side of the nose in front of the canopy. My question is, were these mission markings applied one at a time after each mission as the war progressed or were they applied all at once at the end of the conflict for their return home?

Considering there are many war time pics of the 363rdTFW(P) showing mission markings, I will have to say the mission markings were painted on as the war progressed.

I had diagrams of the Mk84 AIR but I can't find them anymore :thumbsup: ... and the only decent pic on the Internet I can find is this one:

mk84_22.jpg

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