F/A-16W

[Zen]

Hi guys, can't get rid of me now...

Here's another what-if project, this time it's based on my favorite jet, the F-16 fighting falcon. It was started in January of this year but i put it on hold because of the Su-40 Flatliner build, which was done for a GB, so i wanted to get that one out of the way before concentrating my attention on this one.

I'm using the Hasegawa 1/72 F-16I Sufa kit as the base of the build, a pair of F-22 Raptor wings and one F-35A exhaust nozzle from 1/72 Italeri kits, a resin conversion set for the F-16DSI made by Lonestar resin parts, a small home-based brand from Japanese modeller, Yukio Kanezawa.
The set is designed for Hasegawa F-16 kits, and fits perfectly, almost a snap-tite kind of fit. Also using the Eduard PE zoom set to spice things up a bit.
The initial mess...



Started out by painting the tub with XF-20 medium grey, glued the PE bits on it and also on the seats, and assembled the bits for the IPs...



After i cut off the feathers on the Hase kit's nozzle part, the F-35's LOAN nozzle feathers were fitted to the kit's original part so i can get a good fit with no extra work. Best part was that after the feathers were off the Hase nozzle, the Italeri nozzle OOB fits perfectly as if it was meant to go there.
Also took a spare set of Revell's F-16 horizontal stabs and shaped them up...



Also started work on the intake, which is a breeze to put together, only 2 parts, the top "bump" is glued on, the outside structure is simply dry fitted, to be glued on after it's painted on the inside and, i think you can see for yourselves how good it fits. Also makes it much easier than having to sculpt one out of Tamiya gray putty, which was what i did on the first of these what-if F-16s, the one on my avatar image, the F-16W: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php ... 268.0.html



Today i got back to work on it and finished all the bits on the cockpit area, now i have to paint the top side, sidewalls and the seats, before closing up the fuselage halves.



Forgot to do it before so i added the joysticks to the side panels on the tub...



Also assembled and glued this box for the main gear bay but now i'm beginning to think i should've waited, will be tricky to paint...



Anyway, hoping to get the painting done tomorrow so i can move on, can't wait to see this baby to come to life!

[arilo76]

Nice progress, i really like the detailing of the cockpit.

[chief5437]

nice work so far, looking forward to seeing this what-if take shape.

[Zen]

Thanks, guys!
I still have much experience to adquire with PE parts, i sometimes forget them when handling the model and snap them off...
Anyway, i've made some progress, not much though...

Sprayed paint on a bunch of bits, XF-2 and XF-69





After everything was dry, time to close the fuselage and this is how it looks now...





Looking at the pics, i realize that the seats don't look so good but, it's done... that's all for now, life's been busy so very little time left for plastic, but this weekend i'll probably have a few hours to paint the exterior of the exhaust nozzle.

[Zen]

And the shape begins to show...

[Zen]

Some progress...



And in case you're wondering, this will be the final layout...

[Zen]

Ok, time for an update...
It's got the tails glued on but i had to do something to the rear section of the tail bases to fair them in properly, so i did something similar to what i did on the single-seat version, using Evergreen styrene...









After this, i took a look at a bunch of f-35 pics and mixed XF-68 nato brown with a few drops of XF-56 metallic grey and got this...



I think it's close enough, now it's masking and painting the grey outer edges of the petals and glue the nozzle on the fuselage so i can move on with the build.

[Spook]

Interesting subject zen looking forward to the finnished bird

[Twokidsnosleep]

Ok I am not totally nuts
Two pilots, split rear verticals, F16 .....hang on what is this kit???
Now I get it, a monster mash....COOOL!!!!

[Zen]

Hey

Interesting subject zen looking forward to the finnished bird

Ok I am not totally nuts
Two pilots, split rear verticals, F16 .....hang on what is this kit???
Now I get it, a monster mash....COOOL!!!!

Glad it's of interest to you, gents!
It's been slow around here, got some work done but still have some putty to sand...
Finished painting the nozzle...



And glued it to the fuselage after masking. Went on to work on the CFTs, had to chop them up to fit properly and, IMHO, it worked reasonably well...





A bit of Evergreen styrene was enough to replace the cut out bit...



The bits were sanded down but there's not much to show right now. I've also covered the underside gaps on the canard fairings, which still have to be sanded.

[arilo76]

Really Outstanding progress i really like the shape that this fellow is taking

[Zen]

Thank you, Antonio! Glad to know you like it! i have to admit i'm quite chuffed with the way it looks, it's even coming out better than the single seat version.
Hoping to get something done this afternoon, mainly just finish sanding down the rest of the putty and gluing on the rest of the small bits on the fuse.

[arilo76]

Zen you are doing a really great work, at this stage I am really looking forward to see it painted.
Do you have a particular colours in mind?

[Zen]

Zen you are doing a really great work, at this stage I am really looking forward to see it painted.
Do you have a particular colours in mind?

Thank you! I've been more inclined towards a desert camo, most of my models are finished in grey or grey/green camo so that would be a first for me.
Today i'm getting it ready for the first primer coat to see if all the putty and seams are good to go.

[arilo76]

I like the idea of the desert camo, I know i hate priming and checking for seams I always get one or two that i need to fix. Well good luck with that.

[Zen]

I like the idea of the desert camo, I know i hate priming and checking for seams I always get one or two that i need to fix. Well good luck with that.

Thanks!
Well, sanding work is done, just glued on a few more bits, including the spine, and closed up the single tail slot with some Evergreen strip styrene.
Nothing worth pics, i still have to mask the canopy, glue a couple of ventilation scoops and lights on the intake's sides, and also, glue the pitot tube so i can get rid of the hole on the radome.
Meaning, still a bit of work to be done til it goes into painting stage and time has been short these days...

[Zen]

Ok, this puppy is primed...



There's only one small area that still needs some attention...



After that's been taken care of, painting begins!

[Zen]

Hey guys, finally got some more work done on this thing in the last few days...
Tried masking with Patafix(UHU's blu-tac) for the camo scheme in order to get a hard edge result but ended up having some slight overspray on a couple of areas. Some of the edges came out a bit too ragged than they were supposed to but, all in all, i think it looks ok.
Had to mix up a bunch of Tamiya colors to get the tones closer to the real Israeli Air Force camo colors.
I used XF-71 cockpit green and XF-2 flat white (70/30 ratio) for the light green, XF-57 buff with a couple of drops of XF-3 flat yellow and a couple more of XF-2 for the light brown and, for the dark brown i mixed XF-68 nato brown with XF-52 flat earth and XF-2 in a 50/30/20 ratio.
After all this, i think all the colors came out just a bit too dark...



Anyway, i'm not so happy with my first Israeli camo scheme but i'm not too bummed either, learned a few lessons and maybe next time it'll come out better.
Tomorrow i'm painting the underside, radome and a few other details.

[Spook]

Love the camo,and the build is awesome.
Nicely done zen

[Zen]

Love the camo,and the build is awesome.
Nicely done zen

Thank you, Simon, glad you like it!

Today i got some more paint sprayed, XF-53 neutral grey on the radome and XF-19 on the underside and all went well, so it's time for detail painting.

[arilo76]

that looks really interesting, the camo is nicely done

[Zen]

that looks really interesting, the camo is nicely done

Thanks, Antonio! There were a few bits with which i wasn't very happy with but, overall, came out better than i expected.
Well, after a busy week, finally had some time to paint some small things...







Still have to finish painting the Python missiles and then its gloss varnish on everything before decals.

[Zen]

Well, i'm not totally satisfied with the result but it's always like that... it's finished...

"In 1997, the Israeli Air Force sent a proposal to Lockheed martin. The Israelis were after a lightweight strike fighter with a longer range than the range offered by their F-16 fleet. The proposal consisted of using the design basis of the F-16 variant that was studied for the UAE, before the conventional design E/F Desert Falcons were chosen. The main requirement was that the new fighter had to have 30-40% longer range and a larger payload. Although the fighter was to be built, assembled and tested in the U.S., most of the avionics and other electronic systems were built and installed in Israel by Elbit systems, including an AESA radar, derived from the APG-81 AESA radar, IRTS sensor on top of the radome and the EOTS type sensor on the underside.
This would be a very different variant of the viper, with a trapezoidal wing, copied from the F-22 Raptor's wing. The wings were exactly the same as the F-22's wings but were redesigned and strengthened internally, for heavier loads and a new weapons station on the outboard section.



Initially, the engineers at LM were maintaining the original design with the traditional single vertical stabilizer but, the Israelis wanted to take the design one step further and add a few more details.
First were the twin tails, a modification that was already in test for a possible F-16 upgrade pack intended for the older F-16 fleets in service around the world. The twin tails were originally tested on wind-tunnel models but the single tail was chosen as it proved to have more directional stability than the twin tails but, with this new wing, wind-tunnel tests showed that the twin tails would be much more effective due to the change in airflow direction because of the new layout.





The intake would also be revised and the Diverterless Supersonic Inlet(DSI) was chosen because of the clear advantages over the old design, including reduced radar cross section, lighter weight and absence of moving parts, making maintenance time and costs smaller. This intake had been tested in 1996 on a Block 30 F-16C, to study the intake layout for the F-35 Lightning II but, because of the modular construction of the original intake, the DSI was able to be retrofitted to any F-16 airframe.



The engine was another issue, because this variant would be heavier than the normal F-16 variants, the Israelis asked LM to study the feasibility of adapting the Pratt&Whitney F135-PW-100 on the F-16. LM engineers found it to be an easy task but the request was frowned upon by USAF officials and US congress members but, after a couple of months of negotiations, the Israelis managed to convince the Americans into selling them the engine and also, the LOAN nozzles that are used with the engine on the F-35.
With thrust going up to 34.000 pounds with afterburner, this engine would also help increase the range of the Viper, following the requirement of longer range over the previous F-16 variants. To further increase the range, Conformal Fuel Tanks were installed, increasing the range around 43,5%.





The first flight of the newly designated F/A-16W was on the 23 rd of December, 2003, at Forth Worth, Texas, and deliveries to the IAF began in February of the next year. The F/A-16W designation would later be changed by the Israelis to the F-16I Sufa..."











Well, another one finished... Not my best result but i'm happy that i got my first real kitbash done, and i also enjoyed the more complex and colorful camo scheme. Looking back, should've been more careful with the assemble PE parts because it's way too much work to glued them cleanly in place, just to have them snap off into oblivion later in the build... :banghead:
Could've been more thorough with the PSR as there are some bits i'm not happy with, could've rescribed lost panel lines better, tint the canopy... but i didn't and so, i'm calling it finished because there are many more ideas to build.
Hope you like it and thanks for looking in.
Next in the modified Viper line, will be another single seat Viper and i'm already gathering the parts needed...

[arilo76]

Hi Zen, really interesting model, The F16 had a baby with a Eurofighter Typhoon . It is really hard to use spare parts and put together something interesting like this . Personally i like it and i Think you did a really good job, Well done

[Zen]

Thank you for your words, Antonio! Glad you like the little beast, it was a fun build and it's very gratifying to finish a model of my own design!
I like what-ifs cause one can create unique models, be it by just giving them a different paint job and adding one or two extra antennas or, by doing major surgery on them and, my next one is already on the drawing board...