1/72 F-16CJ Tamiya

[EagleOnyx]

Hey, this is part two of my retirement model building extravaganza! My unit used to fly F-16's from the mid 80's to mid 90's before switching to F-15A's. I think they were F-16A's but I'm not sure and I'm not an expert in F-16's so I just chose what appeared to be a good representative kit of an F-16. Wow! This Tamiya 1/72 F-16 kit is the Beez Kneez! This is how model kits should be made. All the parts have fit together so well and the details on the whole thing are remarkable! It's gone so well that I've nearly build the whole damn thing in one day. Granted it's been all day but still... All of the other kits that I have been working on since coming back into the hobby must have been old and relatively poorly engineered kits I guess.


The Kit! It's great! I can't wait to get the 1/48 version!


Parts


Details are really well done




The wing rivets look skewed in the picture but they are just fine in person. They look like that if you hold it to the light at an angle. it's odd.


very fine and accurate rivets on the fuel cell covers.


a very nice Kit cockpit


Good center console details too


Wheel wells and gear doors are great


Pilot


Details are wonderful all around


Except the exhaust. it's basic, but it will do.


It didn't come with any drop tanks or bombs, and even though it came with 2 aim 120's, 2 Aim 9x's and 2 Aim 9? whatevers it only has provisions for loading the wing tips. It has two pylons but it doesn't call out mounting them and they don't look like Missile racks either so... Two missiles it is! they are nicely detailed and much better than the Hasegawa weapons box.


accurate missile decals! all manufacturers need to do that.


full decal sheet


they are quite nice but I'm going to be using aftermarket decals on this one as it's going to be a 125th jet.


clear parts are nice


Watch your fingers when glueing stuff. I'm the only problem when it comes to this model! Clumsy


I hammered down one of my cone shaped lead weights to fit the nose, glued it in with pva wood glue. Sliced my finger open when running some new wires on a real F-15. the cut has taken a paint wash quite well.


office installed

[SyntaxModels]

Hey mate it looks like its coming along well! Tamiya's aircraft are renowned for their excellent fit, detail and engineering from what I've heard not having built one myself, although it is on the list! Keep it up, it looks great so far!

[EagleOnyx]

Thanks! I have built a couple Tamiya aircraft and they are all generally pretty good. Pretty much all the stuff they do is pretty good in my opinion though. I recently built an older F-15J of theirs and it went together well, but the engineering, fit and details weren't quite as good as their modern stuff. This little F-16 is really great though. I have a 1/72 scale Hasegawa F-16 and even that one pales in comparison to this Tamiya kit; I haven't built that kit yet however so that is based on looking at the parts in the box. The nice thing about this Tamiya kit is that it only cost me around $23US shipped to my house. That's really good value for such a great kit.

[EagleOnyx]

I'll bore you guys a little bit more with this one now as I'm almost done with it. I used aftermarket 159th/125th FiG markings for it. They were made for another kit and were slightly too small for the Tamiya kit I built. It's only noticeable on the leading and trailing edges of the tail flash.

[SyntaxModels]

Looks great dude, an excellent job!

[EagleOnyx]

Thanks!

[UKguyInUSA]

That paint job looks pretty sweet to me mate

[EagleOnyx]

thanks UKguy!