This is Hasegawa's 1/48 F-16A with Daco decals and a True Details Aces II ejection seat. With all the information available on the net and in print on the F-16, I'll confine myself to my experience building this kit. This kit has been around for a few years but I never picked it up until a bunch of them showed up on one of Marco Polo Import's Modeling Madness sales. I snagged four of them, one 'C' and three 'A's.

The kit consists of 107 styrene parts molded in light gray including a choice of two tails, one with the extended parachute housing and one without. There is also (unusual for Hasegawa) a set of sparrow and sidewinder missiles and a pilot figure. The sidewinders are pretty good, but the sparrows are rather plain. You get two sprues of clear parts for the canopy, one of which is smoked. Also included are three fuel tanks, the centreline and two underwing ones. There is a ladder included that hooks onto the cockpit ledge. The pilot figure is not half bad for those inclined to include figures. The detail is quite good overall with recessed panel lines and raised detail where applicable. The copyright on the kit I used (V103) is 1994, however I'm sure that this kit has been around a lot longer than that as there was considerable flash to clean up on a lot of parts, especially the smaller ones. However, that was only a minor chore and with some careful filing and sanding the parts were as good as new without any loss of detail.

The first thing I did was clean up the seam running down the centre of the canopy. It's a necessary evil so that the shape of the canopy will be bulged. I sanded the seam off and then used fine steel wool and wet and dry sandpaper before finally polishing with some automotive rubbing compound. After washing all the residue off I dipped both parts in future and left them to dry for a few days. The future worked like a charm and left the parts crystal clear. I then masked them with Parafilm and set them aside for painting.

The cockpit area was next and after spraying everything the interior colour I painted and then dry-brushed the instrument panels. The detail Hasegawa have provided is pretty good, but a far cry from the Black Box set I have waiting to be used. However, for viewing with the naked eye, it's more than adequate. The cockpit area consists of a tub incorporating the side consoles and floor, to which is added the front instrument panel, rudder petals and side-stick controller. The discarded kit-supplied seat consists of five parts. The finished cockpit tub was then cemented into the bottom fuselage half. As with all F-16 kits, the fuselage is split top and bottom. One nice touch is that the bottom half fits inside of the top half at the front so there's no clean up required along the fuselage chine. The front and rear bulkheads for the main gear bay were added next. Although I elected to leave mine closed, Hasegawa allow you to choose either open or closed speed brakes at the rear of the fuselage on either side of the exhaust. The brakes are molded closed but there are recessed lines inside the fuselage halves to make separating them easier. Should you decide to open yours, there are actuating arms provided for the brake halves. I imagine I'll do at least one F-16 with the brakes open, but for this one, I wanted to keep the lines clean.

I used my trusty Tenax to join the fuselage halves and they went together without any fuss. There is a bit of a gap along the seam where the halves meet under the chine, but I just applied a generous amount and squeezed them together gently until I had a little bead of melted styrene showing. I didn't need any filler after sanding and polishing the seams with steel-wool. The wings were next and consist of a top half that includes both the leading and trailing edges and a bottom insert that's just a tad too small but which settled in ok after the Tenax was applied. The wings mate well to the fuselage but I had to do a bit of filing along the wing join area of the fuselage to get a seamless fit. The version I was doing only carried a centreline tank so I filled in the holes in the wing where the pylons would have gone.

The intake/nose gear well was next and this was only one of two areas that gave me any trouble. The entire area forward of the main gear bay is part of this assembly and a fair amount of clean up and filing was needed to get anything close to a reasonable fit. Even after a lot of work, I still needed to use some filler on the seams. The interior of the intake is a real bear to clean up and I wish a intake cover had been provided. It's probably worth the effort to make one from scratch. The completed sub-assembly fits quite well into a recess in the fuselage and only a little sanding was needed to fair it into the rest of the fuselage.

The Belgians used the extended tail base with the brake parachute housing so the short one was discarded. The tail was the other area that gave me some difficulty. The fit of the two tail halves is fine, they meet on the leading edge until about 3/4 of the way up and then the right side becomes an insert. This way you get a nice crisp trailing edge for the rudder. There are three holes that have to bored through for sensor/antenae on the tail base, don't forget to open them up before you join the tail halves like I did. I eventually managed to figure out where they went, but it was a needless problem solely of my own making. I really should pay more attention to the instruction sheets. After I got the tail together and cleaned up I found there was a step on the bottom that made for an unsightly gap along the bottom of the right side near the front. Also, it appeared that the fuselage was humped where the tail sat, making for a rather large fit problem. I glued the front half of the tail down first, using lots and lots of Tenax and moving the tail up and down until I had enough plastic melted to almost fill the gap on the right side. After it had set I applied a fair amount of pressure on the rear and ran the Tenax liberally along the remaining seam. After it had dried I sanded and polished the join line and only had a couple of small gaps left which Squadron putty took care of. The ventral fins were next and went on without a hitch. It was now time to take care of the little parts.

The radome is a separate piece and after gluing in some lead weight, I attached it to the fuselage. Not much weight is required to keep the model sitting properly so I just wrapped a fishing sinker in a piece of tissue paper and after smearing white glue all over it, stuck it in the front of the nose. That way I wouldn't have to worry about the weight rattling around if the model ever got bumped about. The fit of the radome to the fuselage is ok, I had to do a little sanding to fair it in, but managed to save most of the detail.

The main gear bay was finished without any problems, just a bit of filing to make everything settle in properly. There are two holes on the bottom of part C24 that have to be bored out to allow the centreline stores pylon to be attached. I had to do a little sanding to get that part faired in at the front and rear of the bay were it joins the fuselage. The nose and main gear are nicely detailed but it was here that most of the flash was present. A fair bit of time was spent cleaning off the flash and mold seams. I cleaned everything up and set them aside for painting later. The only store I used was the centreline tank and that went together with no problem.

The jet exhaust assembly went together easily and after cleaning up a bit of flash I painted it with Testor's burnt iron and steel metalizer. These areas were then masked with Parafilm so as not to wreck the finish and then the whole thing was glued into the rear fuselage. Some sanding was required on this seam to blend in the assembly with the rest of the fuselage, but nothing near where I had masked the metalizer.

I replaced the kit-supplied ejection seat with one from the True Details Aces II set, #48403. You get two cast resin seats molded in light tan on a resin block that removes easily with a razor saw. There is also a photo-etched set of parts for the canopy breakers, release handles and air sensors. The instructions included with the set provide information enabling the modeler to correctly detail the seat according to the type of aircraft it was installed in. The seats themselves are beautifully cast and the detail is outstanding. The various belts and straps are all molded on and comprehensive painting instructions are provided. After the set was painted, I gave it a wash with some thinned down Tamiya flat black and then dry-brushed it after the wash had dried. The metal parts took the paint well and really enhance an already fine piece of resin. It is an excellent replacement and the reasonable price makes it well worth getting.

Painting was pretty straight forward with Testor's Model Master enamels being used. The radome was painted FS36320 and masked off after it had dried. The entire model was then given several coats of flat black. After leaving it dry overnight, I masked around the gear bays and sprayed them and the gear itself white. The entire model with the exception of the radome was then given numerous coats of clear gloss in preparation of decaling

For the past year or so I've had an almost finished F-16 sitting around in overall gray with Norwegian markings so I set about collecting some different after-market decals to add a little variety to the collection. I managed to find this set and the 'Dirty Diana' markings and for some reason thought I should do this variant first. I had never used Daco decals before and had no idea how they would go on or anything. The sheet is identified as D4846 and it is huge. Also included are the two ECM bumps applicable to this variant. These are provided as resin castings with one going under and just behind the intake lip and the other fitting into the tail where the brake chute would sit. Both parts were cut off and trimmed and attached with 5-minute epoxy. I much prefer using the epoxy to super glue if I can as it gives you a little more time to position parts where you want them.

The decal sheet is the size of one and a half legal-size sheets. All the stripes are provided as well as the black that goes around them. The tiger on the tail is just gorgeous. You have to make a cut across the tiger's mouth to make the decal conform to the base of the tail and Daco have provided us with two smaller decals identical to the tiger's mouth so that you can cover over the gap the cut makes. It does the job perfectly. The wings are covered top and bottom with huge decals and I was kind of anxious as to how the decals would settle. I used Solvaset and all the decals went on like they were painted. You have to make a few cuts here and there but the sheet is designed such that all the gaps are covered with one decal or another. You start with the decals on the fuselage sides where the tailplanes are attached and go from there. Each piece is slightly oversize so that you can position it easily to meet the decal it joins. One thing to beware of and it is pointed out on the instructions provided, the decals are on a white backing and wherever possible trim them so a bit remains on the sheet. I had decaled the centreline tank first and had neglected to do this and ended up with a lot of touching up to do. Another place to be careful is the underwing decals, they partially go over the main gear doors. This makes things a little tricky as the attachment points for the gear doors prevent you laying them in flush without removing them so I applied the decal and them cut out the portion that would go on the gear door and just placed it on after. I had absolutely no problem with any of the decals and wouldn't hesitate for a moment to pick up any other topics this company does.

There is also a second option provided on the sheet for a 1994 Tiger Meet BAF that carries the standard F-16 camouflage except for tail markings, the left side has a tiger leaping against a blue background with the gray in a "torn" pattern and the right side has a large stylized 31 on a blue background with the gray "torn" as well.

After all the decals were dry and sealed, I went back and added the landing gear and all the other bits and pieces to complete the project. I can recommend both the Hasegawa F-16 and Daco's decals. I love the look of the finished aircraft, it's eye-catching to say the least.