Subject: Re: F-16D Block 40
From: "Steve Bamford ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "J.C. Bahr" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 16:22:05 -0800

Hi JC,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks for sending it in.   

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com
 
Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: J.C. Bahr 
  To: Steve Bamford 
  Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2004 5:46 PM
  Subject: F-16D Block 40

    
  1/72 Hasegawa F-16D
  Block 40 IAF Barak  
  by J.C. Bahr
  --------------------

        Steve Bamford will insert full sized version of photo 01.jpg here 

  Here are some pics of my recently completed 1/72 Hasegawa F-16D that utilized the Israeli Barak boxing of this kit.

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  This kit comes with a resin spine, RWR bulges for the sides of the nose, a blade aerial for the top of the spine and a separate rear para-brake housing tip for the spine.  The kit also comes with the updated Block 40 wheels, big-mouth intake and RWR beer cans for the wings.  I intend to do a few other big-spined variants of the Viper and since this was a very limited-run edition of this kit, I made an RTV copy of the kit part and cast a few for future projects.  The one applied to this kit is one of those copies.  The original spine includes the three chaff & flare dispensers on the sides as seen on Block 30 variants... so I filled the forward opening on each side because the aircraft I wanted to replicate was a Block 40.

        Steve Bamford will insert full sized version of photo 02.jpg here 

   The RWR bulges on the sides of the nose are scratch-built out of Evergreen styrene strip as I was not impressed with the resin ones provided in the kit.  I also scratch-built the pre-cooler intake above and behind the left main gear strut, along with the EW antenna below the intake, forward of the front strut and slightly to the left of center-line.  The HUD-repeater screen above the WSO's rear console was done from Evergreen styrene as well.  The EW fairings on the sides of the intakes were taken from the RM F-16 kit and cleaned up as they had some pretty nasty sink holes from the molding process.

  The Litening III targeting pod on the right side of the intake is a shortened and modified Lantirn from a Hasegawa weapons set, along with the GBU-12's from an Ha weapons set too.  I'm not positive the Israeli's have used the configuration I modeled for the LGB's, but I liked the look of the slant configuration on the TER's so this is the way I did it.  I scratch-built Python V's for the wing-tips from Evergreen tubing and styrene.  They're generally not carried on the wing-tips operationally due to weight and G-load restrictions, but I took artistic license again and placed them on the tips as they look so different in that position.  There are pictures of static Baraks on the ground with them loaded this way, but none shown in flight.

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  Markings were a combination of kit decals, Isradecals and Aeromaster.  I re-mixed the sand color that I applied to the upper surfaces, trying to get a closer approximation to that of the Scorpion emblem on the tail as I felt that the ones provided in the Isradecals sheet were a little too "pink", but this turned out to be an optical illusion... because once it was applied to the kit, it actually seemed to blend a bit better.  It's not a dead-on match, but close enough in my humble opinion.

  Wheels for the Block 30 were used in this build as the aircraft modeled had the B30's instead of the B40's.  The rest of the build was done pretty much straight out of the box and I'm thrilled with the results as I've always wanted one of the big spine Israeli Vipers in my collection.

  J.C.

        Click on images below to see larger images
       
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  Photos and text © 2004 by J.C. Bahr