Tentera
Udara DiRaja Malaysia (Royal Malaysian Air Force) received 8 night attack
capable F/A-18D Hornets during the course of 1997. The aircraft are tasked with
maritime strike and interdiction, and serve with No.18 Sqn. at Butterworth Air
Base (an ex-RAAF Mirage III & P-3 Orion base).
This
is my model of the TUDM's F/A-18D, built using a 1/48 Revell Monogram F/A-18C
which was kit-bashed into a 'D' using mostly parts from the Italeri F/A-18 and a
pair of Black Box NACES seats.
Work
started off with sawing of part of the R-M kit's spine, and fairing in part of
the Italeri kit's twin seat canopy frame/spine assembly with Miliput and Tamiya
putty. The front cockpit tub is from the kit, while the rear cockpit tub was
also taken from the Italeri kit. Oh yeah, the wheels and a couple of small parts
came from Hasegawa.
The
rear instrument panel of the TUDM F/A-18D has the same arrangement as that of
the USMC Night Attack F/A-18D, and has the corresponding 'stepped' instrument
panel coaming. I scratchbuilt the stepped coaming from scrap parts and a lot of
Miliput. The 'Night Attack' configuration instrument panel was made from a spare
Black Box resin instrument panel chopped up, and its various MFD's, and panels
repositioned on a new scratchbuilt panel. The cockpits were sprayed with Gunze
Mr.Color No.31 Dark Gray.
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I
should note that the Italeri Hornet has its canopy frames and associated
transparent part molded separately, and it took a bit of work to put it together
using super glue, applied bit-by-bit along the joint. The resulting joint was
sanded lightly when dry. Needless to say, the transparent part needed to be
masked beforehand.
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I
decided to drop the trailing edge flaps just to challenge myself (something I
regret in retrospect) and proceeded to saw off both. The trailing edge flap
slats (for lack of a better word, i.e. the piece covering the gap between the
wing and the airfoil shaped part of the flap) was made by carefully sawing the
parts off the removed flap and sanding it to thin it down. The slats for the
outboard wings were cut from thin plastic card. The resulting 'cut-out' was
filled and the airfoil shape of the flaps restored by Miliput blended and sanded
to shape. The hinge mechanism were also carefully cut and angled to match.
Construction
of the kit from then on pretty much follows the instructions, but I decided to
leave off the horizontal tailplanes until after painting. The slats and the
flaps were glued on at an appropriate 'parked aircraft' angle shortly before
general painting of the airframe started.
Other
features unique to the TUDM Hornet as well as other Late lot F/A-18C/D aircraft
were added as below:
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1)
Twin Counter Measures Dispenser fairings under the intake trunks were
scratchbuilt using Miliput and plastic card
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2)
Raked back UHF/TACAN antenna on spine and under forward fuselage were carved
out of plastic card to replace the original
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ones.
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3)
ALQ-165 antenna was removed from front RH nose door, and a replacement made
of Miliput was glued to correct location (for a F/A-18D)
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4)
GPS dome antenna on the spine was added from Miliput sanded to a
hemispherical shape.
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5)
Two ALQ-165 related antennas on the spine were also sculpted out of
Miliput
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6)
Leading edge of centreline pylon was angled slightly with Miliput sanded
to shape
Once
all these details were completed, it was time to spray the aircraft in its
unique and characteristic overall FS36118 Gunship Grey paint scheme. Gunze
Mr.Color No.305 was used. Following the base colour were the landing gear wells
in flat white, rear fuselage exhaust area in silver and the tailpipes in a
silver & black paint mixture.
Since
Gunze Mr.Color No.305 dries with a Semi-gloss finish, and I had to rush the
model done in time for this write up, I decided not to spray a gloss coat.
I
used the new F-4DableModels
McAir TUDM F/A-18D Hornet
decal sheet for this model. Incidentally,
I'm also the guy behind this decal sheet which will be featured and reviewed
separately.
Unfortunately,
there were some areas where silvering appeared, probably due to air bubbles and
me rushing to finish the model. Once the decals were dry and all adhesive stains
cleaned up, I tried spraying a coat of Gunze Mr. Color Clear Gloss in an attempt
to cure the silvering, but no dice. The final coat was a semi-gloss coat (Gunze
Clear Gloss and Flat base mix) to give the model an appropriate matt finish.
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After
that, it was a matter of just putting together the various sub-assemblies and
the model was complete. Paper glue was used to attach all clear plastic parts
such as the HUD, windscreen and tail lights.
Weathering
was limited to just a wash with dilute India ink in certain areas, and patches
of FS36118 sprayed on the matt clear coat to highlight a few worn access panels.
All-in-all
the finished TUDM Hornet was a reasonable looking model, but never again will I
try this. A lot of time could have been saved by starting with the Hasegawa kit,
especially as far as where the dropped flaps were concerned. But I wanted to
keep the cost to a minimum and at the same time develop modelling skills without
risking an expensive kit.
Jason
www.F-4DableModels.com
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