1/48 Academy F-16 FSW

by John Snell

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Due to the same pressures that revived the F-15 ACTIVE, the F-16 Forward Swept Wing concept was also revisited.  Two pressures on US fighter production emerged shortly after the 'conclusion' of the war in Iraq.  First, there was increasing pressure to keep up with some very successful 5th generation fighter programs--namely the MiG 1.44 and the Chinese J-10 and J-12.  The second pressure was budgetary.  There simply wasn't enough money to continue to develop and produce extremely complex and expensive aircraft like the F-22, and less so the F-35 JSF.  This lead to some innovative thinking on the part of the aircraft industry.  There had been some very promising experimental aircraft in the past, and they looked to these to help fill the gaps and provide interim 5th generation fighters that could be effectively supported in the battlefield.  The first of those fighters was the F-15 ACTIVE II, which we have already covered.  The second was the F-16 FSW, with some things borrowed from the CCV program as well.

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Even though initial testing on a forward swept wing had been done with the X-29, a parallel proposal for an F-16 had also been made.  Since the X-29 and the F-16 had so many common components, it was felt that the F-16 FSW would be a better candidate for reviving the program.  A prototype was quickly constructed and testing began very shortly thereafter.  Since a great deal of research had already been done on the concept, pushing the development into production was done rapidly.

The trans-sonic maneuverability of the F-16 FSW was marginally better than the X-29.  The aircraft could operate with a significantly heavier warload, and it could operate from shorter fields as well.  The F-16 FSW is an incredibly able dogfighter, and is generally without an equal in a toe to toe fight.  It's ability to handle heavier loads also increased it's value as a CAS aircraft.

This was the 1/48 Academy kit.  The fit was pretty good, and I only required a minimum amount of filler for most of the model.  The panel lines were nice and understated.  The wings and CCV canards were scratchbuilt from styrene, and attached via a cut down popsicle stick which I glued in place after removing the original wings.  At first, I tried to recycle the original wings to save time, but that proved to be a mistake.  It took significantly less time to build the wings completely from scratch.  My only real complaint about the Academy kit is the cockpit.  I was more than a little disappointed with it.  If I were to do another one an aftermarket cockpit would be a must.

I also spent a great deal of time smoothing the intake out, and giving it a more realistic path into the fuselage.  It's one of those details you'd probably never notice if you didn't do it, but it really does add a little extra to the finished product.  In hindsight, I should've probably dropped the flaps, too.  Maybe next time.

The two GBU-12s came from the Hasegawa weapons set, and I used the stock hardpoints with stabilizers added from the F-15 Strike Eagle kit.  I used the kit's decals (which didn't look too good), with a little artistic license thrown in.

I have to add, you should've seen the guy's face at the hobby store when I told him I was taking that nice kit home so I could cut it apart.  It was priceless.

John

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Photos and text © by John Snell