1/48 Hasegawa F-16C

 V3: Peppermint Patty

by David Bey

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Hi all,

I built this viper for the ARC Viper Cadre Group Build. I used a 1/48 Hasegawa F-16C V3 kit, as it was among the cheapest. This bird represents a block 25 from Ramstein AFB, also affectionately known as "Peppermint Patty". I couldn't find any photos on the net of her, so I winged it with the weathering. The kit is pretty much OOB, except for one Legends Aces II Seat for F-16. Again, this was because it was on sale at 10 SGD for 2 seats, so I decided to give it a try. The quality's not Black Box, but neither is it bad.

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I applied the oil wash on this bird a few times, once a brown/raw umber wash, then a darker payne's gray/lamp black mix. I also applied the wash BEFORE decalling, and continued to airbrush paint on after the wash. This is because I felt that the wash was too "strong" and distinct, so I decided to tone it down by spraying a thin coat of base colour. The centre of the panels were sprayed with a 40% lightened base coat colour in order to get the sun bleached effect.

The tail was pretty much a disaster, luckily for me I had 2 V3 kits, as I used decals from both kits. I decided to cut out the red stripes and decal them on a white tail, instead of using the creamy white Hasegawa decals have. I then futured and masked to touch up with red paint, and sprayed some semi-gloss. To my horror, a light gray mist appeared: I picked up the primer can! In my defense, it was something like 2am, so I wasn't thinking straight. I had to strip the whole tail and repaint, redecal. Upon touch up, I masked the red to touch up white portions, and to my horror the masking tape pulled off the decals when removed... I was starting to think this bird was jinxed... I continued to touch up by brush this time.
Everything was then futured and flat coated. As you can see, the decals show no signs of silvering at all.

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The FOD cover you see was made by the tissue paper method, and painted a dark gray. An insignia of the wing was added to the FOD cover for effect. I also used wire for the static dischargers, and the exhaust are you see took me a day or so to complete. I sprayed it white, then from the inner side of the tube I sprayed burnt iron. I then took sandpaper and sanded it to create a circular pattern. The alternating cream/white on the exhaust petals was done with q-tips and mixing of colours, with another light spray of burnt iron to dirty things up. I know the exhaust petals are not
of the right colour, but at that time I only had this metalliser colour in hand; I think it looks fine anyway. Other mods include adding wire to the wheel wells for brake wire, clipping off the gasbags fins, adding wire to the TERs. I loaded her with 4 Aim 9s as I saw this loadout in a photo somewhere and thought it looked good. I also used painted toothpick tips for the pitot tubes.

As an addition to the jinx, when I was taking photos of this plane, I picked it up by the vert. stab, and the superglue I used to attach the vert. stab chose that moment to go brittle and fracture on me. I spent the next 2 hours putting everything back together. The wire for static dischargers is now toothbrush bristles. I'm not gonna be touching this plane for a long time...

Thanks for looking

David

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Photos and text © by David Bey