1/48 Italeri F/A-18E Super Hornet 

by Jim Sullivan

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"Who ordered the pizza?"  First thing was adding the "pizza box" which sits in front of the windscreen and contains the Combined Interrogator/Transponder (CIT).  The CIT was lacking in the prototype Super Hornet that the Italeri kit was designed after.  I used two small sheets of styrene, bent first to the contours of the fuselage, then super glued them together to get the desired thickness.  I then superglued it to the fuselage and added putty to get the final shape.

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The cockpit was modified only with a pilot figure was from a Monogram F-15 kit, with the helmet reshaped to look like a newer HGU-55, and a Revell F-14D ejection seat.  The canopy was tinted by dipping it in mixed green and red food coloring dyes for the proper brown tint. 

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Okay, break out the putty.....The gaps in the airbrakes and those weird shaped movable blocks on the leading edge extension (LEX) were filled in with putty and sanded over.  The old legacy Hornet airbrake on the aft fuselage between the rudders was also filled in and sanded smooth.  Along with all the major gaps in the bottom of the aircraft.  I use "DAP" spackling putty from Home Depot.   It is in my opinion, much easier to use than Squadron putty.  The great thing that it is doesn't turn gritty like Squadron's and crumble apart.  It is pink in color then turns white when dry, which makes filling white or gray areas so much easier to identify.   Although, the Italeri kit has decent recessed panel, lines, I kept the aircraft clean after painting.

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The Aeromaster VFA-143 Griffin decals aka "Puking Dogs", went on surprisingly well, however, I had to use a lot of of Microscale setting solution to get them to lie down over the many ECM and vent bumps on the rudder tops.

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This last photo was taken with my finger over the flash to tone down the white out of a flash taken too close, I'm not a photographer as you can see from my blurry pictures above, but it had a cool effect.

Take care, 
Jim

Photos and text © by Jim Sullivan