1/48 Tamiya F-16

Gallery Article by Andreas "Goggo" Gordes on Aug 19 2013

 

 

Facts about Tamiya‘s 1/48 F-16
There are hundreds of reviews of Tamiya’s quarter scale F-16, but there might be some news here. It is still the best F-16C in this scale, but I would not recommend this kit to friends. There are many fit problems, nose. intake, the adapter ring for the F-110 nozzle is about 1mm too wide in diameter (Eduard.cz is always a fair source for viewing fit problems). Filling and sanding required at many places which destroys the nice scribed panel lines. We can live with that, but what's even worse is that the kit is just over and wrong engineered. The speed brakes have a seam below and need to be replaced by Eduard Brassin (or slaughter the valuable Kinetic F-16). The lower wing is separated in the slats and in longitude in the middle of the wing which leaves a visible sink at the upper side of the wing. Why a vertical stabilizer with many many parts, but no separate rudder? There are really many whys, so what happened? Tamiya copied the Hasegawa F-2 without thinking of the real Viper. They copied the bad things, and left the good things away (where is the gun?).

 

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Only few feature have been taken from the 32nd scale kit, and those are not mentioned in the instructions (no sprue map, although so important with many parts left over or not considered). I.e. you can turbine. The afterburner can has to be supported with the help of a bulkhead (missing) against the fuselage (here a ring had been simple cut out from the sprues).

This aircraft shows the original Have Glas colour used on aircraft with the US (not all), Turkey, Poland... Due to the high friction of this coating worn aircraft look almost like bare metal. The kit was built straight from the box with few scratch (gun, sway braces, static dischargers, seat pressure probes, brake lines). Decals are from Afterburner and Astra. Last picture shows the original Viper 91-0417 of the 23rd TFW in Spangdahlem in July 2008.

Andreas "Goggo" Gordes

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Photos and text © by Andreas "Goggo" Gordes