Hello all!
This is my secound installment to the ARC. I wanted to share my lastest
completed project, the Blue Angels F/A-18A Hornet. What more can be said
about the this amazing U.S. Navy flight demonstration team and their history?
Not much, only that they are always striving for excellence and precision- a
consistant croud pleaser and an inspiration to young and old alike.
For this model, I chose the Hasegawa offering, yep the old legacy Hornet mold.
Over-all, compaired to Italeri's 1/72nd scale Hornet kits, Hasegawa's detail and
shapes were more accurate. However, If I was to going to do this kit
justice, I'd have to correct inaccuracies in the shape of the nose, add
minor lacking details, and overcome decaling issues to have it represent a
current Blue Angels F/A-18A.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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During
pre-construction and dry-fitting, I found that the rumors and reviews about
these "legacy" kits' fit problems held true. Not discuraged, I
pushed the power up, and concentrated on the Boss's "Ditty", "Puuuuush
through iiiit...saaand iiiit smooooth, readyyyyyyyy, now." I filled,
sanded and reshaped areas as needed. Problem areas were with the air
intake joints, rear fuselage and the odd & inaccurately drooped nose/
radome- I discovered during dry-fitting. I corrected it's shape
by inserting a styrene shim and sanded it smooth to correct it's contour.
The kit represents
an "A" model F/A-18 without the LEX fences, upper fuselage RWR's and
other items that identify it as the "C." However, current flying
Blue Angels hornets have the LEX fences, installed as a result of airframe
buffeting during their aggressive and often dangerous aerobatics. None
were supplied in the kit, so I fashoined a pair by tracing a spare from a
"C" kit onto sheet styrene, cut to shape and attached them to the
model. Also lacking in the kit was a small ATSP (Air temperature
Sensor Probe) located under the port side LEX and PITOT tubes for the port
and staboard sides of the forward fuselage, just behind the radome. These
details were made from tiny strands of stretched sprue and stip
styrene to shape.
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Finally, the model
was primed and sanded in prepartion for painting and finishing. I
airbrushed Tamiya X-8 for the Yellow trim on the wingtips, rudders and
stabblizers. After the yellow had thouroughly dried, I
mixed a batch of dark blue for the Angel's trademark Blue Angels Blue
paint, using Tamiya X-3 with a few drops of white (X-2)added. I
masked the yellow areas and airbrushed the blue and let it dry for an hour in my
home-made drying oven. Later, I gloss coated with Future and set out to
decal. The were so old in the kit that a test piece shattered into pieces
once placed in water. To solve this, I scanned the decals into Photoshop
and laser printed them onto white decal paper. After careful trimming, I
applied the decals as normal. The decals were now strong, responded
well to Solva-Set and were opaque over the dak blue paint. Minor details
were picked out with enamels. Hope you like, and remember....Honor,
Courage, Commitment.....The Blue Angels.
Greg
Click on
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