¹⁄48

Turkish Tiger

introduction

For your viewing pleasure, here are some photos of my 1/48 scale Hasegawa F-16C Arctic Tiger. The model here represents a Turkish Air Force F-16C that participated in the 2012 Tiger Meet held at the Ørlandet air base, Norway.

A NATO Tiger Meet is an annual gathering of squadrons that use the tiger as their mascot. Originally a Tiger Meet was mostly a social event, but now as evolved into a two week full military exercise. Born in 1961, the NATO Tiger Association is now in its 50th year. The organization has 21 full members, and it allows membership from squadrons whose badge is not a tiger―other big cats are allowed.

Construction

Building the Hasegawa F-16C Fighting Falcon Tiger Meet 2012 kit was pretty much an out of the box build, except for the AN/APX-95 TACTS Pod I added from the Hasegawa 1/48 scale Aircraft Weapons kit. Overall, construction for the kit is straight forward just following the instructions, which are very good—the illustrations are excellent. The parts fit for the kit was excellent, not much seam filling and sanding was required.

Since this model represents an aircraft at a military exercise, I equipped it for Air Combat Manoeuvres (ACM): an AIM 9L on the right wing missile rail, two AIM 120 AMRAMS on the under wing weapon stations, and an AN/APX-95 TACTS Pod on the left wing missile rail. Notice that the missiles have blue stripes on them. Blue stripping on a missile indicates it is a test component. The missiles have live seeker heads, but no propulsion motor and no explosives. The AN/APX-95 TACTS Pod is an airborne air data sensor, and an electronic altimeter and inertia sensor used to send data to ground receiving stations. As a training tool, it can be used to judge the effects of simulated weapons fire.

Painting

The kit instruction guide provides color painting guides for a Turkish Air force F-16C from the 192 Tiger Squadron. Here are the paints I used:

• Landing gears and wheel wells    MM Flat White
• Underside of fuselage and wings    MM Light Ghost Gray
• Wing tip missile rails    MM Neutral Gray
• Top side of fuselage and wings    MM Gunship Gray, Neutral Gray and Dark Ghost Gray
• AN/APX-95 TACTS Pod    Floquil Signal Red and Gloss Black
• AIM 9L Missile    MM Lt Ghost Gray & Gloss Black
• AIM 120 Missiles    MM Lt Ghost Gray and Flat White
• Fuel Tanks    MM Blue Angel Blue.

Decals

Decals for the F-16C Arctic Tiger were excellent. The were easily applied and adhered well to the model, except for the large tail decals.. The kit provided markings for only one aircraft. Hasegawa decals are typically a bit thick. Its a good thing the decals were thick as I had to use a lot of Solvaset to get the large tail decals to conform to the irregular surfaces of the tail. The decal sheet provided tiger stripe decals for the fuel tanks, but I didn't use them. I made a mistake and painted the fuel tanks Blue Angel Blue, they should have been a much lighter blue. As it turns out the tiger striping is same color as the fuel tanks. Frankly, I like the fuel tanks better without the tiger stripes.

Conclusion

To sum up, this kit was a very enjoyable build. Hasegawa has done a great job with this kit. The external detail is good, the parts fit is excellent, and the decals were excellent. I recommend this kit to any modeler.