¹⁄48

F/A-18E Super Hornet

History

The F/A-18E Super Hornet is a single seat, twin-engine, supersonic, all weather multi-role fighter jet capable of landing and taking off from an aircraft carrier. The F/A-18E Super Hornet is extremely capable of performing the following missions: air superiority, fighter escort, reconnaissance, aerial refueling, close air support, air defense suppression and day and night precision strikes. Compared to the original F/A-18A, the Super Hornet has longer range, along with increased survivability and lethality.

The F/A-18E Super Hornet looks like an F/A-18C but it is largely a new aircraft. It is about 20% larger, than the original Hornet. It carries more internal fuel which increases mission range and endurance over the "Legacy" Hornet.

The Kit

The Hasegawa 1/48 scale F/A-18E Super Hornet kit has a lot of parts residing on 11 sprues. The instruction guide consists of 4 pages with 12 construction steps. A single decal sheet has all the decals and stencils for just one aircraft, the CAG aircraft for the VA-27 Royal Maces.

Construction

Construction is straight forward just by following the well illustrated instruction guide. There are no show stoppers as the parts fit is very good. I chose to arm my Super Hornet with ordnance from the Hasegawa Aircraft Weapons D kit. My Super Hornet load out consist of: 2ea GBU-31 JDAMs, 2ea GBU-16 1000lb laser guided Paveway II bombs, and 2ea GBU-12 500lb laser guided Paveway II bombs. Note that I installed a lead weight in the nose cone to prevent tail sitting.

Painting

All paints for this model were Model Masters and Floquil enamel paints. Landing gears, wheel bays, and the inside of the wheel bay doors were painted with MM Flat White. The edges of the doors were painted with Floquil Signal Red. I airbrushed the vertical stabilizers and the centreline fuel tank with MM Gloss Black. The body of the AIM-120 and AIM-9X missiles were painted Light Ghost Gray. The bombs were painted with Olive Drab.

The kit painting guide calls for Light Ghost Gray and Dark Ghost Gray for the fuselage, wings, horizontal stabs, However, I airbrushed the above objects with one color, Light Ghost Gray. The reason for this is because the two grays are so close in color you cannot distinguish any difference between the two grays.

Decals

Once the paint was dried a cured I hand brushed two coats of Future on the model and let it dry and cure for three days in preparation for decals. Decals for the F/A-18E Super Hornet were good. The were easily applied and adhered well to the model. The kit provided markings for only one aircraft, the CAG aircraft for the VFA-27 Royal Maces. Hasegawa decals are a bit thick which is a good thing as some of the decals for this model are large and required a some maneuvering on the model surface to get the decals in the correct position. Additionally on some of the large and long decals I cut them in into two or three pieces which made it easier to maneuver the decals into place. Note that there a lot of decals for this model.

Conclusion

This was an enjoyable build. This kit was no weekend project. It was a lengthy build because of all the parts and the many decals. But, it was worth it as I am very pleased with the look of the finished model.

The parts fit was good, the decals were good, and the detail is excellent; no need for any after market accessories. Buyer beware: this is not a kit for novice modelers; only experienced modelers should tackle this kit.