Hello everyone.

As I am not really a 1/48 person I am after some information. Ms Cooper was kind enough to send me a set of decals for the Canadian CF-188 Hornets in 1/48 scale to do a review on. I don't think it is good enough to scan a few pictures of the decals and write some words without using the decals to see how good they are in practice, how they conform to curves, colour density all that stuff.
To this end I would like to get a kit and was wondering if anyone has a spare one they would like to make available for me to purchase, or if I could get some advice on a good kit in 1/48 for a reasonable price. That sort of rules out Hasegawa.
Also, one difference I know with the CF-188 is that it has a searchlight on one side of the nose, are there many other differences and is one available in 1/48?
Thanks for your interest
Warren

You really can't beat the old Revellogram kit. It's okay for fit and the price is really reasonable. I've not built it, but I hear that the Hobby Boss kit is also okay.

If you get the -C boxing, you need to do a tiny bit of surgery to the ECM fairings on the tail. Here's a CF-18 tail:

Count the three fairings on the trailing edge. Now compare to an F-18C tail:

The second one down has to go.

The other major difference is in the shock absorbers on the main gear struts. RCAF birds have it "upside down" as compared to the USN standard (The silver part of the strut is at the bottom rather than at the top).
CF-18 strut:

FA-18 strut: