Here is my 1/48 F-16C, built and painted up as a bird belonging to the 57th Adversary Tactics Group based at Nellis AFB, Las Vegas.

For this I used:
1/48 Tamiya F-16C/N - Excellent kit, fits together perfectly and has lovely details
Aires F-16C/N Cockpit - Lovely detail, decent fit, but I'm not sure it's designed for this kit despite being sold as such
Aires F-16C Wheel bays - Again great detail but not sure it's made for this kit despite the box saying so Aires F-16C Exhaust - This was a much better fit and only required a little bit of "surgery" to match up to the kit.
A combination of Tamiya & Meng missiles, tanks and pods.

This is my 3rd aircraft (I mostly build tanks) and it was a really steep learning curve. Aircraft require so much more care to build - a blemish or mistake on a tank can be covered up with mud or hidden with "battle damage"
Planes need way more care since they're usually kept in much cleaner condition. So for this, I had to be really careful with the priming, painting and gloss coats - I even sanded/polished the gloss coat.

But, I think it was worth it, and I'm really happy with how it turned out!

Beautiful workmanship indeed!
Well done and thanks for sharing.

Very nice, one sweet model. Glad to hear the good things about this kit as I have one also.
Take care,
Don "Lakota"

Thanks! I'm really please with this one!

Thanks Don! The kit is typical Tamiya and just fits together perfectly. Or rather it would, if I hadn't used the Aires sets which I don't really think are made for this kit.

Wow, she's a beauty! Paintjob is very clean and sharp.

Thanks Neil! I'm really pleased with it given all the time I spent messing about with polishing cloths and masks

Hi!

VERY, VERY NICE INDEED, SHE IS!!!

Would you care to share with us which paints & materials you used in your build..? Beautiful results, so that aroused my curiosity!

This is a very welcome build, as far as I'm concerned- Most F-16s one sees on hobby sites in build and review articles are finished in their standard US Air Force tri-color GRAY camouflage schemes. Not that that's a bad thing, but seeing something "different" is always nice. I ESPECIALLY LIKE your execution of the "Russian"-style Aggressor/Adversary paint scheme!

I have this very kit of the 1/48 TAMIYA F-16C/N, as yet un-built in my inventory. She is one of the few "modern" aircraft in my collection, as I mainly concentrate on Second World War subjects.

Thanks for mentioning the AIRES detail sets. The second I saw this article, I wondered if you built her "out of the box", or if you added extra details. That's also why I broached the subject of the paint colors and asked about your building-materials! It always helps to have different modellers "take" on their builds, and how they achieved their results! One can always LEARN from others, no matter how many years (HUNDREDS in my case!!!) of experience one has invested in this hobby...

If I may make one observation/suggestion, and please don't take it as "negative criticism"... You might want to add the Pilot's Seat Belt Harness, unless my tired, old eyes missed it, entirely. It shouldn't be too hard, what with the "open" Cockpit being a help to you. If I did miss the Harness already being there,

My Humble Apologies...

Thanks Again for sharing this beautiful build of yours with us! You can very deservedly be proud of your fine efforts!

VR, Dennis

Thanks Dennis! I'm really glad you liked it so much. Now let's see if I can remember everything that went in to it...

Other than the Aires set's mentioned, I used the Meng Medium/Long Range Air-to-Air Missile set for the ELTA pod. Other than that, the only AM set I used was the Tamiya extra detail parts set for the F-16C, from which I took the Pitot and AoA probes.

Because of the fit issues with the Aires kits I had to use a combination of sheet styrene, thick super glue and Squadron white putty to fill the gaps and reshape the intake cowling area - I lost a little detail that needed rescribing but oh well! Tbh I'd look for a better fitting wheel bay set, or just skip it and use the Tamiya kit parts which are detailed enough really.

The mask is from DN Models It was really good - well cut and matched the real scheme very well, at least based on the references I had. I covered up any gaps with the usual Tamiya tape and Mig Productions masking putty (also good stuff) - tbh I think any gaps in the DN masks were down to me more than the mask set.

I primed the model with Ultimate Primer Grey which is possibly the best airbrush primer I've used - goes down really well, dries quickly, doesn't cover up any details and is really tough once dry.
The camo colours were Vallejo Model Air 71.001 White & 71.111 USAF Light Blue, and AK Interactive FS36251 Aggressor Grey & FS36270 Medium Grey (for the radome only). Finally the whole thing received a couple of coats thinned of Tamiya CLear gloss, before sanding/polishing for the decals.

The last thing that I used was the TwoBobs F-16C WA WA WA Vipers decal set which was amazing - much thinner than the Tamiya kit ones, but very tough. They went down perfectly with the Mr Mark Softer Neo solution and held up to all the poking and prodding with brushes and tissues - I'd definitely recommend this set, especially since it comes with markings for 3 or 4 F-16s and has a colour reference for matching the paints.

The compressor wasn't anything special btw, just an Iwata silver jet that's seen better days, but the brush was a GSI Creos PS-770 which is bloody brilliant - can't recommend it enough!

I think that's about everything that went in to the build, hope this helps!

Excellent work on the Viper. The agressors are all beautiful birds and your model turned out very well.

How did you polish and sand the clear coat?



Jelger

Thank you Jelger! This time I used a 50:50 mix of Tamiya X-22 & X-20A sprayed perpendicular to each surface - this gave really shiny and hard clear coat.

After it dried for ~3 days I used sanding/polishing cloths and pads from Albion Alloys to smooth out any rough bits or polish out any dust in the clear coat. I think I started with 3200 grit (sanding very lightly) and went down to 8000 grit by the end. I also stopped to wash off the dust from the cloths/pads and wipe off the dust from the model so I could see better.

Page 61 of this F-15 build was what I used to help with the gloss coat process - basically I followed this and it worked How to gloss coat

Cheers