F-16A 322 Squadron Polly Grey

Started by Alfred van Paaschen · 52 · 5 months ago · 322SQN, F16, KLu, PollyGrey, RNLAF, Viper
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    Alfred van Paaschen said 5 months, 1 week ago:

    Hi John, I’m glad you enjoyed your visit to N.M.M. @johnb
    I believe the exhibition on the F-16 ends in a couple of weeks so you were well on time!

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    John vd Biggelaar said 5 months, 1 week ago:

    @alfred, indeed, Alfred. The F-16 exhibition ends on January 7th.

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    Alfred van Paaschen said 5 months ago:

    As I mentioned earlier in this thread the kit (Italeri 2786) is quite mediocre in terms of detailing, fitting and especially the decals are a disappointment.

    The canopy is just too wide for the fuselage, so I could not establish a proper fit as you can tell from the pictures below. Off course I could have opted for a canopy in open position,
    but the cockpit simply has a substantial lack of detail to allow for this.

    With respect to the decals, I observed the following:
    ⁃ the decal with the text “WWW.322SQUADRON60JAAR.NL” is simply too short for the tail section.
    ⁃ the decals for the demarcation of the STEP/NO STEP areas are too small as well, so I had to cannibalise the decals meant for the area between the wing-root and the horizontal stabilizers, to make the other ones fitting the designated areas on the wings.
    ⁃ the decals representing the “Frisian roots” of this aircraft and to be placed on the ventral fins are incorrect as the water lily leafs look more like a row of Pac-Mans to me).

    And lastly, my fault, the kit is also a tail sitter as I forgot to add some weight in the nose as it was not mentioned in the instructions. Grrr … Hence the sticky gum under the nose wheel.

    Anyway, here’s the result of my struggles with a few annotations. Hope you like it.

    14 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Erik Gjørup said 5 months ago:

    I do like it. Despite all the close-ups highlighting some flaws, the end result looks good, and I am quite certain it will look on the shelf with the smokewinders and polly making it quite different to your everyday F-16...

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    John vd Biggelaar said 5 months ago:

    She looks pretty nice, Alfred @alfred
    Despite some few minor issues, the end result is really impressive.
    Polly would be proud of it.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 5 months ago:

    You did a really good job on this challenging build, my friend @alfred!

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    Alfred van Paaschen said 5 months ago:

    Thanks so much, guys! @airbum @johnb @fiveten