F-16C Wild Weasel - Tamiya 1/72 F-16CJ

Started by George R Blair Jr · 112 · 8 months ago · F-16CJ, Tamiya, wild weasel
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    George R Blair Jr said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    This is my contribution to the group. The Tamiya F-16CJ Block 50 should be a fun build. I have a resin seat and some PE for it. I also have a nice set of decals from Two Bobs. It has special markings celebrating "50 Years of YGBSM". This is apparently what the first Weasel pilot said when he found out what he had to do: "You Gotta Be Sh__ Me!" As you know, the Weasel mission is a little scary: You fly ahead of the strike aircraft, fly over areas that are defended by missile sites, wait for the sites to lock on and fire a missile at you, then do your best to evade the missile, fire an anti-radar missile at one of the sites, and then escape. At first, this involved hunter/killer teams of aircraft. The Hunter would draw the ground fire, and the Killer would take out the shooters. This mission eventually was performed by one aircraft which was called a Wild Weasel. I hope to get started on this build by Monday. Cheers everyone.

    3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    Beautiful entry, George @gblair
    Some nice extras to make it look even better are always welcome.
    Didn't know about this Wild Weasel thing, must be very scary to do so.
    Looking forward to your build.

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    John Healy said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    Great choice, George. Weasels are always interesting.

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    George R Blair Jr said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    Thanks, John (@johnb) and John (@j-healy). Should be a fun build. Today I am going through my paints to be sure I have the corrects colors. One of my classmates in pilot training eventually went into Wild Weasels. He liked it, but I don't think I would have found it all that much fun.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    Fantastic entry and great extras, my friend @gblair! Very interesting Wild Weasel facts.

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    George R Blair Jr said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten).

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    George R Blair Jr said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    I sat down at the workbench today to start on my model. I was disappointed to discover that the Tamiya kit doesn't include any of the armament normally carried by Wild Weasels. In fact, it doesn't really include many weapons at all. I want to display the model with a typical loadout for a Wild Weasel, so I need to step back for a few and figure out how I am going to solve this problem. More info soon.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    A setback, my friend @gblair. Does Tamiya sell the Wild Weasel suite separately?

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    John vd Biggelaar said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    A real pity, George @gblair
    My kit did include quite some extras on this topic, if they are of interest, I can sent them to you.

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    George R Blair Jr said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    Hi Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). It doesn't look like Tamiya sells the loadout separately. I looks like their 1/48 F-16C has the stuff, but I don't really want to spend the money right now on a larger kit. I did find a 1/72 Hasegawa F-16CJ that looks like it has everything I need, and it was less than $15 including shipping. I have that coming in the mail soon. If it has all of the stuff I need, then I will either rob the kit of the weapons or simply build the Hasegawa instead of the Tamiya. I should have the kit in a few days, assuming the weather doesn't interfere with delivery. It is 19 degrees right now, and is supposed to climp above the 20s for the next several days. We are also supposed to get freezing rain and hail. Texans believe the safe way to drive in these conditions is to drive faster to get out of it sooner, so we may have a few days of chaos.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    @gblair, glad you found a kit with a complete loadout. Likely it is the same Hasegawa kit as I'm building. That also has quite some extra material. Those temperatures sound very chilly for Texas, good idea to get out of the bad road conditions by driving faster 😄

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    Great that you found the Hasegawa offering at such a good price, my friend @gblair! You do have options now. Yeah, driving faster through freezing rain and hail will surely get one ot of it quicker, not surely at which place though, here or "there" 😄😄

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    George R Blair Jr said 10 months, 1 week ago:

    Hi John (@johnb) and Spiros (@fiveten). I was really surprised to find the Hasegawa at such a low price. Hopefully it will have the stuff I need. Driving around here is a lot of fun. Texans are poor drivers even in the best of conditions, but things get really scary when the weather turns bad. We have all sorts of warnings against driving for the next few days, yet the roads will be full of people still going 15 or 20 mph over the speed limit as if the roads weren't icy. After they have an accident, they never understand why it happened. I am just glad I have a warm house and a good hobby to enjoy.

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    Louis Gardner said 10 months ago:

    George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
    I'm happy to hear that you have located what you were looking for. I will be looking forward to how you build your plane. I'm no expert on most of these newer jets, as I mainly build planes that have propellers on them. Jets are still cool though too .

    I can remember driving in El Paso when I was stationed there. The roads were really bad, full of potholes and the like. The when it rained, or worse yet snowed, you were better off to stay at home. I have never seen so many people that didn't know how to drive in adverse weather conditions. I think you are onto something here with those comments. They seem to be very truthful.

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    Chuck A. Villanueva said 10 months ago:

    Hi George, you will need a pair of HARM AGM-88 missiles for the Wild Weasel SEAD (suppression of enemy defenses)mission. Also you will need to carry a AN/ASQ-213 HARM Targeting System pod. Depending which time frame your model will be, a pair of AIM-9M sidewinders and a pair of Amraam 120's. The F-16 would've had either an F-111F Raven or EA-6B Prowlers in support of the strike package. Now the F/A-18G Growlers have replaced the Ravens as the Prowlers are now being withdrawn. I might have a set HARMS laying around and will send them, I need to check for the HTS pod you will need that as well. The ordnance in the Hase F-16 kits are normal ground attack weapons are not typical for a Weasel mission.

    For John, the Wild Weasel mission was a concept developed by the USAF in 1965 and deployed in Vietnam. First with the F-100F Super Sabres doing the tasking.. Though doing well but not really designed to handle the stress of the misson so the F-105F/G was assigned the mission tasking. But attrition was using up the F-105 inventory so the F-4E was looked upon (The F-4C was used for a short time but not suited in it's current configuration) more rugged, the latest in avionics, and radar systems, when about 104 airframes were selected and converted to the F-4G dedictated to the Wild Weasel mission. Which then became the standard up to Desert Storm. The weapon of choice then was the AGM- 78 Standard ARM (anti-radiation missile) and the AGM-45 Shrike. The US Navy had their own program and called it Iron Hand, with A-4's at first taking on the tasking as well with the early Prowlers and Intruders. "Rifle"