Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
Thank you VERY much for those pictures and information. I was able to fix the model because of this. I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to do this. I was looking for the part to be on the inside of the nozzle because I thought it had something to do with being a linkage of sorts that controlled the opening and closing of the nozzles. Boy was I ever wrong !

John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Thank you. Your F-16 looks great in the headlines section too.

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
Thanks for the kind words. I'm a bit intimidated with the decals. I have made a scan of them just in case I mess something up, in hopes that I can use this to make a mask from later if necessary. It would make sense that the breakdown of our two kits are the same. You are really rocking your F-16 build. It's going up several notches with the 3D printed parts. The seat is spectacular. I'm saving for one of my own now. Thanks again, and take care my friend.

Stephen W Towle (@stephen-w-towle)
My wallet thinks like yours does too ! My eyes on the other hand... are more geared towards a 1/24 scale... my up close vision is horrible, and has been for years. One eye is a lot worse that the other too. This makes for some interesting times believe me. Good catch on the pilotless plane. I never realized that before. This shows us where the future is headed. AI and pilotless planes. Maybe terminators are in our future too ? You don't know anyone named Sarah Connor do you ? So far I don't... 😉

Jeff Wilson (@f4phantom)
Thank you for helping with this. You color call outs are spot on too. I will be fixing my mistakes when it comes time to start painting this one. Take care and thanks again.

Looking excellent, my friend @lgardner!

Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Thanks gentlemen for the compliments. I sincerely appreciate them.

I didn't get to work on the Viper tonight. However, I will be posting some pictures of what was completed last night.

So with that said, here we go !

I'm basically following the recommended assembly procedures with this one. I did deviate a little by assembling the nose cone and then gluing it in place now.

I also have assembled the main landing gear, and against my better judgment, I glued them in place.


I used some Molotow chrome this time on the landing gear oleo struts. It worked out very well, and it was both faster and easier to do than how I usually do things with the bare metal foil wraps.

The nose gear was glued together too. Here you can see how the nose wheel was pushed onto the strut, and the oleo painted with Molotow chrome. The wheel is only there temporarily, and now it's back off waiting for paint.

Here you can see how I used the Molotow on all of the retraction cylinders. I'm really liking how it works. You can also see this "Blue box" thingy... I'm not sure what it is, or even what it does, so I looked online... and discovered these were either a Red color or a Blue. I can see where there are some wires running to the box and how it uses cannon plugs for the connections like we did with the electrical connections on the engine power packs in our tanks when I was in the Army.

But Tamiya states it should be a Blue color. I'm not sure if they were different colors according to what country was flying them.

X-4 is definitely "Blue" according to the color call outs. Personally I don't know for sure what is correct, as I have seen photos online that show the box in either color. Maybe this changed over time and could be due to various upgrades ? If anyone knows for sure I would like to hear what it's all about. Thanks in advance.

Here you can see the nose gear and all of the wheels. The Block 52 uses a different set of wheels than the Block 32 does. So I saved the extra set of wheels to see if they will be an improvement over the ancient ones I have that are part of the original Monogram kits I am also building right now.



The air intake / nose gear well was built next. The fit was spot on, and I like how the divider is done inside the air intake. Also the seam is almost invisible on the inside, so on this plane I will leave it open and not worry about using a FOD cover on the intake.


Naturally I just had to snap the parts in place to check the fit... which was flawless. This was only a temporary thing because I'm getting very close to spraying this one in a coat of Gloss White. The decals will wrap around and go under the intake, so the instructions advise you to leave it off for now.


I couldn't resist snapping a few more pictures with the air intake snapped on. It came back off shortly afterwards.

So this is how the Thunderbirds F-16 looks right now. I added a few small scoops per the instructions, and a few plugs. The nose fit OK, but I had to sand down a seam where the parts were joined together. Here I actually think the old Monogram kit was superior, as it has a one piece nose cone.
Sometimes simpler is better... I think anyway.

It was likely something I did incorrectly and not a fault of the kit.

This one is almost ready for the paint shop, where it will get a shiny coat of White sprayed on. First I will have to ready the flaperons, stabilizer and rudder / fin assemblies. I want to paint all of these parts at the same time.

I will be spraying the prototype F-16 at the same time, and possibly the wheel wells on the other Monogram kit.

So, does anyone have any idea as to what this Blue box is ? Or what it even does ? If so, I would like to hear from you. Thanks !

As always, comments are encouraged, and again I thank you all for your help with figuring out the exhaust oil spray nozzle... as it really had me stumped.

Good night everyone.

Please stay tuned for another installment, that will hopefully be posted tomorrow evening.

Excellent job continued, my friend @lgardner!

Great progress, Louis @lgardner
No clue about what that box could be. It makes me curious now as well.

Thanks everyone for the kind words.
Jeff Wilson (@f4phantom)
Your help is most appreciated. Between you and Spiros,
Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
you guys nailed down my questions. Again I thank you. Now if I could find out what the mystery Blue box is that is located in the main landing gear well, (and what it does...), I would be very happy. Enquiring minds want to know...

John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Thanks John for the compliments... and as far as the Blue box goes, your guess is as good as mine is. I don't have a clue yet. If my F-16 ends up looking half as nice as yours does, I'll be a happy man.

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
I noticed that you have painted your box in a Blue color similar to what I have used for mine. I hope to someday figure out what it is and what it does. Maybe someone in a pay grade or two above mine will know. I'm lost with most things on these newer jets.

I can remember seeing the Air Superiority Blue F-15's when they first went into service.. and they were just like what you mentioned. I also remember the Air Force recruiter at our school had some very neat looking school book covers that had a pair of them on it. He gave me several of these book covers when he saw that I had hand drawn a pair of F-4 Phantom II's on my home made book covers... that were made using a brown paper bag from the grocery store. These were the planes that I (and every other teenage boy who was enamored with flying) wanted to fly. He also gave me a few classroom folders that had similar photos on them like the book covers. I don't know what happened to them. The folders were still home when I left for the Army, and gone when I came home.

By the way, your 3D printed parts look great ! I can't wait to see the next steps on your F-16.

Today I have made some more progress on the Thunderbirds F-16. I did not have much time for building today but maybe tomorrow I will. Time will tell.

David Odenwald (@kahu)
Meanwhile here’s what David Odenwald was talking about. It’s in reference to the pair of small spots that are located on the sides of the air intake. My guess is that they are used to locate a weapons or an "electronic gizmo" pylon, which is not used on these Thunderbird's jets.

Here’s what the instructions say about this.

I would have likely missed that small detail. So my hat’s off to you for the suggestion, and I held my fire until the enemy was in the open... Then I called in a fire mission, fire for effect. Otherwise I would have walked blindly into the problem and likely discovered it only after painting and applying the decals.

It was a very simple fix. A slice with a razor blade and a few swipes with a sanding stick and now it’s ready for painting.

I think it would be really better if I would paint all of the White parts at the same time. I noticed that some of the plastic pieces were molded in a slightly different color than the rest.

So I will paint the whole plane and then come back and do the Red and Blue colors next. I’m going to try to use the decals and if they don’t lay down flat then I’ll be painting them on too. It’s going to be tricky because of the fine lines on the edges of the Blue where it meets the White.

With that said I decided to go ahead and assemble the flaperons and make ready the elevators. The flaperons were built so that they could be dropped.

I think they will look good this way simply because the other F-16 kits I have do not have this option. I want it to be different.

The rudder and fin assembly was built and now it time to paint the entire plane using some Gloss White.

Naturally, I couldn't resist the urge... so I slipped the parts together to see what the Viper was going to look like.

I will probably spray the model like this too. This is held together by friction fit, and several small poly caps that are located inside of the base of the rudder / fin. There is another pair of poly caps that hold the elevators in place on the fuselage sides.

That's all for today boys and girls. Tomorrow is another day.

As always comments are encouraged. Thanks for stopping by.

Very nice progress, Louis @lgardner
The lowered flaperons do make it look more interesting indeed. And I'm sure yours will look way better than mine, no doubt about that.

Naturally, I couldn't resist the urge... so I slipped the parts together to see what the Viper was going to look like.

Well slipped sir! The smoketube is very visible - glad you got that sorted out!