1/48 Hasegawa F/A-18C Hornet

Gallery Article by Ian T.M. Holahan on July 27 2011

 

This is an F/A-18C Hornet that I completed recently, using the Hasegawa C-model kit. The plane depicted is "Zapper Four-One-Zero" from VFA-81 "Sunliners", the MIG killer flown by then Lt. Nicholas "Mongo" Mongillo in Desert Storm. Ironically, I had the honor of seeing and photographing this aircraft at a local airshow in 2001, two days before the 9/11 attacks. When I saw the plane in '01 it bore the nose number of 407 and was attached to CVW-17 on the USS George Washington. I have wanted to build the airplane ever since I saw it sitting on the tarmac.

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The kit went together well and the Hasegawa kit is good for depicting -18's from the '80's and '90's because it does not require a whole lot of modifications. I did use photo-etch sets from Eduard to accent both the interior and exterior of the aircraft. The plane was sprayed with Model Master FS 36375 and FS 36320 and then weathered heavily with lightened and darkened shades of both of these tones. Panel lines and rivets were drawn with a Micron Inkpen and then shaded with thinned down Tamiya smoke. Fluid leaks were added by streaking oil paint back with a brush. I added Steel Beach covers to the intakes and lead foil covers to the exhausts. All the covers were decorated with the VFA-81 motif from an Eaglestrike decal sheet. New blade antennaes were made from sheet stock.

I configured the aircraft for a standard Desert Storm air-to-ground loadout. I used Hobbycraft 500 lb. bombs to arm the airplane. I coated the bombs with Mr. Surfacer and once it got semi-tacky I used a broad brush to roughen-up the surface on the weapons to make them appear more realistic. The ordnance was decorated with Verlinden dry-transfer bomb graffiti. The AIM-9's are from Monogram and the AIM-7's on the side sponsons are from an ESCI F-4 kit. I used decals from Repli-Scale to depict "Zapper Four-One-Zero" in her post shoot-down regalia. Although the sheet was over fifteen years old, the decals laid down perfectly and there was no silvering. Finally, Eduard photo-etch "Remove-Before-Flight" tags were added to lend a little color to "410". This was a very enjoyable build and hopefully a fitting tribute to all the men and women of VFA-81, "The Sunliners" who have served this great nation.

Ian T.M. Holahan

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Photos and text © by Ian T.M. Holahan