With the 80th anniversary
of the Royal Canadian Air Force ( now called Canadian Forces, air force )
I was kicking around my idea of a 410sqd. demonstration CF-188A that many of us
are all familiar with at North American air shows. It
starts with the long standing and well known kit from Revell-Monogram. It
is not in the standard of the higher quality and price Hasegawa kits, but it is
useable and produces a nice overall F-18 in any guise, let alone my "what
if" CF-188A. I won't elaborate
too much on the details on this kit as I'm sure many of us know it well.
So let me tell about my concept through construction.
I kicked around the
idea of a "what if " plane celebrating the 80th. anniversary
of the RCAF. Obviously I chose a plane from 410 Sqd. ( the plane
itself was numbered after the Millennium Hornet of a few years ago ). I wanted
to choose a plane with good colours that are very Canadian
forces ( red, white, and blue above a tactical grey scheme ) I for weeks
sketched out ideas and schemes settling on one much like the finished
model. The model allows for
fairly easy building with not too many troubles except the nose is too blunt,
but then again we all know that on this kit. The spotlight seen on
CF-188's was created simply this way. I drilled a hole in the fuselage and glued
a plastic disc in back. Once dried I cut a piece of aluminum tape
with a hole punch and stuck it onto the disc shaping it to form a
concave look. I then took some clear plastic that you find
store bought pastries sold in and using a hole punch cut a
clear disc. I then white glued this in the hole to forma clear
lens cover. It is not perfect but looks "IMO" better than
painting on or using decals etc.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
You will see that I
chose a scheme of flying roundels from old style RCAF design to new style
Canadian Forces design on a white palette. A big red maple leaf is
featured on the spine ahead of the tail planes. You will see smaller maple
leaves on the tail and back end of the CF-188A.
The tail planes
feature a CAF roundel and the RCAF letters, you will note 80 yrs in
English on one side and 80 for French on the other side. The inner tail
planes feature a heritage from the 1970's, 410 sqd. roundel on a red
base. On the top outside is the smaller current traditionally placed 410
sqd. tail logo.
The bottom
surfaces are a negative to the top with red instead of white as a main colour. I
have added vintage 410 sqd. Cougars logos that were prominent on 410 sqd. planes
in the 50's The centreline tank was painted blue but could have been red or
white as well.
I wanted to keep
some tactical grey as a colour as this is still a warplane and
I did not want to gussy it up too much. I chose to keep it clean except
for aforementioned centreline tank and wing tip inert Sidewinder on one
tip and ACMI pod on the other.
All paints were from
Humbrol and were airbrushed on with extensive masking. Decals were a mix
from my spares box and some offered to me by a fellow modeler. I chose to
weather plane slightly as its impossible to keep a fighter jet
"puritan like" clean if it's on a heavy air show schedule.
In ending this
plane was built mostly out of box but a lot of time in planning and painting
was consumed. I think the plane looks better in real life than the photos
show and am proud of my unique "what if" design to celebrate 80
years of RCAF / CAF flying.
Les
|