Even
if it looks like an F-16, the Mitsubishi F-2 is a completely new fighter, longer
and bigger than the F-16 from which it keeps the general shape, engine, landing
gears, air intake door and the 20mm gun. Hasegawa made this beautiful kit from a
new tool that has nothing in common with the old F-16 kit. Consequently we get
movable flaps, more detailed landing gear door (the front one is also much
deeper compared to the F-16 kit), a more detailed ejection seat, and parts that
fit together much better and more easily. There are also some external stores: 2
AAM-3 heat seeker air-to air missiles, two 600 US gal fuel tank and two 300 US
gal. center line fuel tank (even if you can only use only one of them in
this kit the other will be handy in your next F-16 kit since it is more correct
than the one you can find in the Falcon box) .
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I
think this is one of the best kits ever made by Hasegawa, but since I wanted
something really special, I added to it all the aftermarket parts I was able to
find: Platz color PE set, Platz decals sheet, Fine Molds pitot tube and Hasegawa
JASDF weapon set A.
As
I said construction was quite easy, you only need to pay attention to the joint
between the upper and lower fuselage, especially around the nose. The building
of the air scoop is also tricky but once you understand how to make it you can
only prize the Hasegawa ingenuity.
Painting
was a major challenge for me, Hasegawa suggests you to use WWII US Navy colours
to paint this modern fast jet! I thought that was simply impossible, so I chose
to make my own shades of blue mixing my favourite Tamiya acrylic paints. To
spray
the paint I used scaled photocopies of the instruction sheet painting guide as
canvas since all the F-2 have the same camouflage and you need to respect all
the curves in it.
Hasegawa
decals were a little in the dark side, especially the stencils (that are not
enough since the smaller ones are missing) are printed in a shade of too dark
gray, so the Platz decals were a nice (and expensive) addiction. By the way
Platz decals (printed by Cartograph) even if perfectly printed with perfect
colours are printed on a quite rigid clear support sheet, consequently it was
hard to make all those stencils to conform to plastic and I needed to use
several application of decal softeners and two weeks of work.
After
the decals a coat of Future was sprayed to avoid any silvering, then went a
final coat of Polly's flat.
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Since
the F-2 was conceived as an anti shipping fighter (you can't call it an attack
plane in Japan) I choose to add weapons to it. Two of the AAM-3 missiles come
from the kit box while the other two along the 4 ASM-2 come from the Hasegawa
JASDF Weapons set A. With two 600 gal tank and 8 missiles the aircraft is very
heavy (now you can understand why it had wings crack problems!) so I leaved off
the center line tank as JASDF use to do when all the wings station are full. Brass
casted pitot tube and the two small aerials (made by Fine Molds) to the
sides of the nose were the last pieces I added to this kit.
I
really enjoyed this project and can't wait to start building the F-2B that is
waiting in the pending pile. Even if it is an odd type outside Japan and it will
never become as famous as his smaller and older brother (the Falcon) the F-2
gave JASDF a great boost since it can carry a double missiles loads over a
double range compared to the Mitsubishi F-1 it replaced, and the F-2 can even be
air-refuelled.
Pierpaolo
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