"Who
ordered the pizza?" First thing was adding the "pizza
box" which sits in front of the windscreen and contains the
Combined Interrogator/Transponder (CIT). The CIT was lacking in the
prototype Super Hornet that the Italeri kit was designed after. I
used two small sheets of styrene, bent first to the contours of the
fuselage, then super glued them together to get the desired thickness.
I then superglued it to the fuselage and added putty to get the final
shape.
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on image below to see larger image
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The cockpit was modified
only with a pilot figure was from a Monogram F-15 kit, with the helmet
reshaped to look like a newer HGU-55, and a Revell F-14D ejection seat.
The canopy was tinted by dipping it in mixed green and red food
coloring dyes for the proper brown tint.
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on images below to see larger images
Okay, break out the
putty.....The gaps in the airbrakes and those weird shaped movable blocks on the
leading edge extension (LEX) were filled in with putty and sanded
over. The old legacy Hornet airbrake on the aft fuselage between the
rudders was also filled in and sanded smooth. Along with all the major
gaps in the bottom of the aircraft. I use "DAP" spackling
putty from Home Depot. It is in my opinion, much easier to use
than Squadron putty. The great thing that it is doesn't turn gritty
like Squadron's and crumble apart. It is pink in color then turns white
when dry, which makes filling white or gray areas so much easier to
identify. Although, the Italeri kit has decent recessed panel,
lines, I kept the aircraft clean after painting.
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on images below to see larger images
The Aeromaster
VFA-143 Griffin decals aka "Puking Dogs", went on surprisingly well,
however, I had to use a lot of of Microscale setting solution to get them to lie
down over the many ECM and vent bumps on the rudder tops.
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on images below to see larger images
This last photo was taken with my finger over the flash to
tone down the white out of a flash taken too close, I'm not a photographer as
you can see from my blurry pictures above, but it had a cool effect.
Take care,
Jim
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