Greetings!
Would love to use the much-maligned but classic Hasegawa 1/32 F-16A of my childhood to build one of the early ones, such as “001” that debuted at Hill AFB in the late 1970s, with the black radome and full color data- but I don’t see any 1/32 “Early F-16A” decals, or ones for the Reagan Era.
Photos of “001” at Hill AFB show it with the early black radome, and black and yellow checkerboard tail markings. I can dig into my epic, decades-old spares box to find a simple black “HL” and “AF 78/ 001,” but how do I nail that elaborate checkerboard tail stripe?
The fact that the tail has a small black and yellow checkerboard, I’m at a loss to do that from scratch; seems like the yellow stripe could be painted- but how do you get some 50 individual, small black checkers? Imagine lining up 50 tiny checkers with a magnifying glass, then you drop some MicroSol or SolvaSet, and they scatter…
Do any of you know of any decal sheets for Hill AFB A/C of the period, where I could maybe adapt the yellow and black tail stripe, or other markings?
Or might there be a template to make a simple decal at home, 1/32 black staggered checkerboards only- then lay that on top of a yellow painted tail stripe?
I enjoy modeling the Reagan Era- not in spite of, but because of the weird lack of coverage- the stuff out there jumps from 'Nam 1969 to Desert Storm 1991.
It’s wacky that there are so many decals for F-16s; even saw one for a more recent exotic one that was flown by AI…yet for just basic, classic late Cold War/ Reagan Era 1980s F-16As in 1/32 scale, it’s like I’m looking into a canyon…not finding them.
Caracal’s 'Early" series sheets are brilliant, but not yet in 1/32 scale.
Any advice? BTW, I dug into the spares box and do have lots of variants of 1/32 full color F-16 stencil data- Microscale did a great sheet way back when, with that unique salmon color data. I have the book on “The Early Viper,” too.
But for an early Hill AFB F-16A specifically in the Reagan Era, I’m not seeing the tail stripe, squadron and group markings, etc.
And while the “gold F-16 canopy” has become a stereotype, it seems that they weren’t retrofitted until the late 1980s or so, so I can live with Hasegawa’s Plain Jane clear one…
Are there any sheets out there that I can kitbash, or shall we say, sheetbash?
Your advice appreciated! Model on.
Best, Christian