I will be building Academy’s F-111A for my uncle who worked on them in the USAF. I already built an F-100D for my uncle, which he greatly appreciated, and he has asked for the F-111A and a T-33A, so I have acquired both kits. I will post progress pics as often as possible, but I’m a little slower than most with building as life/work are demanding. The “Hun” was my first model since childhood, which seems to be more distant every day. I was satisfied with the outcome, although there were certainly areas for improvement. I have purchased and read a lot of the book by AK Interactive “Aircraft Scale Modeling F.A.Q.”. In my opinion if scale modeling aircraft were a college course this would be the textbook! So with this I hope to acquire better skills and models. If anyone sees something wrong or “off” let me know, I can handle criticism. Also any tips or tricks that are helpful, let me know!
Here’s a pic of the box art:
Here is a pic of the trees, you’ll notice the kit has been painted. This is how I received my “New” kit from an Ebay seller. Beware! I believe it shouldn’t be an issue since I will be using Vallejo primer as my base.
Thanks for looking in, and hopefully I’ll be making progress soon.
Will be watching this. I recently finishged the Italeri 72nd 111A in the same unit markings as the one on your box, will be looking forward to seeing your progress.
Hoo-Rah! I used to work F-111 and EF-111s during the Gulf War and several subsequent deployments. Really HUGE, really cool aircraft. Watching them take-off in full afterburner at night was incredible…have fun building the kit, because structurally, the real aircraft was a #@$&% to work on!!!
I built an old Airfix 1:72 F-111A a few years ago…it turned out pretty nice.
The earliest kit of the F-111 I remember was the Revell kit of the F-111B (as in Bravo). At the time of the F-111 development the Government had a requirement that all air craft be usable by all of the services, that is the USN, USMC, and USAF, e.g. the F-4. The F-111 B was the Navy version. As it turned out the aircraft was to heavy and to large for carrier operations. The project was the TFX project and it was the first operational variable geometry (swing wing) aircraft to go into production. The aircraft has a lot of “NEW” technology incorporated into it and it went through a lot of developmental growing pains, e.g. the swing wing, crew ejection capsual, ground folowing radar, and a lot more. It survived several attempts by Congress to scrap the project and history has proven the aircraft a great success. I look forward to your build.
I love the F-111. That’s the planes we had and maintained when I was in the AF in the late 80’s. We had the -D versions and our sister base had the EF models. Such a cool aircraft, far underrated in my opinion. Gonna love watching this one come together.
Here’s a quick update thus far. Got a little done over the weekend and today on my day off.
So far I have found the plastic to be quite soft, easy to cut and the gluing with Tamiya thin is like WOW. Melts like butter!
Mostly just the typical scraping seam lines and sanding to fit. One peice I did have a little problem with was the beam in the middle of the rear landing gear. The instructions weren’t all that clear, but after quite a bit of grinding and dry fitting, I believe I have got it right.
Here are the sub-assemblies so far:
Thanks for looking, hopefully have more in a week or so!
And according to my Dad, who flew a few of those, nobody liked them. The fighter jocks kept calling them a bomber, hoping to pawn them off on the bomber squadrons, and the bomber guys kept saying they were a fighter, hoping to dump them on the fighter squadrons. [:)]
Here is my update, thanks for your patience gents. I have gotten the office pretty much painted and ready for assembly. I attempted to apply highlights and am contemplating doing a wash over it all. Any thoughts on that? Here are all the parts for the cockpit:
Here is the front control panel. I like how it turned out. The color gauges are just to busy it up, not for accuracy. I used a toothpick to drop some Pledge into the radar/scope areas. Basically the whole panel was painted then lightly sanded to reveal the raised areas.
The seats were not that great for this kit, but it is what it is. I really like how the head rests came out. Vallejo flat red as a base, then vallejo fire red dry brushed:
The other control panel done the same as the main, painted then sanded back.
The rear bulkhead is pretty plain. Med gray then drybrushed with lighter for some highlights:
Thanks for looking in, hopfully these will all be glued up for my next update soon!
I think this is my personal best, it’s a good feeling to have it turn out this well. Now to get the rest of this bird to turn out as well. Thanks for looking in, and for any comments/constructive criticism.
Martin
