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I like the elegant lines of F-16's. But I somewhat got bored from all the greys, and decided to give a chance to Hasegawa's new tooling-Mitsubishi F-2. I am happy to say that it is an excellent kit which goes together well, and looks quite good with the camo and details when completed. I wish that Hasegawa re-tools the F-16 series to these standards.
Kits cockpit is very detailed and could be completed OOB even if you are an aftermarket freak like me. But I had a spare Aires AcesII seat and some leftover photoetch from old models, and I decided to use them instead of leaving them in the spares box. Even the HUD
is so thin and delicately molded that I did not tried to replace it. On other models usually HUD's look overscale. As you can see on the photo, I glued the canopy to the model before painting, and smoothed out the seam using Mr Surfacer 500. The purple thing is Humbrol's maskol.
As fas as I can see on the photos, F-2 seats are a little different from USAF AcesII seats. They have two "horn-like" thingies, canopy breakers I guess. They are easy to replicate from sheet styrene. |
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Construction was mostly trouble free. If you plan your assembly carefully, you can complete the model without filler (Except the intake of course. That's the drawback of jet models). I painted the intake Tamiya gloss white and masked it using thin strips of Tamiya tape and uhu-tac prior to painting. I also replaced all the delicate areas of the kit (pitot tube, AoA indicators, static discargers) with shaped steel needles or fishing lines. I do this on my every model to extend their life a little.
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Kit contains 3 drop tanks and 4 AAM-3 missiles, but I wanted a heavier loadout. So I loaded 4 more sparrows from Hasegawa's weapon set. I doubt that this loadout will be used operationally, I have found pictures of the plane loaded with 4 sparrows and 4 aam-3 missiles, but the underwing drop tanks are not equipped. Nevertheless, the plane is able to carry them, and I did it because it looks pretty cool and impressive.
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Every photo I found on the internet shows a different blue, ranging from very pale
blue-greys to strong contrast vivid blues. I was not sure about the exact color, and mixed my colors from Tamiya paints, which looked good to my eye. Kit instructions call for Mrcolor 14 Semigloss navy blue and Mrcolor72 Semigloss intermediate blue. I bought that colors, painted a scrap test model, but they looked too dark and too grey to my eye. I wanted a more vivid appearance like some photos, so I mixed my own colors. Forgive me if they are not accurate.
Hasegawa's decals were a little thick compared to aftermarket ones, but they are getting better in the recent releases. There are lots of tiny stencils, and you can have many happy evenings applying them. Some of the nearby stencils have a common decal carrier, it is easier to cut them and apply individually.
I did only minimal weathering, F-2A's are new and pretty clean. I cannot see a single oil streak and dirt on the photos !
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This kit is heavily recommended to jet builders.
Kaan
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