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This Special Colour Viper was
painted in June 2008 at Cervia AB (North East coast of Italy) to commemorate the
90th anniversary of the 23° Gruppo of Italian Air Force. Since I
saw it it has been love at first sight so as soon as the Zotz decals released
this decal sheet I started this project. Since I want my kit as accurate as
possible, I used a Tamiya F-16C Thunderbirds kit as a base.
I scratchbuilt the IFF antennas and
the ID light while for the tail I have to thanks Brian and Will that provided me
a couple of tails from their Kinetic F-16AM. Fitting a short "A"
tail on the F-16C fuselage need a little filler but is something any average
modeller could afford, reinforced plates in that zone will also cover much of
the filler. In this case I used Tamiya excellent PE parts.
Click on
images below to see larger images
Before painting I made a template of the two
dogs on a film of Friskett and that was used to mask the two colour on the
upper fuselage, just mind to leave 1 mm margin on the head of the
dogs. Colours are very similar to those used on gray camouflaged
F-16, I just added a drop of white to FS 36375 for the light shade and a
drop of dark blue to the darker gray.
On the Research Corner of the ARC Forums you will
find lot of photos of mine showing this peculiar airframe and see how
colours change as the light changes. This is due to the high gloss finish that
reflects the colour of the sky. I can tell you that inside the hangar and
with neon-glow lamps the dark gray looks almost oil- green!
Decal fitting was not a real
problem, just mind that those dogs are big, so take your time and cut them in
two parts if you are not an expert with large decals. Micro Sol and Set will help
decals to set perfectly to the surface even on the highly riveted
wings.
Control panel is still that of the
Tamiya kit, so while waiting for a replacement I put a pilot inside to cover
most of the interior.
Pierpaolo Maglio
Click on
images below to see larger images
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