"Fighting Falcon"

Lockheed Martin F-16C

in 1:33 scale
from Halinski (Poland)

Model and Review by Don Weston

Photographs by the author

CHARACTERISTICS

HISTORY

The F-16A, a single-seat model, first flew in December 1976. The first operational F-16A was delivered in January 1979 to the 388^th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

The F-16B, a two-seat model, has a tandem cockpit that is about the same size as that in the A model. Its bubble canopy extends to cover the second cockpit. To make room for the second cockpit, the forward fuselage fuel tank and avionics growth space were reduced. During training, the forward cockpit is used by a student pilot with an instructor in the rear cockpit.

All F-16s delivered since November 1981 have built-in structural and wiring provisions and systems architecture that permit expansion of the multi role flexibility to perform precision strike, night attack and beyond-visual-range interception missions. This improvement program led to the F-16C and F-16D aircraft, which are the single- and two-place counterparts to the F-16A/B, and incorporate the latest cockpit control and display technology. All active units and nearly all Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units have converted to the F-16C/D.

The F-16 was built under an unusual agreement that created a consortium between the United States and four NATO countries: Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. These countries jointly produced with the United States an initial 348 F-16s for their air forces. Final airframe assembly lines were located in Belgium and the Netherlands. The consortium's F-16s are assembled from components manufactured in all five countries. Belgium also provided final assembly of the F100 engine used in the European F-16s. Recently, Portugal joined the consortium. The long-term benefits of this program include technology transfer among the nations producing the F-16, and inter-operability provided by equipment commonality among NATO nations. This program increases the supply and availability of repair parts in Europe and improves the F-16's combat readiness.

U.S. Air Force F-16 multi-mission fighters were deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1991 in support of Operation Desert Storm, and they flew more sorties than any other aircraft. These fighters were used to attack airfields, military production facilities, Scud missiles sites and a variety of other targets.

F-16s from the U.S. and allies have been a major player in peace keeping operations under a variety of operational names including operations over Iraq since 1991 and over the Balkans since 1993. The aircraft played a major role in Operation Deliberate Force over Bosnia in 1995 that resulted in the Dayton Peace Accords. In Operation Allied Force, over Kosovo and Serbia in 1999, Air Force F-16 multi-mission fighters flew a variety of missions to include suppression of enemy air defense, offensive counter air, defensive counter air, close air support and forward air controller missions. Mission results were outstanding, as these fighters destroyed radar sites, vehicles, tanks, MiGs and buildings.

Following the terrorists attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, F-16s comprised the bulk of the fighter force protecting the skies of the United States in Operation Noble Eagle. F-16s have also played a major role in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom.

The F-16 is the world's most sought-after fighter. More than 4,300 have been delivered or are on order by 23 nations, with 2,230 of these going to the Air Force. Production is expected to continue beyond 2010, and the aircraft is expected to remain in worldwide service beyond 2030.

THE MODEL

The Halinski 1:33 scale F-16 is designed and sold by Andrzej Halinski Models. The kit can be purchased directly from Halinski or from PMI Models in the U.S. The kit I built for this review was purchased on eBay. Given that this was an eBay purchase, I was not able to get the preformed canopy along with the model. If you order the kit from PMI or Halinski, I highly recommend getting the vacuformed canopy with it. The kit comes in book form and is printed on various weights of high quality paper. It contains approximately 1100 Parts printed on 14 A2 sized sheets (approximately 11.5" x 16.5"). The instructions are printed in Polish with several good diagrams illustrating parts placement.

CONSTRUCTION

Preparation Construction started with lamination of the bulkhead parts to a thick cardboard substrate. For this model I chose to use the cardboard from shirt packages because it provided the 2mm thickness without the hassle of building up several layers. The model does require some of the parts to be thickened to 1mm so they were laminated to a double ply manila folder material.
After prepping the bulkhead parts, I decided to come up with a plan for building the model. Since the Instructions are in polish, using the diagrams becomes extremely important. The good news with this model is that the parts are laid out in groups by plane section. Section I is the cockpit section, Section II the nose section, and so on. The numbered parts correspond to the sections they belong to as well. This made it simple to determine the location of most of the parts.
Fuselage Framing The design of the fuselage is primarily slot and tab construction. The pieces fit well but require a bit of dry fitting to get the assembly sequence right. This wasn't a problem per se — just me being a little over-cautious.
The parts shown glued to the rear bulkhead in the following pictures provide a surface on which the fuselage skin can be glued. They also help maintain the proper shape for the skin. The placement of these pieces was a little vague in the diagram, so I decided to put several photos of the process in this review to help others out.
Here you can see the back side of the bulkhead and the placement of spacer pieces for the fuselage section that connects the cockpit section to the body.
Here are two photos showing assembly of the cockpit. The cockpit on this model is highly detailed and has several small pieces for the throttle, joystick and HUD. I left those out until final assembly so I wouldn't knock them off accidentally.
Moving on, I started the air intake and front gear assembly. The card formers are a little flimsy, even with the heavy card stock, so handle with care.
The Main body construction was pretty straightforward. The pieces are interlocking, so be sure to dry fit them before gluing.
Skinning Having completed the internal framing of the plane, I started applying the skin to the frame sections. I used markers on the skin edges to hide the cut lines.
The skin sections fit very well on this model. The hull lines matched perfectly.
This section of the hull was a little tricky. There are no bulkheads in it, so the body has no internal strengtheners. I just wrapped the skin around the rear bulkhead former and closed the skin section on the bottom. then I inserted the nose section carefully after applying glue to the inside of the skin.
The body flairs into the wings at this point. Each flair consists of two skin pieces joined at the leading edge. This assembly glues to the bulkhead former that extends beyond the fuselage body.
The back edges of the flair pieces are glued to the bulkhead former of the main body.
Next I added the covered intake section, and added the two pieces that form the "V" between the air intake and the body.
There were no surprises when I skinned the main body. Here are several photos showing the progression of the skin being added.
Well, okay — there was one small problem here. I realized that the former under the skin at the rear of the fuselage was going to cause a gap in the rudder section that mounts at this point. I opened the skin and removed enough former material so the rudder would sit properly. This section of the former should have been designed flat since there is a flat former in the base of the rudder that attaches to the body. It's easily corrected, but probably should be brought to the designer's attention.
Having made my correction, I mounted the rudder base.
Even with the correction, there was still a slight gap here. I had to add some filler and paint to hide it.
Wings and Stabilizer The wings and stabilizers are folded and glued along the trailing edge.
NOTE: be sure to use the correct former in each wing. The center wing former is cut to give the base wing mount the proper angle to attach to the body. If you get it in upside down the wings will have a slight upward bow when you attach them to the body. I found this out the hard way.
Landing Gear Here is the nose gear assembly. It is highly detailed and has several small pieces. I reinforced it with wire and used CA (cyanoacrylate) glue to mount it to the body.
The main gear is built and attached in a similar fashion.
Before I glued the main gear in place, I checked the level on the body. Here is a little jig I created to allow me to set the body level and mark the final position of the gears before glue was applied. [Editor's note: This is a neat little trick using an inexpensive level available in most hardware shops. Worth a Modeling Tips Award (if we offered one)!]
After the gears were mounted, I moved on to some of the final assembly steps. Here I've started adding the bits and pieces to the cockpit.
Next I made the afterburner nozzle. It looked a little deformed during assembly, but the final product came out quite nicely.
Here is the nose cone assembly just prior to mounting.

Final Assembly

Final assembly included mounting the wings, rudder, weapons and the pitot tubes and such. Below are several pictures of the finished model. One special note: since I didn't have a purchased vacuform canopy and I don't like the sectional formed canopies, I decided to make my own vacuform rig. If you look in the cockpit close-up below you can see the extra effort was well worth it. One detail that I spent some time working on was the appearance of the weapons. For a model this detailed, I would have expected the designer to spend as much time on the missiles as the plane. I was able to get some decent information from Raytheon on how they were supposed to look. A little paint and a few extra pieces made some passable weapons out of what was provided.

CONCLUSIONS

This model was a thrill to build. The detail is awesome and the fit is great. I enjoyed the challenge of having to figure out the assembly from the diagrams, and I would highly recommend this model to experienced builders. On a sad note, my model met an early demise during a furniture move. A gust of wind knocked it off the shelf and I stepped on it while I was moving a mattress. I was really upset about that until I realized, "Hey, I get to build the model again." GRIN.

Summary:

Model:	F-16C
Kit:	Andrzej Halinski Models 1/99
Designers:	Andrzej Halinski Models
Scale:	1:33
Difficulty:	Difficult
Instructions:	Polish
Diagrams:	Several diagrams, one for each major assembly. Parts placement is not too hard using these.
Fit:	Excellent
Coloring and Artwork:	Very good; bombs and missiles needed to be recolored, though. Metallic parts have a metallic printed finish. Very nice!
Printing:	Printing on this model is excellent.
Resources:	Interactive F-16 reference Raytheon Web Site (Good info on weapons for aircraft)

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