The heat is off, the airbrush is cleaned, and now its time to get some work done. The last two weeks have been spent rigorously researching F-16 blocks, and cross referencing them to my available kits. Now its serious bench time. First up is finishing the Navy Vipers.

Viper Mania

The last year has been an excellent one for F-16 modelers.

First Tamiya came out with their F-16C block 25 and block 50 versions. In many respects these kits surpass the Hasegawa kits in detail. They also include AIM-9X and AIM-120C missiles and ALQ-184 pods, as wells as towed decoys and LITENING pods, and have excellent markings.

Then Kinetic came out with their excellent F-16 kits, the first being the F-16AM. Despite some shape problems, this kit also has excellent detail. Its worth it alone for the weapons options. There is enough armament to arm 7-8 F-16s. There are 8 AIM-120s (B & C) and 8 AIM-9s (M & X), plus LITENING and SNIPER pods, and AGM-65 Mavericks, including the first release of the LAU-117 launcher. Additional stores are MK82s, JDAMs, CBUs, GBUs (2 types), and Penquin missiles.

Tamiya has continued by releasing an Aggressor/Adversary version including parts to make any block 30/32/42 including the rare WAR HUD. New stores include the ACMI pod, chin pods and the ALQ-188. The original parts form the AIM-120s, AIM-9s and ALQ-184 are still there. Markings are provided for the 3 current USAF aggressor schemes and a rare Navy Top Gun blue F-16N.

Adding these kits to my production line has greatly increased the range of F-16 variants in my collection.