Kit Info
Manufacturer: Hasegawa
Scale: 1/72
Media: Injection + PE
Parts: 150 (75 x 2)
Price: IDR 308,000 (est. USD 35)
The Subject
The Lockheed Martin (was General Dynamics) F-16 Fighting Falcon is one of the most produced combat aircraft in the world today. Originally designed as lightweight day fighter, it has evolved into an all-weather multirole aircraft.
The F-16A/ADF (Air Defence Fighter) was a special variant developed for the United States Air National Guard to fulfill their air interception mission. Modifications include upgraded avionics, a spotlight near the cockpit and the capability to fire AIM-7 Sparrow missiles. The ADF were slowly retired from US service beginning in 1994.
Under Peace Caesar, the Italian Air Force leased 30 ADFs in 2001 to fulfill their air defense requirement pending the arrival of the Eurofighter Typhoon. The lease was for 5 years with the option to extend to 10 years. The ADFs were taken out of storage, refurbished and delivered in 2003 to 2004.
The Kit
Hasegawa has been doing something new with their kits lately. They’re packing 2 of the same kit together and adding new decals to them. With this release though, Hasegawa has finally released the ADF variant which prior to this, was only available from Fujimi in 1/72 scale.
Now Hasegawa sometimes has the tendency to just repack their existing kits and call it XXX variant without bothering with adding the parts needed to make said variant. So at first I was a bit wary. What a pleasant surprise though…
Each F-16 kit comes with not just an additional tree of ADF-specific parts, the set also includes PE parts to simulate the reinforcement plates that were put onto the F-16A/ADF airframes.
The new parts include: new vertical fin with a bulge on the base, IFF ‘Bird slicers’ on the nose in front of the canopy, LAU-137 rails for AIM-120 AMRAAMS and AMRAAM missiles themselves. Both LAU-137 for the wingtips and the outboard stations are included.
Also typical of Hasegawa, they have included all the parts from the original kits, so you can build a Block 15 F-16A out of the box. Nice. One minor mention is unlike previous kits, Hasegawa actually bothered to bag the canopies separately, thereby reducing the occurrences of the canopy being scratched while being transported.
The kits are showing their age with some flash here and there but the details are still crisp. If memory serves me, they will pretty much be shake and bake kits too.
This set is a combination of 2 special schemed Italian Air Force Vipers. And they are very colorful:
Stencils included are only for those that appear with the special schemes. Atypical of Hasegawa printed decals, the whites do appear white although they are abit thick compared to those from Microscale or Cartograph.
All in all, a very nice set of kits with very nice markings. With the OOP status of the Fujimi F-16A/ADF, this set is currently the only game in town for this F-16 variant. Being a ‘photo’ box cover, this is most likely a limited production from Hasegawa, so grab one while you can.