RAAF F-111C Pig

by Jason O'Brien, age 12

images by Brett Green

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This is the 1/48 scale Academy F-111A kit, but I decided to model it as a Royal Australian Air Force F-111C "Pig".

The kit is fairly accurate and went together quite well. I bought this kit just before Christmas 2000 and built it in the middle of 2001 when I was 12 years old.

My dad had the same kit with the Verlinden F-111F update set. After seeing the level of detail in the update set I decided to buy one myself.

The Cockpit

The first part I built was the cockpit, which was from Verlinden.

The cockpit was painted overall in model master flat gull gray with the panels painted black. The switches and overhead panel was painted according to my reference pictures. The seats were flat gull gray with the seat cushion painted black, and the headrest painted insignia red.

I cut the canopy, to show it in the open position and the canopy frames were detailed using the Verlinden photo etch and painted black.

Fuselage and Undercarriage

The fuselage and wings went together fairly well but I had a few problems. After building the cockpit and front fuselage I sat on the front section of the model. Once I fixed that the front and rear fuselage did not blend very well so I made a brace out of a paddle pop stick.

I swept the wings forward and to stop the wings from drooping I put heaps of super glue into the wing box.

The afterburner cans were from Scaledown and painted Gunze Sangyo Steel Red and dry brushed with Steel and Rust. The undercarriage was painted semi gloss white and a black wash was applied. The wheels were from Scaledown and were painted semi gloss white and tire black. On the front landing gear I added a brake line and three taxi lights.

Armament

The armament is two Red Roo Models AGM-84 harpoon missiles, two Hasegawa weapon set GBU-12 bombs, and a pave tack pod from the Verlinden update set. The harpoons were painted in Model Master semi gloss white, with a black band painted on it and an aluminium end cap. The GBU-12s were painted in model master olive drab and dry brushed with silver. The pave tack was painted Gunship Gray and a piece of window glazing as the lens.

The model was painted in the Australian low visiblity paint scheme of Gunship Gray and satin black nose cone and ECM antennas.

The original decals I used were from Aussie Decals with the 6 Squadron 60th anniversary tail art. The decals silvered badly but I did not notice it until the matt topcoat was applied. In 2003 I removed the silvered decals, used future for a gloss coat and re did the Pig as A8-130 of 1 Squadron.

I was 12 years old when I built this kit and really enjoyed building it and highly recommend this kit and the Verlinden update set.
 

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Model and Text Copyright © 2003 by Jason O'Brien
Images Copyright © 2003 by Brett Green
Page Created 21 October, 2003
Last Updated 17 March, 2004

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