1/48 Hasegawa F/A-18E Super Hornet

Gallery Article by Burt Gustafson on Nov 6 2015

 

      

For your viewing pleasure here are some photos of my Hasegawa F/A-18E Super Hornet.

The F/A-18E Super Hornet is a single seat, twin-engine, supersonic, all weather multirole fighter jet capable of landing and taking off from an aircraft carrier. The F/A-18E Super Hornet is extremely capable of performing the following missions: air superiority, fighter escort, reconnaissance, aerial refueling, close air support, air defense suppression and day and night precision strikes. Compared to the original F/A-18A, the Super Hornet has longer range, an aerial refueling capability, along with increased survivability and lethality. The F/A-18E Super Hornet looks like an F/A-18C but it is largely a new aircraft. It is about 20% larger, than the original Hornet. It carries more internal fuel which increases mission range and endurance over the "Legacy" Hornet.

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Construction
Construction is straight forward just by following the well illustrated instruction guide. There are no show stoppers as the parts fit is very good. I chose to arm my Super Hornet with ordnance from the Hasegawa Aircraft Weapons D kit. My Super Hornet load out consist of: 2ea GBU-31 JDAMs, 2ea GBU-16 1000lb laser guided Paveway II bombs, and 2ea GBU-12 500lb laser guided Paveway II bombs Note that I installed a lead weight in the nose cone to prevent tail sitting.

Painting
All paints for this model were Model Masters and Floquil enamel paints. Landing gears, wheel bays, and the inside of the wheel bay doors were painted with MM Flat White. The edges of the doors were painted with Floquil Signal Red. I airbrushed the vertical stabilizers and the centerline fuel tank with MM Gloss Black. The body of the AIM-120 and AIM-9X missiles were painted Light Ghost Gray. The bombs were painted with Olive Drab. The kit painting guide calls for Light Ghost Gray and Dark Ghost Gray for the fuselage, wings, horizontal stabs, However, I airbrushed the above objects with one color, Light Ghost Gray. The reason for this is because the two grays are so close in color you cannot distinguish any difference between the two grays.

Decals
Once the paint was dried a cured I hand brushed two coats of Future on the model and let it dry and cure for three days in preparation for decals. Decals for the F/A-18E Super Hornet were good. The were easily applied and adhered well to the model. The kit provided markings for only one aircraft, the CAG aircraft for the VFA-27 Royal Maces. Hasegawa decals are a bit thick which is a good thing as some of the decals for this model are large and required a some maneuvering on the model surface to get the decals in the correct position. Additionally on some of the large and long decals I cut them in into two or three pieces which made it easier to maneuver the decals into place. Note that there a lot of decals for this model.

Comments
This was an enjoyable build. This kit was no weekend project. It was a lengthy build because of all the parts and the many decals. But, it was worth it as I am very pleased with the look of the finished model. The parts fit was good, the decals were good, and the detail is excellent—no need for any after market accessories. Buyer beware, this is not a kit for novice modelers, only experienced modelers should tackle this kit.

Burt Gustafson

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Photos and text © by Burt Gustafson