Subject: Re: HLJ - Hasegawa,,1/48 F/A-18A++ Hornet VMFA-115 Silver Eagles
From: "Submissions for ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "Dave Johnson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2010 17:04:55 -0700

Hi,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks again for sending it in.

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com

Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dave Johnson 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 2:09 AM
  Subject: HLJ - Hasegawa,,1/48 F/A-18A++ Hornet VMFA-115 Silver Eagles

    Hasegawa

    1/48 F/A-18A++ Hornet VMFA-115 Silver Eagles

    Limited Release

    Product # 09920 (http://www.hlj.com/product/HSG09920) from HobbyLink Japan (http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljlist.cgi?rel=nav&GenreCode=Air)

    Product Article by Dave Johnson on  September 2010

    History

    The McDonnell Douglas Hornet is a supersonic, all-weather carrier-capable multirole fighter jet, designed to dogfight and attack ground targets. The F/A-18 was derived from the YF-17 in the 1970s for use by the United States Navy and Marine Corps. The Hornet is also used by the air forces of several other nations like Australia, Canada, Finland, Kuwait, Malaysia, Spain and Switzerland. 

    The F/A 18 versatility and reliability have proven it to be a valuable carrier asset, though it has been criticized for its lack of range and payload compared to its earlier contemporaries, such as the F-14 Tomcat  in the fighter and strike fighter role, and the A-6 and A-7 in the attack role.

    McDonnell Douglas rolled out the first F/A-18A on 13 September 1978, in blue-on-white colours marked with "Navy" on the left and "Marines" on the right. Its first flight was on 18 November.  The Hornet entered operational service with Marine Corps squadron VMFA-314 at MCAS El Toro on 7 January 1983, and with Navy squadron VFA-113 in March 1983, replacing F-4s and A-7E's. The F/A-18 first saw combat action in April 1986, when VFA-131 Hornets from USS Coral Sea flew missions against Libyan air defences during Operation Prairie. 

    The Kit

    As everyone knows in the modelling world that Hasegawa love to re-release their kits in limited editions with different markings and schemes offered. This has been the case with the Hasegawa's tooling of the F/A-18. The different variants F/A-18 family has been covered well by Hasegawa and this limited release has 2 different marking schemes from the Marine Corps VMFA-115 Silver Eagles. 

    The kit is moulded in light grey and clear injected plastic on 8 sprues that contains 226 parts. The landing gears are also included in white metal and a sheet of photo etch containing 15 parts. The upper fuselage is moulded in one piece with the upper wings. The mould has been set up to be used as the two-seater version, but the kit supplies the required plugs and fairings for the single seat version. The cockpit comes with sufficient detail straight out of the box, but there are a few aftermarket companies that offer some fantastic resin replacements, if the modeller wishes to go down that road. The model also offers the leading and trailing flaps that can be positioned up or down. 

    With this boxing of the F/A-18A++, there are no wing armament supplied within the box. So if you wish to hang some ordnance off those wings you will need to purchase the Hasegawa weapon sets or any aftermarket items that are on offer. The kit does supply a pair of underwing external drop tanks.  

    The decals are nicely printed and are very crisp and printed in perfect register and have a very small amount of carrier film. It appears that Hasegawa have changed their decal suppler or decal paper they use, which is great in my books. In older kits the white is always a cream colour and not white.. Well, with new paper that they are using the white is white! I just recently used some decals from an new release from Hasegawa and their new decals are super thin and set down very nicely with a small amount of Mircosol. The two schemes included in this box are for -

    F/A-18A++, VE201 (162903), USMC, VMFA-115 Silver Eagles, Capt 2009.

     F/A-18A+, VE201 (163140), USMC, VMFA-115 Silver Eagles, Capt 2008.

    Overall the kit is highly detailed with crisp and fine panel lines on the exterior. You should be able to get a fantastic looking Hornet straight from the box, but if you wish to go crazy there is a ton of aftermarket items out there that can be used on this kit. I am sure if you chose to go down this road you could end up with a jaw-dropper. As most Hasegawa kits go together with minimum hassle, this kit would be recommended to any level of modeller. In my books, Hasegawa's F/A18 Hornet kits are the best on the market in all scales and retain the best in the 1/48 range.

    I would like to thank HobbyLink Japan (www.hlj.com) for this review sample.