F-16 ACES II Seats

Sierra Hotel Models, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Craig Sargent

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Just over 7 years ago, Tamiya released their 1/48 F-16C Block 50, and then followed this up with Block 25/32 and F-16C/N boxings.

A little over 2 years after Tamiya’s initial release, Kinetic started into a family of F-16s in 1/48 as well. Apart from some shape issues with the Kinetic kits (outside the scope of this review), the two manufacturers managed to produce modern tooled kits of one of the most prolific designs in recent times.

One of the biggest points of the design is the large single piece clamshell canopy, allowing pilots pretty close to optimal visibility – a big plus in a jet designed initially as an air-to-air dogfighter. With that being said, in a scale model, that large transparency also offers excellent visibility into the cockpit of the scale jet as well.

Both Tamiya and Kinetic offer very nice multi-part assemblies to represent the Falcon fighter jocks’ place of work. One area which can use a little refinement are the seats, being perhaps the most visible part of the interior. While there have been a number of aftermarket ACES II seats available for the Viper over the years, they have tended to be pretty generic, with very few manufacturers picking up the subtle differences in seat models and workday vagueries of the type.

It is into this space that Sierra Hotel Models offer some of their more recent products with no less than 5 different ACES II seats representing various models and layouts.

Each of the sets comes with the seat cast in a medium grey resin with no casting flaws – not a single mould tear, or seam, or air bubble to be seen. Clean up of these will be very easy and the amount of detail offered has not been previously available in a 1/48 ACES II.

48223  F-16 Aces II Seat - Early / Loose Harnesses

The Early and Standard seats (sets 48223, 48225, 48226 and 48227) also include a second resin casting, which holds the seat ejection handle, to mount in front of the lower seat pan, and a pair of the headrest mounted pitot tubes. The Late seat (set 48230) does away with this casting as the ejection handle is moulded to the same casting block as the seat, and the late seat has the spring loaded pitot tubes moulded integral to the headrest of the seat casting.

48225 F-16 Aces II Seat - Standard/Crew Ready Harnesses

The Early seat has a different cushion on the back of the seat for the pilot featuring a smooh front, whereas the others have a ribbed style cushion in the same place. The Late seat as mentioned has the integrally moulded spring loaded pitots. The rest of the differences come in the layout of the lap belts.

48226  F-16 Aces II Seat - Standard Stowed Harnesses

All of the seats come with the FLCS data recorder box moulded to the upper port side of the seat, so check the jet you are modelling, as not all of them have this box fitted to the seat, particularly if you are adapting one of these seats to an earlier jet or a two-seater.

 48227 F-16 Aces II Seat - Standard / Loose Harnesses 

The only issue I can see with construction is the cleanup and separation from the casting block. Due to the size and position of the casting block some care will be needed, but anyone with experience using resin aftermarket will not have any issues.

48230  F-16 Aces II Seat - Late / Loose Harness

The seats, while designed for the Tamiya kits (in the case of the Early and Late seats) and the Tamiya or Kinetic kits (Standard seats), may be able to be adapted to the Hasegawa kits as well, but will need the kit seat rails modified, or new rails scratchbuilt, as they are moulded integrally with the Hasegawa kit seat back. Likewise, some surgery will be needed for those seats used with the Kinetic kits, and the images below illustrate how this is done.

Kit ejection seats are always a very visible part of the cockpit of any modern jet model. These offerings from SHM will allow a level of additional detail in the F-16 cockpit and with careful painting, will provide the modeler with very accurate renditions of the escape system used in the Viper. The quality of casting is superb, and minimal cleanup and assembly will allow these to be easily and quickly finished.

Highly Recommended.

Thanks to Sierra Hotel Models for the samples and images.

Review Text Copyright © 2014 by Craig Sargent
Page Created 3 November, 2014
Last updated 3 November, 2014

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