Kinetic's 1/48 scale
F-16I Sufa

by Mick Evans

HyperScale is proudly supported by Squadron

Lucky Model is now offering colour photo-etched frets from Eduard for Kinetic's 1/48 scale two-seater F-16 kits on their website. The colour photo-etch may be purchased for only 99c in conjunction with one of the Kinetic kits.

Kinetic’s 1/48 scale Barak and Sufa kits feature at least 70% of parts in common with each other as detailed in my in-box review, which appears elsewhere on HyperScale.

The Kinetic Sufa was quite easy to build and really has only two problems. One is minor and the other provisional.  The first issue is that the conformal tanks required a bit of trimming and dry fitting to achieve a good fit.

Secondly, the most common features of the Sufa is that it usually carries two Israeli built 600 gallon tanks with a modified wing pylon. These are not supplied by Kinetic.  No problem though, as I had heard that the Hasegawa Mitsubishi F-2 has these included in the kit and, voila, the one in my model stash did.  I thought that I could modify a Hasegawa F-15 600 gallon tank but alas the rear of the tank narrows down too quickly and is quite noticeable, so my F-2 tanks were fitted to the Sufa.

The rest of the kit goes together quite nicely with no real fit issues and very little filler was needed to fill any joint lines.

The kit was finished as an F-16I Sufa of the Negev Fighter Squadron, and was painted completely in Xtra Color paints, available from Hannants.

The weapons fit out includes 2 Skunkmodel Works Rafael Spice guided bombs and Rafael Python-4 air to air guided missile from their 1/48 scale IDF Weapons Set.  These weapons were a delight to build and look great as specific Israeli weapons on an Israeli aircraft.  The other load fit is the 2 x 600 gallon tanks robbed from my Hasegawa Mitsubishi F-2 and 2 x Kinetic AIM9L Sidewinder Air to Air Missiles and a centreline tank.

This is probably the maximum load out for an F-16 and would certainly need some grunt to get into the air, but it does look mean and awesome.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• 

Thumbnail panels:

Model and Text Copyright © 2009 by Mick Evans
Images Copyright © 2009 by Brett Green
Page Created 18 August, 2009
Last Updated 20 August, 2009

Back to HyperScale Main Page