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Twobobs Aviation Graphics Tiger Meet of the Americas Stock Number: 72-019 Reviewed By Stephen Bierce, #35922 |
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MSRP: $10.50 USD On the subject matter: as many military aviation enthusiasts know, the International Association of Tigers is a club made up of NATO air force units who share the common totem/mascot: predatory felines. On even-numbered years, the Tiger Meet is a combination military exercise/air show in Europe, often featuring imaginative paint schemes. Recently, this tradition of NATO has crossed the Atlantic. The first Tiger Meet of the Americas was held in 2001, and will be held on odd-numbered years. It happened at Buckley AFB, home of the Colorado Air National Guard's 120th Tactical Fighter Squadron. Twobobs' sheet commemorates two F-16s of the host unit, the squadron commander's and his exec's...the latter of which was decorated with black tiger stripes over the usual USAF tactical color scheme. (For the second TMoA at Cold Lake in 2003, the 120 TFS painted a more flamboyant tiger scheme on one of their planes and it made the covers of some aviation magazines then.) Back in October when I received these decals, I was really looking forward to getting this project started. I already had an ESCI F-16A from the four-plane AMT Thunderbirds Display set (#6325) that I wanted to build, even though the subject aircraft are both F-16Cs with GE engines and different intakes and rudders from the A. I even had plenty of reference material (both from books and the internet) handy. I guess I felt a little ambitious. Working around the decals meant modifying the method of assembly. I cut the back-seater's half off the cockpit floor (part 17) so I'd have space behind the cockpit to add weights (Pinewood Derby pieces) to make the model sit properly. I left off the empennage, the ventral fins, the landing gear, the hook and the antennae so I could concentrate on the main body work and decaling before final assembly. Problem areas in assembly (to the point I'm at now) were few, but included cleanup of the tailpipe and intake module. Fitting the cockpit into the fuselage also took a little finessing. Paint is almost entirely Testors, with their Model Master Federal Standard series enamels for the three-tone gray and baseline color enamels for detailing. I mixed up some metallic Suicide Stew for the tailpipe and it looks fine - mostly steel and Engine Silver, with some brass and gold thrown in for good measure. I've had a very busy and stressful last eight months since starting this project, and I'm not surprised that it ground to a crawl by now. There's no point going into details about it, and I know I'm the only one to blame. No fault of Twobobs or ESCI. The decals I used so far are nicely opaque, they stick very well and while the modeler needs to take some care when applying them, they're fine to work with. I'll get this done sometime soon. Thanks to John Noack, IPMS/USA, Twobobs, Big Lots and Magic Fun World Hobbies for support on this project. |
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