IPMS Decal Review: Twobobs Aviation Graphics F-16C Gridiron Viper

Twobobs Aviation Graphics

F-16C Gridiron Viper -- 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 Scales

Sheet Number: 72-070 / 48-159 / 32-045

Reviewed by Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP: $12.00
Web site: http://www.twobobs.net

Well, they say if you’ve seen one Viper, you’ve seen them all. Well there ARE some really spiffy aggressor schemes that just came out, the Thunderbirds have always had good-looking planes, and some of those foreign ones, particularly Israel’s are definitely different. But the USAF’s F-16s are pretty vanilla. Then in 2006, the ANG unit at Terre Haute came up with the idea of putting the Indianapolis Colts’ logo on one of their aircraft for the 2006-2007 football season.

This resulted in a pretty spiffy looking paint job on the aircraft. It was used for flyovers at Colts’ home games, so the publicity factor was pretty good. Even better was that fact that the Colts won the Super Bowl in February 2007. Since I am originally from Illinois, I will not comment further on the fact that the Colts beat the Chicago Bears in that game.

As far as the aircraft itself, just about any F-16C can be used with these decals. Really. Since the sheet has 1/32, 1/48, and 1/72 markings, you can pull one out of the stash and build it. I chose the 1/72 Hasegawa F-16C, Thunderbirds. The build was right out of the box, using the Hasegawa decals for the cockpit interior. Once basic assembly was complete, I used the Twobobs instructions for the paint. They provide the FS colors and a very good 4-view drawing to both provide painting instructions and decal placement. The color reference also gives Gunze, Testors and Xtracrylics number references.

I put on the 36118, then masked the color line below the cockpit and sprayed on the 36270. I then masked the nose cone, and painted it 36081. It just LOOKS darker than the rest of the aircraft. I didn’t come close to finishing yet, as I didn’t want things like the nose probe, the landing gear or the canopy to get damaged during decaling. So I put on a coat of Future and after it was dry I was ready for….the decals.

I started the decals with the intention of finishing in one evening, maybe two. Not going to happen here. Many of the decals are two-piece, with a white background applied, then a black or colored second decal put on top. The AFOUA ribbon on the left side of the intake is 3 parts, white background, stripes and oak leaf clusters. It is necessary to put on the white decals, then you wait until they have dried and pretty much completely set up, before attempting to put the second decal on top.

The decals which are two-part are the tail stripe, the "Racers" logo on the bottom of the vertical stab, the aircraft serial, the names on both sides of the canopy rails, the names on the nose wheel door, and the "Super Bowl Champions" logo on the fuselage behind the canopy. I have had issues placing decals where they’re supposed to go, but with the assistance of these excellent instructions I was able to put all the white decals on exactly in the correct places. Twobobs supplies you with the 4-view drawings AND several detail photographs are outstanding. They even have a photograph of the outline of the state of Iowa, placed there when the aircraft was painted at Sioux City. Yes, you can read that on the 1/32 decal.

There was only one place where I had one of those "doh" moments. The "Super Bowl Champions" decal is on a separate sheet. I was caught off guard by the fact that this decal was NOT on separated decal film like all the others. So when I cut it and dipped it, and tried to hold the paper with the tweezers while I slid the decal off the paper, it wouldn’t budge. I had to move the decal a bit to get an open spot on the paper to hold onto. I also had a bit of a silvering problem with the second decal on the nose gear door, but a light application of Micro-Sol ® made it lie down and behave.

Now it was just a case of putting all the fiddly and breakable parts on the Viper. I built the model with the canopy open because there were some fit issues I just didn’t want to deal with. This is a decal review, and I’m just not going there.

Overall, I highly recommend these decals. They are an interesting and offbeat set of markings. Most red-blooded American boys like football and airplanes, and here’s an opportunity to combine them. Mix an interesting scheme with outstanding instructions and great decals, and you have a winner. Well, except for the Bears. (sniffle)

If you’ve put off building a U.S. F-16 because the markings just don’t work for you, take a good look at this sheet. And if you think you MIGHT be interested in this sheet, buy it now, before they go out of production and you have to pay double on some auction site.

Thanks to Twobobs for providing the decal sheet, and IPMS/USA for the motivation to build that Lawn Dart that’s been hiding in my stash for 10+ years.

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