Aires

1/48 F-16 Falcon Block 52 Exhaust Nozzle For the Kinetic kit

Stock Number: 4427

Reviewed By  Charles Landrum, IPMS# 26328

MSRP: $23.95 Website: www.aires.cz Kinetic, with the release of its family of F-16 fighters, has really increased the availability of F-16. The Kinetic kits have come under criticism for soft and inaccurate details. Still they offer a lot of plastic for the dollar including detail and under-wing stores. As with most jet kits the engine detail is good but not spectacular as it a simplification of the complex P&W F100-PW-200. Aires has released a replacement P&W exhaust nozzle for the Kinetic Block 52 aircraft, -C and -D models that will allow the modeler to significantly increase the eye appeal their model.

This Aires offering is a multi-media kit with resin and photoetched components. The resin detail in extremely nice, creating a much more realistic nozzle that looks like it could operate. They achieve this in just five resin components, superbly cast in a durable grey resin without flaws. The parts break down is simple and consists of the burner can, the turbine blades, the engine petals, the actuating mechanism and aft end of the fuselage. They have thin attachments points to make removal easy and the location will not be visible after assembly. The one fret of PE details is the afterburner ring, which is double-relief etched with fine attachment points. If these components look familiar, they should - with the exception of the tail fairing, the rest of the parts are the same as the ones offered in Aires set 4387, the one designed for the Tamiya F-16C Block 25/32. The outside looks identical. What is different is the inner ring to on which the petal assembly mounts, which is thicker and has a key notched in. Everything is interchangeable with the previous set and this tail fairing fits the Tamiya kit perfectly. My guess is that Aires reengineered the master for the fairing to improve the inner mating surface, which was less secure in the earlier release. Since I built up the earlier release I have included my images from that review to show how nice the assembly looks when built.

This is a very nice detail set that is a significant enhancement to the Kinetic F-16. Aires has come down on the price of these sets and at $24 they are a good value. Highly recommended. My thanks to Aires for the review sample.