Hasegawa

F-16 Egg Plane

Kit Number: 60103

Reviewed by  Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP: $15.95 Distributor's website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com The concept of the Hasegawa "egg plane" has been around for about 20 years. At the end of this review you can see a comparison photo of the Hasegawa F-16 egg plane and a 20-year-old Hasegawa F-4 Phantom egg plane. One thing that has been lost is that Hasegawa originally listed the scale as "Grade A Large". The kit This is NOT a snap kit, but it is quite simple. It is nicely molded, includes a pilot figure, and requires minimal skills to do a very nice-looking assembly. I’m your man for the "minimal skills" part. The mold is new, and flash free. There is a single sprue for the solid parts and a clear one that has the very large canopy. The decal sheet is quite detailed and pretty complex. Markings are for a USAF bird and a Dutch Viper.

Assembly As I said above, there are no big challenges to putting this model together. Everything fits cleanly. I had to scrape the seam under the intake and along the sides of the forward fuselage, but no putty, filler or other work was required. It took less than 90 minutes from first cut to being pretty much assembled. Painting This isn’t my first F-16, so the colors were familiar. The paint call-outs with FS 595 references were good. Brush painting the tires and the pilot took a while otherwise this was fairly easy. It took longer to clean the airbrush than to apply each color. I deviated from the painting instructions on the pilot. I painted both the visor and the oxygen mask black and, to differentiate them, I coated the visor with Future to bring out the gloss. Decals I decided to do the Netherlands Air Force F-16 because of personal preference. It’s a war story and, if you want to hear it, you need to ask. The large fuselage roundels required an application of Micro-Sol to get them to snuggle. The rear fuselage has a complex curve and the large marking tends to want to fold or crimp instead of laying down nicely. The decals are thin enough to look good, but aren’t prone to deform or split when handled. Overall Recommended. This would be a great starter kit for a less experienced modeler. Everything fits and there aren’t a lot of fiddly parts. It was, quite frankly, a real blast to build. There aren’t any issues about shape, length, or parts placement, because IT’S AN EGG!! Since it’s listed as a "limited run" kit, you’d better stock up while you can if you’re thinking about getting more of this series. I bought my new Egg Phantom last week. Thanks to Dragon Models USA for the review kit, and IPMS/USA for the chance to remember that "modeling is FUN".