Small Scale Military Headquarters

Greetings

I ordered this about a month ago from Jack at Skyworks and today it arrived at my doorstep. Jack says it is one of the hardest 1/18 paint schemes to do. This was originally a BadCat exclusive F-16 I had gotten from Kevrut. I had lost the pitot tube but Jack fashioned a new one for me. It looks great displayed. I took a little bit of the white off putting it together that I want to touchup but Jack did a nice job with this aircraft.

I wanted it modeled after Nicole Malachowski's jet as she was the first woman to fly on the Thunderbirds. Jack even managed to do the decals with her name.

Enjoy

Corey

Man!!! That looks great!

That is very sweet!

Awesome!! Not even BBI could do that great of a job! It looks almost perfect.

Glad to see my photo was put to good use!!

The only "constructive" criticism is that it really needs a polished or chromed up tail pipe. But it does look nice.

Beautiful!!

Greetings:

To address a couple of replies:

I am defintely going to give this a chrome tailpipe. That and a few minor touchups and it will be good to go. Jack advised to wait until everything dried completely to do this. I may also give it a coat of clear coat. Jack clear coated the tail where there are so many decals but not the rest of the model. I may do this to seal everything once the touchups and the chrome tailpipe are done.

To be clear I'm not complaining and I am totally satisfied with his work and the model is awesome, these are just little things I think would be cool to do.

Thank you for the photo Plane Nuts. There was also someone at the airshowbuzz forum who provided a couple of good photos as well. I really wanted Nicole's plane and Jack delivered on that promise.

Jack was awesome to work with. He kept me very up to date on the progress of the model and was nice to talk to. He gave me some very helpful tips on doing custom paint work and made me really see it is not easy to do.

I'm just glad to have a Thunderbird F-16 finally.

Corey

Wow, what a great job he did!

-Ski

For the tail you can use this:
http://www.bare-metal.com/How-to-use-Ba ... -Foil.html
Yoxford pasted this link originally

Greetings:

I wanted to share some more photos of this truly beautiful aircraft and share some more about my business with Jack and this project.

First off, there are a few people to thank for this project. Boardmembers Plane Nuts and Waltz41 provided pictures of Major Malachowski's Thunderbirds #3. Several members of the airshowbuzz forum also provided closeups of the cockpit so Jack do do her name as a decal. Finally, Jack deserves a word of thanks for doing the project and putting up with me and all my questions. Given this was my first experience with Jack and having a custom done outside of my own hands, I was nervous about it. I am sure I asked Jack more questions than he ever thought possible. I greatly thank Jack for being clear with his communications and putting up with me. I am quite happy with this project and how it turned out.

Some more photos of the model. I hope to get it outside to get some pictures one of these days.



This is what the original model looked like before being sent to Jack. I acquired this in a trade from kevrut. The pitot tube was missing and I had been using a spare one from the 21st Century F-104. Jack made me a new one that looks much more authentic and is a harder plastic.



This is how the model looked after delivery from Jack. Jack packed it really well and it arrived safely. All decals were in place and the model was ready to display right away upon arrival.



This is a closeup of the decals Jack made with her name. This made the jet for me. Although it is hard to see, Major Malachowski is wearing the Thunderbirds blue and the trademark red helmet in the cockpit.



View from the back. I made a "slight" adjustment to the exhaust nozzle using Model Master Aluminum which is acceptable to me in terms of color. The paint on this model is bright and shiny.



Other side



From the back. I will eventually go inside the exhaust nozzle to touchup some of the white overspray from Jack's painting. This is very minor work though and I could leave it alone and be fine with it as well.



From the front.





Two photos of the underside. Jack did a wonderful job with this design. Jack said this is one of his hardest schemes to do, I can easily see why.



One final view of this beautiful aircraft.

My experience with Jack was a positive one. He maintains communication and does good work. He also provides helpful support and insight for his work. This F-16 will have a place right beside my Blue Angels Hornet. I would love to see a BBI one in the future for comparison, but now, I don't have to worry about it.


Regards,

Corey

wow! perfection at its finest. Damn great work, especially upon seeing the bottom of the aircraft. Jack must be half man half god, jk

Fricken' sweet!

That's one bird I missed out on.

Pretty darn nice. I love the underside work.
T

Greetings

Finally got this outside for some pictures between the rain, wind and snow showers we've been having. LOL. Crazy spring. I thought it looked much better outside with the natural light shining on the colors.

Enjoy

Corey

That is a thing of beauty! Awesome bird....thanks for sharing those pics. The outdoor shots are absolutely great!!