[Erik Zwaan]

Time flies, and so do aircraft. Early this year Yoav surprised us with a great model of the F-16A and now my non-aircraft builds up so far this year are finished, I can finally start with this bird. Yoav scales his models 1:30 and designs them without landing gear, and these are basically the only deviations to the original I intend to make during the build:
· Rescaling the model to 1:33 means printing at 91% size of the original (30 divided by 33). 160 grams A4 size paper and in this case my own ink jet printer
· Using GPM’s IAF F-16C/D landing gear, requiring few modifications to the parts concerned as there is not a full match between both models. This is something one can expect, but surprisingly there are for instance significant size differences between the main landing gear doors of both models (and consequently the wheel bay), which makes me wonder if the main landing gear of the C/D versions is different from the A version. If that’s the case, well, then that’s what it is, and I will simply have to make any alteration required to have a proper or at least an acceptable fit
Regarding the building process, Yoav’s instructions are very clear and there is great reference available on this site (Josef’s magnificent build) and a link sent to me by Yoav of a Spanish fellow named David who also fitted Yoav's F-16A with a landing gear. I hope I can match the craftsmanship of both gentlemen!
So far for the introduction, let’s start with the upper fuselage. First, all the formers. Either glued on 0.9mm or 0.5mm thick board, as instructed. There are quite a few! Then, the structure of the central fuselage. Everything came together easily and I already fitted the bottom stiffeners S1 through S5 before placing the skins. There is no need to first glue the fuselage segments and then slide in the stiffeners in between. However, don’t forget (as instructed) to sand the edges of the stiffeners and I found it useful to here and there insert small filler strips of 0.5mm board along side to get a better grip on the side tabs during installation of the fuselage segments.
The trickiest segment is the front one, part no. 7, which required a little bit of trimming and correction at the arch on top for a good fit to segment no. 8.
Over time I have made it a habit to reinforce the inside skins with an additional layer of paper. In this case no fitting issues as the formers rest on the tabs rather than just behind them. By doing so damage to the skins if you accidentally press to hard on the paper during handling is prevented.
Erik