The kit and its assembly:
This what-if model was inspired by an online picture of a model, probably at a convention or competition, that I had seen many years ago: it was an F-16 with wings and stabilizers from a MiG-21 in Czech markings and with a brown/green camouflage livery. While the idea appeared odd, the highly swept wings blended well into the F-16's LERXs – and I wanted to re-create this someday.

This has happened now, even though I put some more effort into the model and furthermore stumbled over some layout questions while building it. At the core this is a Hasegawa F-16A, mated with MiG-21 wings (probably from an Academy MiG-21 F-13) and many other additional mods.
These included:
- A new, deeper nose radome from a Nakotne MiG-29 (which has a totally wrong shape with a flat underside)
- A different sliding two-piece canopy (from a Hasegawa Grumman F9F Panther) with a classic layout for an old-school look
- Fin and stabilizers taken wholesale from a PM Model Su-15, because MiG-21 surfaces appeared too small
- A twin wheel front landing gear leg with modified covers
- Different main landing gear struts with F-16 wheels
- A new exhaust installation that has a more Spey-esque shrouded layout (as on the British Phantoms); two exhaust sections from F-16 kits were glue behind each other to extend the fuselage, and a J79 nozzle (from an Italeri IAI Kfir) was mounted inside
- The F-16's ventral twin fins were replaced with a single foldable MiG-23 fin (from an Academy kit)
- A new "pizza oven-style" air intake, blended into the lower F-16 body with LOTS of PSR


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


While assembling this thing and recognizing that the MiG-21 wings would shift the center of lift considerably further back I wondered if the F-16's original landing gear with its relatively short wheelbase would work on the J-9C at all, even more so because the fuselage would be extended at the tail with the different Spey exhaust arrangement. The inspiring benchmark picture of the Czech AF kitbash was taken from an angle that did not reveal the landing gear at all, probably on purpose... To avoid any trouble later, I decided even before I closed the fuselage halves to move the whole main landing gear and its bay backwards by about 0.5"/13 mm. Two ventral sections were cut out, switched positions, and PSRed back into the body again. Messy, but worthwhile.

Blending the wings into the F-16 body was not too complicated, even though the deeper MiG-21 wings left a significant gap at their trailing edge. To bridge this, I cut out of the respective sections from the F-16 wings, glued them flush with the MiG-21 wings' trailing edges and later filled the resulting hole with putty.

The nose section was also rather tricky. To get away from the sleek F-16 look I implanted a different canopy, which required the cockpit opening to be raised and leveled out with the help of styrene profiles and lots of PSR. Additionally, I decided to replace the original flat radome with a taller one, so that there was a new raised are in front of the windscreen. With even more PSR this worked, and the result has a strange Su-27ish look! Inside of the cockpit the F-16 parts remained, I just mounted the seat in a more upright position (and filled its back) and had to sculpt the rear bulkhead new with putty and paper tissue drenched in white glue due to the opening's raised edge.


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr

1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - W
iP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr

1
:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


Another element for a different silhouette was the air intake; instead of the F-16's oval opening with a fixed geometry I constructed an implant from Su-15 intakes, with a ramp and a totally different (square) shape, which reminds a lot of the J-10's arrangement and also a little of the Eurfoghter/Typhoon and the experimental MiG Ye-8.

The landing gear was totally changed, too, with a new twin front wheel arrangement and modified covers as well as main landing gear struts from a MiG-23/27 (Academy kit), which were glued together in a different fashion (upper segments turned by 90° so that they hang vertically in the hull) and into the wells that were moved back, yet with the F-16's wheels.
Additionally, I gave the aircraft a Type 23-III gun in its small, characteristic pod (left over from a Condor MiG-21), on the left side of the front landing wheel well, similar to the J-10's arrangement.


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


More to come soon...

    

This is REALLY good, Thomas! 

Wow. Nailing this one !

Fascinating!!

Painting and markings:
Again a rather dry and subdued choice. Many active PLAAF aircraft, esp. the fighters, carry rather boring liveries, with only a few historic exceptions. For a whif that already looks quite strange I went for a simple solution, inspired by typical J-10s; these carry uniform light bluish-grey upper and lower surfaces with a low waterline and with only little contrast between the tones. To add a unique touch, though, I used RAL tones for the camouflage, namely RAL 7000 (Fehgrau, Revell 57) above and 7001 (Silbergrau, Revell 374) underneath, which both appear colder than the very similar FS 36320 and 36375 greys. The radome and some other di-electric panels were painted in a very dark green (RLM 71, Humbrol 91), inspired by JH-7 fighter bombers with a similar livery.


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


Even though the J-10 benchmark typically has its landing gear and the respective bays painted white, I decided to do for a more Soviet look and painted everything silver-grey (Humbrol 56) and the wheels received bright green wheel discs. The cockpit was painted with a medium grey (Revell 77) on the floor and the rear bulkhead, but also with the dreaded Soviet bright teal (ModelMaster 4664) on the side walls and the dashboard.

The model received a light black ink washing and some post-shading to give the uniform surface more visible structure. Markings/decals were puzzled together from the scrap box – including non-standard national insignia with white instead of yellow. Not really low-viz, due to the bright standard red, but more subdued than the normal markings – even though I assume that the decals were designed in a wrong fashion, because I have never seen this type of roundels in real life? The tactical code was puzzled together from five single digits on each flank of the air intake, following the pre-2004 PLAAF scheme for its cryptic 5-digit-codes that I found in a book. The code includes information about the aircraft's individual code, its unit, and the respective squadron within it. Finally, the model was sealed overall with matt acrylic varnish and the bare metal areas around the exhaust were treated with grinded graphite to create a metallic shine.


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


The underwing pylons were taken from the Hasegawa F-16, the ventral pod came from an Academy MiG-23/27, placed in front of vertical styrene tube adapter as a display holder for flight scenes. The ordnance was procured from the spares bank (AIM-7 from an Intech F-16 as Aspide/PL-11 AAMs and K-13 AAMs from a KP MiG-21 clone as PL-5s). At first, I also considered a pair of drop tanks on the inner wing stations, but to give the aircraft a "faster" look I eventually left them away and only hung the AAMs under its wings.


1:72 Nanchang Aircraft Factory J-9C '天虎; ' (Tiān hǔ; NATO code: Freshman); '52163 (13 Red)' of the 104th Air Reg., 35th Div., Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF); Changsha-Datuopo AB (Guangzhou/Hunan Province), 1997 (Whif/kitbashing) - WiP by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr

More coming soon...

As I may have said before, everything looks better with an injection of MiG 21 DNA.
 

MiG 23/27 undercarriage parts are another favourite of mine for whiffing.

That just looks right   

  

That looks completely real, very nice.

Do those odd cube things have paint in?  Weird.
 

Quote from: zenrat on October 22, 2023, 02:17:11 AMDo those odd cube things have paint in?  Weird.
 

Yes, that's Revell for you. They wanted to make sure that you could not confuse the Enamel paint and their Acrylic paints. Easy to store as well I suppose.

Gondor

How do they open?  Looks like a wedge shaped portion hinges over.
I've not seen them here.  What's the paint like?

You can twist the top sideways, the lid is wedge-shaped. Inside it's a circular bin (like a classic tin), and you can use the separate lid to mix the paint with thinner/water. The square shape gives the containers a stable basis, too.

If the Soviet/Russian F-16 lookalike was called F-16ski, i'll simply call this one the F-16chong...    I know... hat, coat, out the door i go....