Quote from: Dizzyfugu on October 22, 2023, 05:23:40 AMYou can twist the top sideways, the lid is wedge-shaped.

In theory................

I find that once you've shaken the pot to ensure it's nicely mixed, the excess paint ends up sealing the lid onto the base when you need to open it the next time. I have square shaped dents in my door jamb where I've used it as a vice to clamp the lid while I twist the base off. 

Must admit I'm not a fan of Revell acrylic paints and it's purely down to the container. In all fairness however I've probably not given it much of a chance.

Thanks folks.

I have a jar opening tool I keep next to the bench for when the paint glues the lids on the Gunze & Tamiya Acrylics and the Testors enamels.

Damn that looks right ...perfect combination of parts   

Quote from: zenrat on October 22, 2023, 05:36:32 PMI have a jar opening tool I keep next to the bench for when the paint glues the lids on the Gunze & Tamiya Acrylics and the Testors enamels.

An essential tool for those pots, but they don't work on the Revell cubes too well. 

Quote from: zenrat on October 22, 2023, 05:36:32 PMI have a jar opening tool I keep next to the bench for when the paint glues the lids on the Gunze & Tamiya Acrylics and the Testors enamels.

I put the tins/glasses in the sink and let hot tap water run over the lids. That's normally enough to break their stubborn will! 

Dripping GP Thinners into the gap between the lid and the jar does the trick but it is messy and the thinners is way over the other side of the shed.

BTW, nothing new here yet. Busy weekend and some health issues (again) postponed the photo session. Model has been finished, though.

Get well soon Dizzy 

Thank you, it's altready better now.

Nothing to show (yet), but I was eventually able to complete a photo session for the J-9C! 

So, after some delays, the true story behind the Chinese "HEavenly Tiger", the Nanchang J-9C fighter!


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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


Some Background:
The Nanchang J-9C was a mid-sized interceptor for the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) that had been developed during the Eighties. By the late Seventies, a new benchmark fighter had entered the global stage, the General Dynamics F-16, and the Ministry of Defense issued a new requirement on 9 June 1979 - and slightly revised it in November – to develop an air superiority fighter with comparable performance, since the Chinese People's Liberation Army's standard fighters of the time, the J-7 (a derivative of the Soviet MiG-21, used by both PLAAF and PLAN) and the indigenous J-8 (used by the PLAAF only), appeared both outdated and no match for the American product anymore.

The fighter project started under the designation J-9II, inherited from the stillborn (and unrelated) Chengdu J-9 heavy interceptor project that had already been proposed in 1964 and eventually, after many iterations, evermore demanding requirements concerning range and speed but no prototypes, been cancelled in 1980. To reflect the second use of the designation and avoid confusion, the new type was called J-9II (later renamed into J-9B).
The J-9II was heavily inspired by the American 4thgeneration F-16, but eventually was a very different aircraft, even though the J-9II shared the F-16's general layout, including the characteristic lip air intake. Rumor has it that information about the American type was acquired from Egypt where the F-16 had been introduced in 1982.
Two different variants of single airframe were initially proposed by Nanchang Aircraft Factory to cater to the slightly different needs of both PLAAF and PLAN. The navy variant was already dropped in 1981, though, while the air force variant was tailored to execute fast interception missions, with a secondary ground attack capability. However, from a technological standpoint, the J-9II was still only a 3rd generation fighter, at best, and suffered from several shortcomings. For instance, the J-9II's wing geometry was very similar to the J-7s' and J-8s' clipped delta wings, even though they were combined with a blended body on the upper surface for additional lift and featured organically integrated LERX that improved handling at high angles of attack. The highly swept wings gave great speed and roll characteristics, but provided poor lift at low speed what limited the J-9II's utility as a frontline fighter.


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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


The aircraft's powerplant was a single WS-9 Qinling twin-shaft turbofan engine, which was a blunt copy of the British Rolls Royce RB.168 Spey 202, originally exported to China in 1975 violating the COCOM restrictions. At the time of the J-9II's development the copied Spey was, like many other aspects of the aircraft, no longer state-of-the-art, but it was the only suitable engine for the project. In the J-9II it was paired with an indigenous afterburner.
This semi-indigenous engine turned out to be notoriously unreliable and hardly provided the promised output of 53.4 kN/12,140 lbf dry thrust and 91.2 kN/20,500 lbf with reheat, leaving the aircraft notoriously underpowered. For comparison, the F-16A benchmark's Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-200 turbofan was rated at 14,670 lbf/64.9 kN and 23,830 lbf/106.0 kN with afterburner. The J-9II's higher structural weight due to the limited use of light composite material hampered its performance even further.

Other differences from the F-16 included a single foldable fin in the style of the Soviet MiG-23/27 (a solution also employed on the J-8 interceptor) instead of a pair of fixed vanes on the F-16, and the pilot sat in a more upright position under a taller and conventional canopy with a fixed 3-part windscreen. Even though the lip air intake was in the same position as on the F-16, it had a totally different square shape and geometry with an adjustable intake ramp and auxiliary intakes with feathered covers on the flanks to prevent engine surge.


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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


The J-9II's avionics were quite state-of-the-art, though, but not highly capable when compared with foreign systems and based on existing equipment. Its primary armament consisted of IR-guided PL-5 (based on the Soviet Vympel K-13) and PL-8 short-range AAMs (a license-built Version of the Israeli Python 3), and semi-active radar-guided PL-11 mid-range AAMs (a license-built version of the Italian Aspide missile, which itself was an ungraded AIM-7 Sparrow). A total of seven hardpoints were available for a total external ordnance of 2.500 kg (5.500 lb). Secondary armament consisted of a ventral Type 23-III twin-barrel cannon, a copy of the Soviet Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-23L. The radar was a modified Type 1471 pulse-Doppler radar, placed under a pointed nose radome, which had a bigger diameter than the F-16's installation, what gave the J-9II, together with the deeper cockpit section and its more bulbous canopy, a markedly different profile.


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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


The first J-9II prototype was rolled out in August 1988 and shortly thereafter unveiled to the public in September 1988 at Farnborough International Air Show, where it was officially baptized "Tiān Hǔ" (天虎, Heavenly Tiger) – a first among Chinese military aircraft, which had until then lacked such an accolade. At the same time, it was given the AFIC code name "Freshman" by NATO. The first batch of eight J-9II aircraft was delivered to the PLAAF for evaluation in the early 1990's. After a year of testing the air force agreed to procure more aircraft of the new type after upgrading the avionics and weapons suite with improved technology. This upgraded J-9II was then – following the PLAAF's revised naming system – designated J-9C. The first serial production aircraft built to this revised standard were delivered to PLAAF units probably in 2001, where they primarily replaced outdated 1st generation J-8Is and some J-7 fighters, too.

However, on the PLAAF's agenda, the J-9C was quickly superseded by the Chengdu J-10 "Vigorous Dragon" (NATO reporting name: Firebird), another medium-weight, single-engine, multirole combat aircraft. The J-10 was capable of all-weather operations and configured with a delta wing and canard design, with fly-by-wire flight controls. This project had been kicked off as early as 1981 and developed in parallel to the J-9II, even though with more severe delays, so that the Tiān Hǔ's development had been kept up to ensure at least one more modern interceptor type for the PLAAF from 2000 on. Compared with the J-9C, the J-10 was a much more modern aircraft overall and a true 4th generation fighter on par with the F-16. When the first J-10s were delivered to the PLAAF in 2003, only two years after the first J-9Cs, the latter's production was shut down after only roughly 100 aircraft that were exclusively operated by PLAAF interceptor regiments.


General characteristics:
    Crew: 1
    Length: 17,06 m (55 ft 10¾ in) overall incl. pitot
    Wingspan: 8,93 m (29 ft 3 in)
    Height: 4,25 m (13 ft 11 in)
    Wing area: 30,5 m² (327 sqft)
    Empty weight: 9.373 kg (20,645 lb)
    Gross weight: 13.036 kg (28,713 lb) with full internal fuel
    Max takeoff weight: 19.250 kg (42,400 lb)
    Fuel capacity: 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg) internal

Powerplant:
    1× Xian WS-9 Qinling twin-shaft turbofan engine with afterburner, with 53.4 kN (12,140 lbf ) dry thrust  and 91.2 kN (20,500 lbf) with reheat

Performance:
    Maximum speed: (1,825 km/h (1,134 mph, 985 kn, Mach 1.72) at 35,000 ft (11,000 m), clean
    Combat range: 1,000 km (620 mi, 540 nmi) radius with 4x AAMs and 2x drop tanks 
    Ferry range: 4,217 km (2,620 mi, 2,277 nmi) with 3x drop tanks, subsonic
    Service ceiling: 17,500 m (57,400 ft)
    Time to altitude: 17,000 m (56,000 ft) in 8 minutes 30 seconds
    Rate of climb: 224 m/s (44,100 ft/min) at sea level
    Roll rate: 275°/s
    g limits: +6.0 sustained at 5,000 m (16,000 ft)
    Thrust-to-weight: 0.72
    Wing loading: 87.8 lb/sq ft (427 kg/m²)
    Unstick speed: 330 km/h (210 mph; 180 kn)
    Take-off run: 630 m (2,070 ft)
    Touchdown speed: 224 km/h (139 mph; 121 kn)
    Landing run: 900 m (3,000 ft)

Armament:
    1× internal 23 mm Type 23-III (Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-23L) autocannon with 200 rounds
    7x external hardpoints for a total ordnance of 2.500 kg (5.500 lb)


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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) 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 (What-if/kitbashing) by Dizzyfugu, on Flickr


Quite a complex build with lots of PSR, but the result looks really good, even plausible! The MiG-21 wings blend well with the F-16 fuselage and its LERXs, and the many other changes help to move the J-9C visually away from its F-16 ancestry, which makes up less than 50% of the model. Especially the new front section, with the deeper radome, taller canopy, and square air intake, make you wonder about the model's heritage. And the all-over pale blue-grey livery adds to the authentic look, too.

Good job Dizz.

 

That certainly has one MEAN looking intake! If it can't shoot you down it can EAT you whole! 

Very beautiful build & photos