RAAF F/E-18F Switchblade

[Firefox]

The kit was the Academy 1/72 E/A-18G snap tight kit. I must say it's pretty good snap tight kit and allow one to build quickly, but might not be everyone's cup of tea. Instead of building the RAAF E/A-18G, I made a slight twist.

Background story:
In the very near future, everything north of Australia had gone to hell. Like a textbook exercise, the allied forces sent in their state of the art stealth forces, F-35s. To their surprise, the enemy employed their all new anti-stealth radar. The F-35s were almost like sitting ducks if not for the well trained pilots, the network capability and the newly fielded loyal wingmen. But not too soon, the enemy revealed another surprise: AI assisted hacking and targeted full spectrum jamming. It crippled the Link 16 network and disabled the loyal wingmen if not turning them against the hosts. The RAAF rushed to introduce countermeasure with the allied forces. The F/E-18F was the answer. They were converted from the F/A-18F that the RAAF was about to retire. The aircraft was stripped off all communication and network capabilities to prevent any possible hacking. The back seat guys were simply called EO (Electronic Officer). They were basically hackers with bare minimum flight training. Their job was to identify, track and counter-hack the source on the fly. The antenna sit on top of the spine can trace any signal from any airborne units and satellites, while there were two small repeaters just in front of the intakes to deal with seaborne targets. The entire electronic suit sit outside of the flight control systems in case it was hacked. Once a target was identified, the EO would start the counter hacking and the pilot would head to the source as fast as possible. Should the counter hacking failed, the pilot would need to neutralize the target in time, be it shipborne, airborne or satellites. Each F/E-18F was armed with various air to air missiles, anti ship missiles and an anti-satellite missile on the centerline. Each F/E-18F was a lone wolf and they were on their own the moment they started the engine. But the critical tasks that entrusted to them would turned the tide to give allied forces some breathing space.

[rickshaw]

Interesting.   

[NARSES2]

Interesting.   

Indeed  I wouldn't of guessed it was a snap tight kit

[Old Wombat]

Interesting.   

And different!

[Pellson]

What a backstory!! 

The kit's great too.

[DogfighterZen]

I like it, very interesting idea and well explained in the backstory.

[chrisonord]

Really cool idea,  and I  would not have guessed it  was a snap together kit either. 

[McColm]

Good job

[zenrat]

 

[Tophe]

  Very good, and very inspiring, thanks!
Weeks ago I made such a AEW F-16 (as drawing: http://www.kristofmeunier.fr/F-16drwD_ej.jpg ) but you are right I should correct it for being better: 2 fins for the radar drag not to make inefficient the fins, 2 seats to have a radar operator.
Thanks!

[Wurgerman]

Nice work !  👍

Wurgerman 

[comrade harps]

You had me the moment I spied the ALARMS. 

[Tophe]

Weeks ago I made such a AEW F-16 but you are right I should correct it for being better: 2 fins for the radar drag not to make inefficient the fins, 2 seats to have a radar operator.

I made it now at https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=39083.405
Thanks again!