What to do with an almost finished F/A-22?

[SebastianP]

I just got fed up with looking at my mod-eagle light gray F/A-22 that's been staring at me forever, and decided that it'd look much better with some new paint and some silly decals. Since the most abundant source of such in my collection is Hornet kits, I went with light ghost gray on the bottom, and dark ghost gray on top - though that's still negotiable, since I'm still waiting for the bottom to dry.

Now the problem is, I have way too many options to choose from. From the Hornet kits alone, I have nearly all the current users roundels (Australia, Canada, Spain and Switzerland). I also have British, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Swedish and Ukrainian insignia - and a veritable ton of red stars, since I have five or six sets of Su-27 decals, and only one kit left from that set..

One of the original ideas was to do it up as a Marines or Navy bird, using leftover Hasegawa decals, but I don't know where I'd put the "NAVY" or "MARINES" insignia...

Ideas, please?

SP

[anthonyp]

Well, if you weren't as close to being done with it as you are, I'd say if you're gonna go Navy, go Aggressor!  Colorful, and no pesky carrier mods needed for the gear, tailhook, etc.  

But since you've already got both shades of grey on it, I'd go Swiss or Swedish.

BTW, welcome aboard!!  Wait, I see you've been a member for a while...  OK, glad to see another voice added to the cacophony of Wiffery!

   

[SebastianP]

I've only got the Light Ghost Gray on the bottom on as yet. But Swedish would look good, I agree - but I would, seeing as I'm a Swede. One discarded option I had was to paint it up in all black, to go with my Rafale C 01, Typhoon DA ??, and Gripen 02, all of which were black at one time or another...


SP

[gooberliberation]

Well, if you weren't as close to being done with it as you are, I'd say if you're gonna go Navy, go Aggressor!  Colorful, and no pesky carrier mods needed for the gear, tailhook, etc.

With painted out sections suggesting a forward swept wing?  

[SebastianP]

I'm going the Navy/Marines route. To go with my twin-tailed, twin-seat, twin-engined, gunship gray USAF strike aircraft - which happens to be of the variable-geometry type...

SP

(and does *that* kit have a story behind it...)

[PolluxDeltaSeven]

Gripen 02, all of which were black at one time or another...

A black Gripen???        !!!!

By the way, for my own F-22, I had 3 ideas (and probably no one of those will become real: I have no time!!):

1) I could play "Beeing Eddie M." ( ) with an old F-14 Tomcat and try to do a US Navy or USMC F/A-22N, swing-wing one of course!! It could look very good, I think!!
I always loved the pictures of this cancelled fighter, but never saw a model of her!!

2) A classic Japanese one... After all, the F-15 will have to be replaced before 2020-2025. And for a long range fighter, I only saw F-15T (but it's still a F-15!!), Rafale with CFT and F/A-22... And well, a F-22 with red roundels and grey/blue camo could be VERY amazing!!!
(And with the Haseg weapons kit, I thought about added 8 external japanese missiles to the 8 internals)

3) The last and for me an attractive solution is to transform the F-22 in a Black Ops Fighter... An enhanced F/A-22C (with new ECM, new radar, an internal FLIR and why not CFT) painted in a low-viz jungle camo. I imagined a squadron of F/A-22 secretly deployed in Colombia to deal with both the Cartel/FARC problem and the war between Colombia's Federal Government and Venezuela...
I love this solution for the possible back stories


Well, just my 2 cents

[SebastianP]

Gripen 02, all of which were black at one time or another...

A black Gripen???        !!!!

Second prototype machine, painted that way prior to high-alpha testing. The first photo of it that I ever saw had a caption that said something like "enjoy while it lasts, 'cause it's not certain the plane will actually survive the testing!" It did, though.

Here's a belly shot of the real thing in flight:



SP

[Captain Canada]

I'd use the CDN decals !

 

[Leigh]

I'd use the CDN decals !

Big suprise.






I'd go retro FAA

[nev]

Apparantly LM tried to sell it to Norway in the late 90s (according to WAPJ).  

[SebastianP]

I'd go retro FAA

If I ever manage to find my Harrier FA.2 decals (from the Airfix kit), they're to go on my Hasegawa 1/48 F/A-18D, which is currently sitting there, looking sad in gunship gray...

SP

[F-32]

Vietnam camouflage colours with high viz markings ^_^  

[Keith Diamond]

I would have gone with Canadian or Australian decals if you were to go the foreign AF route.  But since you are going USN/USMC, I think VF-2 Bounty Hunters markings would like nice.