1/32 F-117 Nighthawk
by Lyle Pethig

Building a better F-117:

This is the first kit I've built for at least 20 years, having just rekindled my interest while at a recent airshow I came across the Italeri 1/32 F-117. Being impressed by the size of the kit I thought it would be a good to start out with and having seen the excellent models on LSP and ARC I decided to give it a go.

My first task was to do some research, I managed to track down the Squadron walkaround book (a must for this kit) some excellent photos from Andre Dall'au and a few tips from Erik Vogels (Thanks again guys). I soon discovered that the box art which depicts a fairly accurate looking bird actually didn't look anything like what was in the box, this is about the time that I found out that it was a remake of the old Testors kit, the first of the F-117 models. The list of faults could fill a small novel, intakes, exausts, wings, cockpit, canopy, bomb bays, and nose cone are just a few of the inaccuracies.

There was only one thing to do, fix it. At this point I must admit I'm not going to create an exact replica (is that even possible) but I wanted something that looked right and good too, some angles may be off a little and not all dimensions will be spot on, but bare in mind that this is my first attempt at scratchbuilding, super-detailing, using pe and resin, I'll even have to learn how to use an airbrush (on a scrap kit first). I will be purchasing the Flightpath detail set, which is the only set available for this kit plus a Cam Decals ACES-II.

Oh the inaccuracies.

The beginning Even with all the photos I had I still needed a reference so I bought a 1/72 Airfix kit which looked pretty accurate but also happened to be the only one I could find. I decided the best place to start was at the top, if I could get the dimensions and angles right here then I would have a point from where everything else would fall into place, although I still spent several hours just staring at it wondering what to do next. I had already sanded off the raised panel lines, although it turns out that I'm replacing practically all panels anyway. A couple of weeks later, its a big model compared to the 1/72. The FLIR, made from a sinker, also a convenient nose weight. This is the start of a long project, eventually all upper panels will be replaced, I hope to use the lower body with only a few modifications to the shape, I have already scored and bent the lower panels up for the exaust shields, I'll need to build a new cockpit, canopy, undercarriage doors, bomb bays and most likely fully scratchbuilt wings, I do plan on using the kit ruddervators with modifications of course, also everything will be re-scribed, thankfully there aren't too many panel lines on the real thing.