1:48 F-16A Royal Danish Air Force 66 Years anniversary

The Danish Vipers and their anniversary coat

The Royal Danish Air Force, known at home as the Flyvevåbnet, introduced the F-16 as early as the late 1970s and became one of the four European founding operators of the type. The machines went through a service life extension program that added a new radar, a cockpit with modern displays and the ability to work with precision-guided munitions. The home of the Danish Vipers is southern Jutland, where the squadron that has carried the type through its whole Danish career is based.

Why sixty-six years

It is not a round jubilee, and that is exactly what makes the scheme interesting: Danish squadrons prepare an anniversary scheme not only for full decades but also for years that hold a meaning of their own for the unit. Special coats of this kind tend to be concentrated on the fin and the fuselage spine, while the rest of the airframe stays in the usual gray, so the model remains legible and the colored element on it stands out.

Denmark is one of the countries that kept the type in the front line for an exceptionally long time, so production features from the 1970s meet equipment from the latest upgrades on their machines. A model built from the anniversary scheme therefore captures the aircraft in a late phase of its career, with all the antennas and sensors that were added over the years.

Working with the sheet

Large-area fin motifs call for different tactics than small stencils. It pays to lay them on a base wet enough for them still to be moved, and to blot the excess water away from the center toward the edges. On the leading edge and around the rudder a decal softener will help, as otherwise the film will not settle over the rows of rivets and the panel lines. The package contains decals only, not the kit itself.