F-117A Nighthawk

[Mike]

F-117A Nighthawk

1:32 Trumpeter

The first "Stealth Fighter" as it was known in the press at the time, existed for several years before it was acknowledged, and was probably responsible for quite a number of UFO sighting reports around its operating areas. Even its nomenclature was misleading, taking the F designation rather than the B designation more often used by bombers, perhaps to confuse the enemy during the early years of the project. Despite it having no offensive weaponry, this tag remained for quite a while and never quite went away.

Designed initially under the Have Blue project name at Lockheed's Skunkworks, it evolved into a single-seat bomber, the first to use low-observable technology, commonly referred to as Stealth. Only 64 were built, with most of them serving in a number of conflicts in the Gulf and Former Yugoslavia to high praise and much publicity. It was designed around a number of parts from the F-15, F16 and F-18 airframes, and is powered by two non-afterburning GE F404 engines, which gave it a subsonic top speed. The engines are buried deep in the blended fuselage, and are protected by screens and baffles to reduce any infrared signature to a minimum.

It earned the nickname "The Wobblin' Goblin", which was derived from its stealthy appearance and alleged flight characteristics at low speed. In 2008 it was retired due in part to airframe wear, the introduction of the F-22 Raptor, and the fact that its 70s stealth technology had been superseded by newer designs.

The Kit

The kit arrives in a very large box, which is 46cm x 62cm, and 16cm deep. That might sound a bit large for a single seat bomber, but once you open it, you see that the blended fuselage and wings take up the majority of that space. In the top of the box is a full-size insert that holds the two fuselage parts, shackled to the insert with flexible wires, and shielded fore and aft by additional card inserts. Removing that section of the kit reveals ten sprues in the same mid-grey styrene as the fuselage parts, a clear sprue with separate canopy, three rubber tyres, metal landing gear parts, a small sheet of Photo-Etch (PE) brass, and a small decal sheet.

After the grandness of the fuselage parts, the rest of the parts seem a little disappointing in their relatively low number, but it's a trick of the box size, as there are over 290 parts in total. The fuselage parts are impressive, capturing the faceted outer skin of this ground-breaking aircraft. Raised and recessed panels are moulded in with restraint, and although there aren't that many panel lines, those that are there are restrained, and there are no rivets to be seen. Because of the unusual method of moulding the fuselage halves, there are small stubs of sprue gates on the flat surfaces of the wing, which should be easy to remove with a scalpel and a sanding stick. There are 10 in all, with one being hidden by an access panel that is added during the build, and another on top of the nicely moulded coaming.

The build begins with the cockpit, and detail here is good. The rear bulkhead has some nice raised rivet details, and the trusses either side of the ejector seat are well rendered. The instrument panel has raised panels with copious buttons on the bezel for the Multi-Function Display (MFD) panels, and a significant number of decals are applied to simulate the instruments themselves. The side panels are a little two-dimensional in places, but they are augmented by the detailed sidewall detailing, and won't be too prominent once the kit is completed. The seat really is a curiosity, mainly because of the fact that is has been entirely slide-moulded, and has moulded in detail on all of the visible sides, despite being a single part. All that is added is a seat cushion, headbox top, O2 bottle, and a well-detailed back part. The seatbelts are moulded in place, which will upset a few, and appears to be absent the usual profusion of belts that accompany most seats. The seat cushion is also a little bit square, and could do with a little distressing. These are minor gripes however, but if they bother you, I'm sure an aftermarket company will be along momentarily to provide a resin seat and cockpit for those that would like one.

Because of the shape of this odd bird, the landing gear boxes must be built up next, with three deep bays provided as single-piece mouldings. The main bays are detailed with ribbing on the sidewalls, which helps it to look busy, while the nose bay is not. Both fore and aft walls are also devoid of detail, which makes them look a little bare if scrutinised too closely. For the super-detailer, they will be a blank(ish) canvas on which to work their magic. The gear legs are substantial, and are supplied in both styrene and metal forms. The plastic parts are well detailed, but the large main gear legs have inserts that must be glued in place, which means some careful sanding around the moulded in detail to hide the seams. The metal gear is solid throughout, and very nicely moulded, with comparable detail to the styrene alternatives. It isn't made from the usual malleable white metal, but instead is rather robust, resisting deformation very well. They do have mould seams to clean up, and there are a few ejector pin marks on them that will need sanding off. For the added strength and weight though, they will every time for me, just remember to glue them with super-glue or epoxy glues such as Araldite. The tyres are of the rubber type, which usually polarises modellers into loving or hating them, and it would be as well to paint the contact surfaces on the hubs with a good thick coat of paint in case the old horror stories of yore where the "rubber" reacts with the plastic causing them to melt are still true of this modern blend.

The bomb bay is a lot better appointed, and is made up from flat panels, so that detail can be added to each face. There is plenty of wiring and panel work, both raised and recessed, and the leading edge of the bay has the baffles that prevent the air flow from pushing the bombs back up into the bay already moulded in. This means that if you are building your model with the bays closed, you will need to adjust some parts in order to get the bay doors to sit flush. This isn't documented though, as the build deals exclusively with the open bay. A pair of bomb caddies are included in order to busy up the bisected bay, although these are moulded in a deployed position, so that the munitions will be outside the fuselage of the aircraft. It would have been nice to have an option to be able to have them folded flat so that the bombs would be less prominent perhaps?

The next stages deal with the building of the twin GE motors, the intakes and exhausts, which are depicted throughout their full length. There are two schools of thought on this subject. One side feels rather cynically that it is just an attempt to bolster the part count, while the others look upon it as an excuse to open up more panels and display the detail. The engines both take up quite a number of parts, and the main body of the combustion chamber is made up from four segments to allow detail to be moulded all around, so care will be needed in aligning the joints on the two circular formers to minimise cleanup. The compressor phase is built from halves, and has the front face installed within as they are closed up. A number of flanges and ancillary equipment parts are added to busy up the outer, and the assembly is them sandwiched between a pair of bulkheads which are featureless slabs of plastic. The exhaust tube, and the flared exhaust itself are added next, each one being built up from halves, with all the seam filling that entails. The unseen outer faces of the exhausts are studded with recessed circles that look like ejector pin marks, but have clearly been put there for a purpose which eludes me.

Before the fuselage can be closed up, the refuelling receptacle is added from the inside, just aft of the cockpit opening. This can be displayed open or closed at whim. The laser designator mounted just forward of the cockpit in a glazed panel on the sloping nose is built up from quite a number of parts, and will be visible once the clear window is added to the fuselage, so take care painting this, as it will pay dividends. The same can be said of the one mounted in the nose, offset from the landing gear bay. A pair of cut-out bypass panels above the main air intakes are added from the inside, as are the stubs to affix the tails to. Once these are in place, all of the sub-assembles are installed, and the engine detail will be lost forever, unless you have succumbed to the urge to expose one or more.

With the closing of the fuselage halves, the majority of the work has been done, due in part to the slick, radar evading shape of the airframe. The cockpit is completed by the addition of the sighting mechanism and HUD, and is then covered by the canopy, which is an amalgam of a styrene inner frame, mated to a clear outer part that has all of the zig-zag panel lines engraved. The clarity of the part is excellent, and will show all the work that has gone into the cockpit, but the canopy can also be modelled open, with the addition of a pair of rams to the rear of the cockpit. A little more detail to the inside of the canopy would have been welcome, but a little research should soon turn up what is missing.

Detailing of the upper surface includes some slim styrene parts to construct the raised frame around the nose "window", a few small lumps and bumps, plus a pair of PE or styrene grilles that cover the large intakes and further reduce the radar signature of the Nighthawk. The styrene parts are flat slabs of styrene with mesh detail engraved, so unless you are utterly phobic about PE, it would look much better with the more realistic perforated metal parts installed. The tails are built up from halves, and attach to the non-movable stub by a cylindrical tab that should in theory allow them to rotate freely. It may be as well to glue them in place though, to prevent them attaining an unrealistic pose due to gravity. Use photos of parked aircraft to decide whether they are left parked with the tails at an angle to the airflow.

The underside has a number of sensors and aerials to fit to it, plus all of the doors for the three landing gear bays, and the two bays that comprise the bomb bay. The pair of bomb bay doors open into the centre, and all of the bay doors have very good detail throughout, realistically placed location tabs and actuating rams, which will be easily seen on the finished model.

To complete the job, a pair of GBU-10 2,000lb Paveway II laser Guided bombs are included, built up from separate halves and with separate seeker head and guidance fins. The shape of the bombs appears correct, although they are a little on the simplified side, but once painted up should look well enough unless scrutinised closely. As a bonus, on the weapons sprues, of which there are two, are a pair of AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, two funny-looking AIM-9(something) Sidewinders, and finally, two AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, all of which will go well in your 1:32 weapons spares, although the 'Winders will need some new steering vanes at the very least to look like any particular version.

Decals are in-house, and as you can probably imagine, the sheet is relatively small for an aircraft of this scale. The majority of airframe markings are in white, apart from the tail bands that adorn the V-tails of many airframes during peacetime. The kit scheme is from the Black Sheep, although tail bands for the Screaming Demons and Flying Knights are also included, but these are undocumented in the instructions. Three tail codes are also included, but remember to check your references before application to ensure that you get the right code with the right squadron. A number of yellow decals are included for the Paveway II bombs, and the most colourful decal of all is a red oblong under the rear of the fuselage. As mentioned previously, the rest of the sheet is taken up with decals for the instrument panel, containing dials, switch blocks and the MFD screens at the heart of most modern cockpits.

Conclusion

This is a great big kit, and has plenty of scope for detailing should you have the urge. Painting it could be an artistic challenge all of its own, as the colour varies between light and shade, and isn't pure black as Trumpeter have realised, inciting you to use Tyre Black which is a dark grey. There is plenty of scope for colour modulation and shading effects here with all of the sharp edges, and the finished article could look quite stunning. The PE intake grilles, rubber tyres and metal landing gear are sensible additions, which makes for kit that is reasonably priced for the content. The cost of tooling the large fuselage halves must have accounted for a lot of the budget, but occasionally there are parts within the kit that look a little utilitarian compared to others. The gear bays are examples of this, and would have really benefited from some additional details, perhaps at the expense of the fairly detailed engines that will disappear forever from view.

It will build up to be an impressive model, and given its large size, you'll need to make sure you have adequate storage space for it (who am I kidding?) as it will take up a lot of shelf-room. It would look superb in one of the special schemes it wore throughout its career, especially the stars and bars scheme, and I suspect that it won't take long for the masks or decals to appear from one of our aftermarket friends.

Recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

[colin ritchie]

Just a couple of thoughts re the excellent review, Overall I feel the cockpit, especially the side consoles look rather bare, especially as there are no throttle levers , personally I'm waiting for the Eduard set due out next month.

I'm not certain , but think the raised panels are a little overstated , but its difficult to be sure thanks to the ifficulty of geting clear shots of the upper body of the real thing

The GBU-10's in the kit are an acceptable loadout for the 117 , but GBU-37s are a far more common , which is a nusance as the only way to get a set is to buy the flightpath update set for the old Testors 117 .

There are couple of decals sets listed in Hannants , one a new set from Caracal and the old CE set for the US Flag display scheme , I think either option is a better bet that the decals in the kit, other than those small nit picks , I'd agree that this is an excellent large scale Nighthawk ,

I picked my one up last weekend at the locak ModelZone , the pnly drawback to that being my wife insisting I had to carry it around town for the rest of the day until we'd finished shopping - damm its a big box!

[DJPFlightpath]

but GBU-37s are a far more common , which is a nusance as the only way to get a set is to buy the flightpath update set for the old Testors 117

Not for long - we'll be releasing them as separate items in a few weeks.

David Parkins,

Flightpath

[colin ritchie]

Excellent news David.. you've saved me several hours in the attic trying to find your original set which I know is there somewhere ...!

[Antoine]

To complete the job, a pair of GBU-10 2,000lb Paveway II laser Guided bombs are included, built up from separate halves and with separate seeker head and guidance fins. The shape of the bombs appears correct, although they are a little on the simplified side, but once painted up should look well enough unless scrutinised closely. As a bonus, on the weapons sprues, of which there are two, are a pair of AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, two funny-looking AIM-9(something) Sidewinders, and finally, two AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, all of which will go well in your 1:32 weapons spares, although the 'Winders will need some new steering vanes at the very least to look like any particular version.

Hello Mike,

As usual, thanks for this in-depth review.

But there's something that looks wrong to me, if you don't mind.

About the armament sprue.

Not sure that the F-117 is capable to launch all these, but.

- The AIM-9 looks like a D to me. A navy version, strange choice, isn't it? if I'm not wrong, of course.

- Down right side, it might be an AGM-88 HARM.

- Up left, looks like a version of the AGM-84 harpoon, maybe a SLAM something, as I don't really see the purpose of a F-117 with an harpoon capability.

Can't see a sparrow or an AMRAAM. Maybe you switched with the pics of a previous review?

[colin ritchie]

First rule of Trumpeter 1/32 Jets - throw away the weapons sprues, get an Academy F-18 , or link to David's website , and essentially anything Trumpeter give you to hang under the wings , in almost all cases , they are either A) Inappropriate , or Just plain wrong

The F-117 kit manages both A & B, the 117 was designed to drop 2000LB LGBs, meaning GBU-10's or 24's as options buy by far the most common load were the cropped wing GBU-37s.. one of the reasons it went out of service , as an F-22 Raptor pilot said on ARC some years ago, "2000LB Laser Bombs are so 1990's"

[Will Vale]

Looks very impressive, I thought Tamiya's 1:48 version was big enough already! Nice to see that there's a proper cockpit bulkhead provided, I thought that was a weak point in the Tamiya one.

On the detail (or lack of) in the wheel wells, it may not be that important. The openings are a bit smaller than the wells themselves (they have quite a big lip all round) and the smaller doors are often closed when the gear is down. Tou can't see much at all when you look up into them, especially with the gear itself drawing the eye.

Will

[Alan P]

I've coveted this kit for several years and finally got my mitts on one!

Not sure that the F-117 is capable to launch all these, but.

- The AIM-9 looks like a D to me. A navy version, strange choice, isn't it? if I'm not wrong, of course.
- Down right side, it might be an AGM-88 HARM.
- Up left, looks like a version of the AGM-84 harpoon, maybe a SLAM something, as I don't really see the purpose of a F-117 with an harpoon capability.

Can't see a sparrow or an AMRAAM. Maybe you switched with the pics of a previous review?

Trumpeter produce sprues of weapons that are common across all their kits, and they will include as many as are necessary depending on which weapons are required. This one looks like it comes from the A-7E. It's only included for the GBU-10s, which are the only weapon to feature in the instructions. But I agree that they are often representations at best.

The F-117 kit manages both A & B, the 117 was designed to drop 2000LB LGBs, meaning GBU-10's or 24's as options buy by far the most common load were the cropped wing GBU-37s.. one of the reasons it went out of service , as an F-22 Raptor pilot said on ARC some years ago, "2000LB Laser Bombs are so 1990's"

I'm sure you meant GBU-27? GBU-37 is only carried by the B-2. There is a cropped wing version in the Trumpeter Guided Bombs set, but then again, it's Trumpeter and therefore a bit vague on detail. I agree that it's Flightpath all the way where 1/32 munitions are concerned!

This is the first kit I've received which I immediately wanted to start work on. It's very impressive and test fits together fantastically. As Mike & Colin have said, the wheel wells and cockpit are not generously detailed, but the Eduard etch in and out should help with that.

Happy days!

Al

[ModelMod]

Trumpeter produce sprues of weapons that are common across all their kits, and they will include as many as are necessary depending on which weapons are required. This one looks like it comes from the A-7E.

That's right: the weapons sprue included in this kit is exactly one of the sprues from Trumpeter's A- 7E :

Source: http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/kits/tru/kit_tru_2231.shtml