Back in the early 1980s, the USN was looking for an adversary aircraft to use with Top Gun and other dissimilar combat tactics units. They chose the F-16 for this purpose, but one that had no gun and a lower rated engine than that which was currently coming off the production line. What this means is that they got an F-16C with an F-16A engine in it. These planes were operated for about ten years until they started to show signs of stress in the form of cracked spars.

Apparently the F-16 is not up to Navy standards in terms of the amount of airframe stress that it can handle. Not surprisingly, Navy aircraft that have replaced the F-16, such as the F-14 and F-18 have not had the structural problems of the F-16N because they need to be more robustly constructed in order to withstand the rigors of carrier duty in terms of arrested landings and cat shots.

These aircraft were retired in 1992/93 with relatively few airframe hours, but unflyable because of the damage that the airframes sustained during their brief service.

This particular sheet has schemes for two of these units, VF-45 and NFWS. The VF-45 aircraft is a single-seater with a large unit insignia on the tail. The  twin-seater is from Top Gun. The decal sheet erroneously refers to this as VF-46, but there was no such unit flying the F-16N. Both have the same camo scheme and the sheet provides a very good diagram to assist you with painting. There are copious data and wing walk stencils (not shown) included on the sheet for your next 1/48 F-16N.

Please note that the sheet may look a bit short as I'll often crop off common markings to save on file size.

Review copy courtesy of . Thanks for your support.

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that has well over 100,000 visitors a month, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.