1/48 Hasegawa CF-18

Gallery Article by Derek Heyes

CF-18 1/48 Hasegawa 2002 Demobird "HORNETS 20" 

The CF-18 western demo bird for the 2002 airshow season is arguably the nicest paint scheme to be painted on a F-18 from any country. Operated by 410 Cougar Squadron out of Cold Lake, AB this jet was seen at different airshows in western Canada and the U.S. during this past summer.

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Leading Edge brought out their decal sheet of this jet during the early summer 2002 and I dropped all my projects to start on this CF-18. I used the Hasegawa CF-18 kit and it went together quite well, much better than my first Hasegawa F-18 kit!

The decals were very tricky and a lot of patience is needed for applying them. I found that if you don't take your time at the painting and masking stage, the decals will be that much more of a problem. After around 2 weeks of applying these decals it was time to add a coat of future and the rest of the parts to finish this CF-18 off. I think I spent around 8 weeks on this kit working around 2 hours a night.