Cutting Edge 1/32
F-16A Parapack Tail Conversion

The F-16 Fighting Falcon is an agile fighter, but has little room left in the airframe for additional avionics. When some of the NATO countries determined that they wanted the option for parachute braking on landing on their new F-16As, General Dynamics developed a stretched tail base that would accommodate a parachute. This ended up solving two problems instead of one. While one country ended up using the parachutes (at least initially), another saw that open cavity as an ideal location to add their own self-protection avionics.

Cutting Edge has released a conversion for the Hasegawa F-16A kit as well as one element to backdate either the Academy or Tamiya F-16C kits. This conversion includes the parabrake housing tail base, a new vertical stabilizer, separate rudder, and strobe light lens for the top of the tail. The resin tree contains a parachute pack and a new weapons pylon w/self-protection fairing. For some odd reason, the ECM unit that fits in place of the parachute was not included in this set even though the option appears in the 1/48 scale version.

The only down side to this conversion is the lack of instructions. While many folks who would use this conversion would also have some knowledge of the aircraft, it would have been useful to have a diagram or two showing the placement and orientation of the avionics box inside the tail housing.

This set is definitely recommended!

My sincere thanks to Meteor Productions for this review sample!