Seamless Suckers 1/32
F-16C/D Fighting Falcon Widemouth Intake

I first discovered Seamless Suckers at the 1995 IPMS Nationals here in Albuquerque. Robert Brown, the owner, was set up in the vendors' area with an interesting array of aftermarket resin products. As his company name implies, he has developed an array of cast resin intakes that eliminate those annoying seams that are always present in the kit intakes. I have used the 1/48 A-7 Corsair II (Hasegawa) and 1/48 F-4 Phantom II (Hasegawa) intakes with great results. Then I heard that Seamless was going to tackle a major problem in the 1/32 and 1/48 worlds - widemouth intakes...

When General Dynamics began producing the F-16C, all versions of the Falcon up to that point were powered with the Pratt & Whitney F100 engine. Even the first F-16Cs, the Block 25 aircraft, were Pratt-powered. For a number of reasons that are not worth repeating here, subsequent F-16s were built with either the Pratt or the General Electric F110 engine. The original intention was to make the later F-16s capable of running either engine. That's why you see many of the kits on the market with the Pratt and GE exhausts included, but only the common (narrow) intake. Flight testing of the GE-powered F-16 revealed that the engine was not getting enough air mass down the inlet under certain power/flight conditions. The widemouth intake was born.

In the modeling world, the Hasegawa 1/48 and 1/32 F-16 kits are the best on the planet. Hasegawa has released updated versions of these kits to include a 1/48 F-16C Block 40 "Night Falcon" and a 1/32 F-16C Block 50. For those of you that subscribe to the philosophy that it "looks good enough" then peace, these kits are great out of the box. For those of us with AMS, none of the Hasegawa Falcons can be built out of the box except as Block 25 and Block 32 aircraft.

What are the differences? Block 30, Block 40 and Block 50 aircraft have the widemouth intakes (F110 powered). Block 32, Block 42 and Block 52 are F100 powered (normal intakes). Blocks 40/42 and 50/52 have bulged maingear doors to accommodate the landing gear mods required for a higher gross weight. Block 40/42 aircraft carry the LANTIRN pods under the intake and have the unique landing light array on the nosegear door. Block 50/52 aircraft are wired to carry the AGM-88 HARM and are distinguished by the HTS pods under the intake.

First the intake problem. Seamless has released the widemouth intakes for the 1/48 and 1/32 Hasegawa kits. The photo above shows the widemouth dry-fitted to the underside of the 1/32 F-16 fuselage. The resin work of this intake, especially in 1/32, is gorgeous! Does it just drop in? Not directly, it took a little sanding and shaping to get it into place. This is not a direct kit part replacement. This one resin part replaces three kits parts and half of two inlet trunk parts. The rear half of the inlet trunk that serves as the interior of the main gear bay is retained and fitted to the rear of the resin intake. The photo below shows the rear of the intake and where the inlet trunk is mounted.

In this photo, I placed the intake cover for the stock F-16 intake over the Seamless widemouth intake. This illustrates the major differences in shape between the two intakes.

As I described in the technical description above, using the widemouth intake will only allow you to build an accurate Block 30 airplane. The now defunct DB Productions released a 1/48 Block 40 conversion that included the widemouth intake, bulged gear doors and new main wheels. Seamless to the rescue. The photo below shows their Block 40 conversion set in 1/48.

The DB Productions intake was a direct replacement for the 1/48 Hasegawa kit intake. The problem is that both the DB and Hasegawa intakes in 1/48 end in a blank bulkhead. The Seamless intake is actually three parts - the inlet, the duct and an engine face. With this conversion, your 1/48 Hasegawa bird can have the same visible engine face as the 1/32 kit - with no seams! With the gear doors and wheels, you can build an accurate Block 40 Night Falcon.