F-22A Airshow Display A/C

The canopy color has been subject of many discussions online; I studied quite a few and decided to apply a mix of 4 parts AV poly gloss varnish/1 part AV gold/1 part AV transparent yellow/ 1 part AV transparent smoke.  

Plenty of ballast to both halves. 

Main weapons bays are not bad, but comparing with pics of actual a/c I realised the intake ducts were missing. 

Blu Tac to the rescue! 

Added some ducting as well. 

After painting, the bays will look more accurate - even if they won't be noticeable after the AIM-120's are fitted. 

Nice engine details, again virtually invisible after the fuselage halves are joined. Base coat of AV gunmetal 71-072 followed by various AV Metal Colors. 

You get the idea. 

Generally I drill a hole through the exhaust to hold my models for spraying, but this wasn't really an option with this build. Fortunately, Trumpeter provides 2 seta of weapons bay doors (for open or closed options) so I used the "closed"doors and cut a section out so one of my trusty Wolfcraft clamps could hold the fuselage. 

Here we are, canopy masked and opens covered off ready for spraying. By now we were into July and I decided to hold off on spraying until the apartment cooled back down after the summer. 

With a bit of time now available, I decided to spend some extra time on finishing the missiles, starting by cleaning up the mould lines then drilling them all to simplify holding for painting. 

Ready for the copper wire. 

Missile, anyone? 

By October the apartment had cooled down enough that I was ready to recommence spraying - In the meantime I also had been building the Tu-22M2, B-2A and Vickers Viscount kits up to the stage of spraying.

Here the F-22 has been primed with AV 71-615 then sprayed 71-275 medium gray overall. Leading/trailing edged were painted 71-046 pale blue-grey then 71-051 neutral gray applied to the leading edges.

A lot of trial and error with the gray/greys as the in-service aircraft have received lots of panel replacements/touch-ups. 

The upper surface is ready for the camo panels and I thought to spray using masks. 

Not too difficult to fabricate a reasonable mask, but I after trying on a cardboard template I wasn't confident of achieving the optimum paint viscosity/nozzle pressure.

After looking at the airshow pics of 09-4189 I had found online and seeing how the camo looks faded in many of them, I decided to try freehand. 

I was satisfied with the result!

For this build, particularly because of the camo panels and for ease of spraying, I left final assembly of the vertical stabilisers and horizontal tails until after the decals were applied. 

View showing the 4 grays I ended up using.

Apart from the overall color, the rest were applied by hand. 

For the markings, I used a combination of the kit decals plus custom for the unit and a/c decals.

I wasn't able to match the grays as accurately as I had hoped but they were close enough for my display cabinet. 

Here's the underside after final pledge clearcoat to seal the decals followed by AV satin acrylic varnish. 

After removing the canopy masking I cleaned up with alcohol followed by a polish with Tamiya polishing compound (fine). 

The undercarriage will benefit from some detailing in the future.