The Upside Down Bomb (Area 88)

The finished model:

The scene:

When assassins target Asran Crown Prince Saki Vashtar, they don’t care who gets in there way – including a plane full of innocent people. With bombs placed strategically under each wing of a MacGregor Airlines DC-10-30, and set to detonate in 2 hours or if the plane drops in altitude, Saki isn’t left with much choice. He calls on his two ace pilots, Shin and Micky to attempt to shoot the bombs off. The only problem is that the Kfirs’ tails are getting in the way. The solution? Shoot them off while flying inverted. This build will try to replicate this dramatic action scene from the Area 88 manga.

Check out the original manga scene from Chapter 016 “The Explosive Sky” here:

The story:

For my money, this is one of the most tense chapters of the early part of the manga series. It’s got an early teaser moment when Ryoko and Saki accidentally bump into each other in the airport in Paris and then later find themselves seated next to each other on this fateful flight. Plausible? Maybe not so much… but this is pulp drama. As a kid I can remember the feeling of anticipation at seeing Ryoko get her first really solid lead that Shin is in fact still alive and well.

And as for the action? Well, you’ve got Shin and Mickey, flying inverted in a pair of Kfirs, trailing behind a commercial DC-10 flight… attempting to pick off a pair of bombs with a single shot from their machine guns. Hollywood WISHES it thought up that action sequence. I don’t know what it is, maybe the cross-over juxtaposition between the peaceful civilian airliner and the war-ridden fighter jets, but this one really sticks out in my mind. I knew quite early that I really wanted to include it in my 1/144 scale project.

The kit:

DC-10 Airbus by Revell
Kfir C2+C7 by Dragon

The build:

One thing I really like about these 1/144 scale project builds is that they really give me a chance to put some planes together that most scale modellers don’t usually see paired. When was the last time you got to include Kfirs and a DC-10? Although Eastern Express seems to have just released a new mould DC-10, when I started this operation, the venerable Airfix and Revell kits were the only game in town. Both aged kits, they’re not that easy to come by, but luckily I had a very generous and friendly contact over at whatifmodellers.com that had a few boxes hidden away in his magical loft. The much more recent Dragon Kfir kit was much easier to locate, and a few clicks on eBay had it headed my way.

This being my first airliner, I decided the to line up on the “clear plastic windows” side of the decal or not to decal debate. It was probably a poor decision as the windows of the front left side of the fuselage ultimately fell out and will now rattle around inside for all eternity. Of course, part of the problem was that I originally was too stingy with the glue and Stoney couldn’t withstand some of the man-handling.

What man-handling you might ask? Well I only got the idea to include LED lights after the fuselage was glued together. So, after ripping one the wings, wiring in the lights, glueing it all back together, then changing my mind as to the size of the fuselage lights and cutting those it and re-wiring in new ones… and then having the wires break in the wing tips and having to open them up again… well I ended up throttling the build a few times. I even managed to break the wires off at the fuselage after the clear stand post got snapped off during the final wiring together of the lights in the base.

Besides that, I had a few issues with overspray getting past the masking, so there were a few do-overs during the painting portion too. About the only thing that worked exactly as I hoped was masking and painting the big red “M” and the cheat line.

the Kfirs, being much newer kits went together well. The biggest problem with them was adapting to the idea that they would be displayed upside down. It seems like a small difference, but it can throw you off because things aren’t where they normally are. The only real issue with the Kfir portion of the build was the canopies. I’d heard about people cracking them, so I thought I was being careful. But not careful enough, I guess. The other issue was really just dumb luck, in the scuffle where I lost the front windows, I somehow managed to graze on of the Kfir wings with the soldering iron, talking a melted chunk out of it. Oh, well, battle damage… right?

All in all though, I think it turned out all right, but feel free to tell me how you feel.

Too big for a sprue shot, so I just did a dry fit.

I knew that black tape would come in handy. Useful for marking off panel lines to be scribed.

Slow and steady… but we now have panel lines!

Next to block off the cockpit from the cabin.

Painted the interior black to give it some depth.

Trimmed the engine exhausts but need some cones… luckily I found a couple of bombs in the spares box that’ll do the trick!

Glued the interior windows in place. The ones from the kit were very thick, so I made my own.

Engine bits painted and awaiting assembly after drying.

Added a bit of a wash to make the fans stand out a bit more. They’ll be hard to see once they’re in the engine cowlings.

That circle cutter comes in handy for masking jobs like this one.

The rear side of the engine is glued in place and assembled.

Now that the engines are completed, I was able to glue the fuselage together… bit by bit.

After lots of putty, sanding and repeating I get to… repeat! There’s still some seams visible.

The top side doesn’t show any visible gaps, but there’s still a bit of a ghost ridge. Not sure how I’m going to get rid of that.

Decided to retro-fit the wing tips with very tiny LED lights… I had to reopen it a bit, but it wasn’t too far gone.

I know it looks like a mess… but that bundle of wires, resistors, capacitors, and a 555 timing chip works, and that’s what counts here. 😉

Four wing tip lights, and two red blinking lights on the fuselage.

Decided to add a couple of SMD LEDs for the underwing bombs… alternating blink with the fuselage lights.

Final panel lines scribed, and major sanding done. Time to attach the windscreen and the engines/underwing fins.

Time to get clever and add some colour to the wing tip lighting. I had some clear red plastic sprue, but for the green I broke the clip off a highlighter pen.

And… disaster! I had to use CA glue of affix the green plastic, but in the process ended up yanking out one of the tiny LED leads.

Now that the wing tip lights are fixed, I decided to replace the fuselage ones to fit the scale better. Took a bit of cutting, fishing, soldering, glueing, puttying and sanding… but it’ll look better

Some clear plastic fro a sprue will work as a cover for the LEDs. Needs a bit of filing to shape.

There’s the bombs… finally. Painted to keep the light from shining through the plastic.

Wing tips are sanded smooth and painted with metallic grey to black out the lights.

First coat of primer on… a few touch-ups necessary.

Hmmm… it’s grey. I probably should’ve done the white coat of paint first though… I just got excited to put something other than pure white on this one.

Well, moving right along… let’s paint the wings Tamiya XF-16 Aluminum.

Added some Tamiya XF-56 Metallic Grey to the wings/tail…

Painted the nose cone black, and added some silver to the engine intakes. I also changed my mind on the grey underside and painted the whole thing XF-16.

Masked out the logo/cheat line… I hope this works.

Ok… I’m calling that a win. I like the red.

And… DONE! I’m spreading my fingers and backing away slowly.

The sprues look quite clean and well detailed.

Let’s start at the bottom. Main pieces cut, wheel doors in place and the engine LED is wired.

A bit of “aircraft grey” for the cockpit and “dark iron” for the tail.

Luckily the electronics still fit. Feels strange drilling into the top of a plane…

Major pieces assembled, and lights work… winning!

Got the small (C2) canards on, but the holes were much too big for the slots, so a shin was required.

The cockpit is a bit snug, but luckily I have an extreme weight loss program… who needs legs?

The canopies both cracked during application, so I’ll try to sand them smooth again. I’m glad this is an upside down build…

After a bit of putty and sanding, the underside is painted “Israeli eggshell blue” – it’s a homebrew mix, so hopefully close enough.

And the first layer of camouflage is on. FS34227… or something close enough.

Second layer of camouflage is on… starting to look like a proper Kfir now, innit?

And… we have black and yellow recognition triangles. Man that’s yellow!

They look fairly different with a panel wash.

Since the bottom is up this time, I took more care to get the panel wash done well… I think it works.

3 Replies to “The Upside Down Bomb (Area 88)”

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holycrudsomeoneremembersthis says:

July 27, 2023 at 8:51 AM

This scene is pretty damn iconic as fictional aviation intrigue sequences go, and you’ve more than done it justice. Still not sure why Shin & Mick didn’t do this one at a time on-panel, but talk about wild formation shots.

strobez says:

July 28, 2023 at 1:44 AM

Hah! Thanks for the feedback! This is one of my favourite scenes from the manga, but I’ve never actually wondered why they didn’t just each shoot one of the bombs one at a time. I guess that just makes too much sense… but it’s probably less dramatic. Heh heh.