F/A-18D Hornet VFA-204 River Rattlers

F/A-18D Hornet
VFA-204 River Rattlers
NAS JRB New Orleans 2019
Bu.no. 164053

1/48 scale kit by Hasegawa
Decals by Kinetic, FurballAero, Interdecal and Bedlam Creations
Ordnance from AMK
Rear cockpit instrument panel, control sticks & glare shield from a Hasegawa F/A-18F

I've been wanting to build a VF-204 plane for a while when I came across a picture of D-model in this livery I knew it was the one! the decals come from a Kinetic kit, but are made for a C model. this meant I had to do some decal hunting! it was a lot harder than I thought to track down simple number decals. who knew!

no oil weathering this time - just a wash. i got a little discouraged when the dark gray FS36081 paint didn't match my reference photos and just kinda wanted it done with. still looks great tho! i don't think these planes got carrier-dirty anyways.

loadout is not what you'd typically see on one of these adversary planes, but i felt like the ACMI pods and inert missiles they carry were not as interesting. i did find photos of them doing live fire exercises with AIM-7's so it's not totally inaccurate!