I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to…well you get the idea.

My first go at a modern jet, a Polish F-16D built from Academy’s 1/32 F-16I Sufa, has felt cursed from the start, when the Eduard PE turned out to be such a bust. From that point, the only luck I’ve had with the kit has actually been with aftermarket components – namely the wonderful Wolfpack cockpit and Aires gear bay. Everything else has been a mess.

I’ve been pushing through since sometime in late October, but I swear, every single time I turn around, there’s another problem that pops up. Another thing that doesn’t fit or another technique that goes horribly awry.

And so, I’m done. In another time, I might push through. With more jets under my belt, I might push through. But this kit has been sucking the fun out of my bench time for nearly two months now, with no signs of improving. I mean, now that I’ve got the fuselage together, I have to deal with:

• The exhaust butt-ring thing doesn’t match the shape of the rear fuselage.
• The nose cone doesn’t match the shape of the forward fuselage. There are overhangs.
• The engine exhuast looks terrible. There is no resin option for the late P&W engine.
• Filling and sanding will be the mother of all pains in the ass.
• The kit plastic has a weird pebble-ish texture to it. Not smooth like it should be.

How many more months would I be looking at before I could even contemplate paint? No. Screw that. I’ll revisit this one later, after I have a few other jets under my belt and have a better sense of what I need to worry about and what I don’t. And hopefully at that point, it will actually be fun.

Until then, the Polish F-16 is being relegated to the Shelf of Doom. Apologies to all who have been following along.