No, I'm not calling a "Growler." That's a ridiculous name.
I started with the Italeri kit, as it's the only 1/48 -18G out there right now. It has it's shortcomings - aside from temperamental fit, the basic airframe itself represents an early block F and there are some changes to be made both to the basic airframe and to represent the electronic warfare gear that got added on. You could use a Revell F/A-18F, but you'd have to come up with the wingtip receiver pods, the ALQ-99 jamming pods, and even then you'd still have some of the add-ons to make yourself.
The cockpit is basic, and the panels/consoles are represented with decals. I replaced the aft instrument panel/coaming with a resin part from Steel Beach, which represents the ACS crewstation in the back of the G's.
Main assembly is pretty straightforward, but the engineering and parts breakdown does invite some fit issues, as you can probably see from all the green. There's also the issue of "early" Super Hornet features that need to be corrected, such as these square-shaped holes in the wingroot and the pieces that go in there.
Add-ons include a more or less conformal antenna on the spine (it's saddle shaped), wing fences, antenna blisters on the side of the nose and near the horizontal stabilizers, and in the case of the Italeri kit, the IFF interregator.
The kit's molded ECS exhausts (between the tails) are also incorrect and need to be replaced - Steel Beach also makes resin parts for these, and Darren Roberts was kind enough to send some along with the ACS instrument panel. Also, in the picture below, you can see the fairing at the 'dogtooth' in the wing leading edge, another unique feature of the EA-18G.
The external stores are 3 ALQ-99 jamming pods from Cutting Edge, 2 AGM-88 HARM from the kit (stripes from a Hasegawa weapons set decal sheet), 2 AIM-120 AMRAAM from the kit, and drop tanks from the kit. The last Italeri inaccuracy here was the pylons - they're inaccurate for any Super Hornet, and you'll need to rob a Revell kit - or have a generous friend willing to part with the pylons from one of HIS Revell kits. In my case it was the latter, thanks to the generosity of Brian Marbrey.
I went my own way for markings. Italeri gives you a choice between VAQ-129, the fleet replacement squadron, and VAQ-209, the reserve squadron. It's an open question as to whether or not VAQ-209 will make the transition to EA-18Gs or be disestablished when the Prowler is finally retired, so I wasn't too keen on that one. And I didn't really dig the conceptualized FRS markings in the kit. So while I used the kit's stencils, numbers and whatnot, I raided the decal stash for an old Superscale sheet for squadron markings, putting the bird in VAQ-137 colors (my former fleet squadron). The oversized air wing tailcode on the inside of the tails is not quite congruent with current "big Navy" dictates, but I'm sort of hoping the VAQ community will stand it's ground when it comes to more creative paint schemes. A guy can hope...
Kit: Italeri (and parts from Revell)
Scale: 1/48
Markings: VAQ-137
Date: 2007
Aftermarket: Steel Beach ACS cockpit and ECS exhaust, Cutting Edge ALQ-99 pods, Superscale decals
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