'Opened the box' for my project #2 for the GB.
Spent most of my childhood and early teens in Chicago, so as a modeler I have a 'thing' about doing related builds, especially police/fire and public service vehicles native to the area. Top spot on the 'fire' pyramid is the ARFF (Aircraft Rescue Fire Fightng) series of vehicles built only 200 miles to the north by Oshkosh--the same company responsible for the M985 HEMTT series of 8-wheeled military trucks in use since the '80s by US armed forces the world over. The ARFF is designed specifically for airport use, combining side-by-side high-volume tankage for various fire suppressants such as water, foam and chemicals, with novel hardware like the 'snozzle': a boom-mounted reinforced nozzle capable of piercing through the exterior of an aircraft, to extinguish internal cabin or cargo-area fires.
The ARFF's are big, complicated and impressive...read 'cool'...and I've waited in vain all these years in the hopes that some manufacturer would deliver us a decent scale model of the same. Closest thus far are some pricey 1/50 die-casts...and an elaborate paper model of one of the earlier versions built for European use. [I've got an Academy 1/72 M985 in the stash--waiting for the ever-popular 'some day' conversion--but haven't yet gotten around to it.]
Oddly, it was Disney and Russian model company Zvezda that jointly stepped into the breach...sort of. Disney's 'Planes' movies (which I confess I haven't seen) had an animated character based on the tell-tale shape of the ARFF...and Zvezda apparently secured the license to release a version of 'Ryker' in simple-build 1/100 kit form.
It ain't the Holy Grail...but shoot, it's better than nothing. 
Here's one of the shiny Striker 3000 ARFF's of the Chicago FD, in use at O'Hare Airport, which I will be attempting to (roughly) facimilize (facimilate???):
And this is what I have to work with....
My Cyrillic's a little rusty, but the instructions look pretty straightforward:
No decals...just paper stickers, though they're nicely-printed.
A few more parts than my 'Egg' F-18, with very basic but nicely-rendered detail:
And last (and probably least), some of the 'extras' I printed up just this morning, to help dress Mr. 'Ryker' up in the proper 'home team' colors:
At this point I'm not planning on much more than a 'straight' build with the addition of my 'local' markings...though I'll probably end up adding some detail to replace things like the sticker-represented lights, and to dress up hardware and such; we'll see.