1/32 Czech Model T-33 A Shooting Star

Gallery Article by Peter Doll on Oct 20 2010

 

After Czech Model had released his F-80 in the big scale, I was quite sure that in the course of time a T-33 A "Shooting Star", the legendary "T-Bird", would follow and it really happened last year.  I was not very surprised to recognize that this kit had its shortcomings too as the F-80.  Without the aftermarket products from AMS Resins it is not possible to build a reasonable and nearly correct T-Bird.

Using AMS Basis Cockpit Update (32050) I had the chance to show my T-Bird with the cockpit in open position.  I had also planned to use AMS landing flaps (32037), but it was impossible to get this set from MidTennHobbies, it was always sold out when trying to place an order.

The finish for my model was very easy to find because I had a couple of opportunities to shoot pictures in 1966 of AFCS T-Birds while based at Wiesbaden AB in Germany. All AFCS T-33's had very colorful and eyecatching markings at that time and very interesting for me was, they had a highly polished bare metal skin, giving me again the chance to use simple aluminium kitchen foil to come very close with my model to the original.

All decals are hand made including the unit emblem, which is indeed slightly oversized.

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Czech Model's Kit of a 1:32 T-Bird is really a good basis for a nice model, but I think that a model of this big scale should have movable flaps.  And I further missed the travel pod under the mid fuselage used by so many T-Birds.  A must I think.

I'm sure that this was not the last T-Bird I build using the Czech Model kit, but I hope until than the aftermarket has produced what we are looking for to build a 100% correct "Shooting Star".

Peter Doll

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Photos and text © by Peter Doll