This is the second
part of the Argentine navy trainers trilogy..and this is the missing link, the
F-9J Cougar trainer...how two of these beautiful machines ended in our country
is a theme of discussion. Some said that it was confusion, as the US
didn't
want to send a swept wing airplane to a country which was developing its own jet
aircraft. By the time...actually, the US Naval department offered these planes,
which our pilots receive with open arms, the training for
naval pilots was a terrible mess...from Texans to the F-9f-2
panther...directly. The
fact that few spares where sent after the purchase may make the first theory
make sense. The planes arrived at Buenos Aires in 1962 aboard the ARA
Independencia carrier. They had little participation on the 1963 revolution, when
they almost had to shoot down a couple of Avro Lincolns that were about to drop
bombs over the naval base of Punta Indio. The end of their short career was in
1970, one remains in the naval museum in Comandente Espora, Bahia Blanca,
Argentina.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The kit is the
Revell one from the early 80"...in 1/50 scale is absolutly a piece
of.....but when I saw it at a local hobby shop I bought it immediately, feeling
really happy for the oportunity of conversion....to the two seater. As I was
digging how I would do that, my dog grabbed a fuselage half and bit the
tail...great, another thing to do. Unfortunaly, my former camera with the in
progress photos was stolen, but I can tell you it was a difficoult job: cut the
nose, enlarge the fuselage, scratch build the cockpit & seats, panels,
control sticks...every thing. The nose was then rebuilt with epoxi resin, sanded
until it got its conical shape. A refulling probe was then attached.
The wings
were absolutely different, so I sanded them down and rescribed them. The exhaust
was a hole, so I put a ballpoint pen cap in there, it fits perfectly. I also scratch
built the metalic thing under the tail which prevents this area touching the
ground while taking off. The wheel bays were also redone with plastic and the
same for the airbrakes. Finally the canopy was vacuformed with thin plasic over a
wodden mold (thanks to Raul Hruizdo for that!!!)
Pablo
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