1/72 Hasegawa/Esci/CMK/Verlinden

Lockheed F-104C "Starfighter"

by Arne Goethe

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The development of the F-104 was based on the experiences gained in the Korean War.  At the time the U.S. Air Force was looking for a fast accelerating, high-speed interceptor.  The development of the prototype XF-104, led by Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson, started on February 28, 1954. The limited production of the first variant, the F-104A, began in 1958.  The F-104 was a typical aircraft of its time: speed defined everything, although its projected maximum speed of over 2000km/h seemed rather unrealistic due to the limited amount of fuel carried on board. The aircraft’s climb rate of 207m/s, however, was simply phenomenal for that time. Its unique dimensions with the missile-like fuselage and stub wings as well as its rapid acceleration gave the F-104 the nickname “the manned missile". The F-104B was the first two-seat variant while the A variant was modified to become a C. The F-104C was more limited to the fighter-bomber role. It could carry more external loads such as fuel tanks or nuclear weapons and possessed the ability to be refueled in flight. On October 16, 1958, F-104C S/N 60891, piloted by Lockheed test pilot Lou Schalk (who first flew the A-12) landed at Nellis AFB, Nevada, to be delivered to the TAC. Here is some extra information: "Really George" was not the first F-104C built - that was the 56-0883. That is a common misconception. Under the cockpit on the left side of the fuselage was the name of the airplane: "Really George" – what other name would be more suitable for this aircraft from the 479TFW, with their home base located at George AFB in California? The 479TFW remained the sole active operator of the F-104C in the USAF. Because the aircraft did not meet the requirements well enough, only 77 aircrafts were delivered. The long journey of the F-104, however, was just beginning: The story of the further developed export variant F-104G is well known to Starfighter enthusiasts.

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The new Revell kit of the EF-twinseater from the year 2004 is to be rated downright great. Even less experienced modelers will be able to build a nice model using the kits’ well-fitting, finely engraved parts which are molded very crisp. Creditable, as always with Revell, is the considerable amount of external stores coming with the kit. In this case there are very well reproduced of 2 AIM-9l/M, 4 AIM-120B, 4 Meteor-missiles as well as 2 drop tanks. The clearly arranged decal sheet, which leaves nevertheless some room for improvement, allows the modeller to create German, Spanish and British aircraft. All in all, the assembly of this model was rather easy – so I’ll only consider certain stations during the build and minor hurdles in this article. The only minor flaw in the cockpit are the very well represented, though too wide Martin Baker Mk.16 ejection seats. One just has to sand down the side parts of the seats in the lower area a bit so they’ll fit in the cockpit tub. With some wire and masking tape for the seatbelts, this seats can be immensely improved. Before assembling the fuselage, the fuselage and air intake parts should be dry-fitted, to prepare an exact approach for gluing and painting the interior of the air intakes. The air intake holds some rather complicated filling and sanding efforts so the less experienced modeller might consider taking some compromises at this point. The afterburners and engine nozzles were painted in complete deviation from the instruction sheet to be able to paint the nozzles separately.

There is plethora of F-104 kits in 1/72: from Hasegawa come the much-praised G/S/J versions; from Revell come the C and the G; ESCI once had the F-104A planned, and it was recently released by Italeri as the F-104C. All these kits have recessed lines and are of good qualities. Differences lie in dimensions and shapes as well as numerous details that are not necessarily version dependent. Verlinden and CMK have released many detail sets, so one must decide which kit to perform the “surgery” on. Since I had the CMK detail sets for the engine, the cockpit, the landing gear bays, the air brakes, the radar, the avionics bays, and the slats and flaps (7008 and 7057) as well as the Verlinden update set (for the TF-104G/J), I wanted to actually use them on a model. I saw the whole thing as challenge and that’s what it would become. For subjective reasons I decided for the Hasegawa kit as the basis for the model. Since this manufacturer does not produce the C-variant, I replaced the rear fuselage section by that from the ESCI kit. While studying the ESCI kit, I noticed the fine and correct engravings of this kit as well as the perfect wings. Also, after further examination of the detail parts, I came to the conclusion that some Verlinden etched parts for the radar are usable for my single seater, while some CMK parts such as the radome, slats, flaps and the vacuform canopy (wrong shape) are simply useless. With that, my construction plans were finalized: Fuselage from Hasegawa and ESCI; wings from ESCI; canopy from Hasegawa; plus the appropriate etched and resin pieces. I sawed off the rear part of the Hasegawa fuselage. Into the ESCI rear part went the very well made engine shaft from Hasegawa. The now opened center section of the fuselage received the openings for the engine and the air brakes. After the installation of the engine, the air brake bays as well as the landing gear wells, the two fuselage center sections were assembled together. Now the hard part began: the assembly of the rear section with the center section as well as the putty work and the engravings that will follow. The tail always wanted to break off, and the engraving work would not turn out nicely. I was only able to correct these problems after I used little pieces of detached sprues as putty - a method that, though complex and time consuming, proved to be advantageous during re-engravings.

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The CMK cockpit is of very good quality, but the small scale, together with the many details added to the difficulties of painting the cockpit, and I’m not overly happy with what I’ve accomplished. The assembly of the nose section, the cockpit, as well as the resin pieces for the avionics bays hardly created any problems. The assembly of the nose and fuselage sections was problem-free and required only minor touchups. But therefore there was a lot of work around the two intakes: even though Hasegawa provides air intakes for the early and late variants, they really did not fit well onto the fuselage. The transitional area must be sanded and re-engraved afterwards. Now the non-moving canopy parts could finally be cemented, puttied, and sanded. With that the “rough” part was finished – the model could (finally!) go to the paint shop. The Alclad paints made painting metallic areas a lot easier, under the condition that the surface to be painted was smooth as glass. In addition, I primed the fuselage and all other parts with Alclad Gray Primer & Microfiller after the sanding job. This paint dried matt and was polished with some cotton and polishing cloth before the paint job. Afterwards, the problem-free lacquer finish with Alclad Aluminum took place – here I resorted to original photos of F-104Cs from the 50's and 60's. The surrounding areas of the avionics bays were now masked, and waiting to be painted. The wings were painted separately for the sake of simplicity. Watch out: generally speaking, the top- and undersides of the wings of F-104Cs were white, but it was not always the case. For "Really George", I could only find one reference: the Albatros decal sheet. It indicated that the underside of the aircraft was gray (FS 16515). As for the details of the avionics bays and the radar, I partly resorted to reference photos available and partly relied on my feelings. The most difficult part was painting the wheels. "Really George" appeared to have white rings around the wheels. Luckily, Albatros included decals, even though these did not fit very exactly. The wheels were first painted with Alclad Chrome and then with black. The result was very good. I dismantled the wheels again after I had learned that the C had rims different from what came with all the kits. Yes, even ESCI overlooked this detail. Only one manufacturer did not: Revell. So I asked for help online and shortly thereafter, the wheels arrived from a fellow modeler whom I know. It was time to redo everything - only I painted the chrome first this time, masked the rims, painted the white, and then masked these surfaces and painted the black. It sounds simple, but try doing everything in such as small scale!

  I had procured the sheet 72006 "Exotic Stars" from Albatros Decals. Here a number of interesting F-104 schemes can be done, including "Really George". The carrier film of these decals hardly reacted to softeners – only the use of DACO softener (which strangely shows no effect normally) saved the day. However, a number of the decals of this sheet are incorrectly printed. For example, the letters "U.S. Air Force" has incorrect spacing between each other and is also a little off geometrically. After careful examination of my decals, I finally decided to just use those decals that were irreplaceable. Especially tricky was the application of the red lightning bolts onto the fuselage. After the seal of clear lacquer (which must be a really thinned Humbrol paint for the metallic areas), I could go onto the final assemblies. That included the many flaps, the separately painted wings, and the opened canopy. The last parts that were installed were the covers for the leading edges and the RBF tags (Tally Ho!). The careful observer will notice some inaccuracies with the CMK resin parts that I’ve built into my model. Undoubtedly, some will ask me why I, instead of annoying myself with the combination of the fuselage parts from Hasegawa and ESCI, did not simply use the fuselages from ESCI or Revell. Now, certain things with ESCI’s nose area are incorrect and the correction procedure appeared to be quite complicated to me. As for Revell… well I simply did not have the kit. But I did have two Hasegawa kits, with which I had nothing else planned. I could have also just shortened the tail unit of the Hasegawa kit, only I could not think of how I would deal with the new transition to the rear fuselage section. As people say, there are many ways to Rome. Maybe I did not choose the best one, but I arrived somehow.

  I would like to thank my friends and fellow modelers Ronny Hinneburg for the good reference and his many important tips, Jörg Schlegel for the wheel masks and the work on the radar dish, and Bernd "Centuryfan" Korte for the wheels.

Arne

Photos and text © by Arne Goethe

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