1/48 Hasegawa F-8E Crusader

Gallery Article by Burt Gustafson on Sept 6 2011

 

For your viewing pleasure, here are some photos of my 1/48 scale Hasegawa F-8 Crusader. The F-8 Crusader was a single-engine carrier-based air superiority fighter, built by Vought for the U. S. Navy and Marine Corp. It replaced the F-7U Cutlass, and saw a lot of action during the Vietnam War.

The ultimate F-8 Crusader was the F-8E, an all-weather fighter bomber capable of load outs up to four thousand pounds. It was also equipped with four 20mm cannons and could carry AIM-9 air-to-air missiles—it was a “Gunfighter”.

Construction
This was an out of the box build and was pretty much a hassle free build because the parts fit was excellent. Only one area of the build caused some extra work and that was in the main wing installation. The kit gave you the option of having the main wing up or down. I chose to have the main wing down. The wing did not want to fit flush with the fuselage. This required some extra sanding and some filling to get the main wing to fit flush with the fuselage.

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Painting
All paints used for this model were Model Masters and Floquil enamel paints. The model here is painted in the basic carrier aircraft color scheme used by the US Navy from 1951 thru the late 1980s: Gloss Gull Gray upper surfaces and Gloss White for the underside of the aircraft and control surfaces (flaps and rudder). Signal Red for the nose. After the paint dried and cured, I applied a coat of Future and then applied a pin wash to enhance the panel lines.

Decals
The decals for this kit were excellent, although a little thick. They are well printed (you can actually read what the stencils say), and easily placed on the model. They conformed nicely to the model with the help of Solvaset decal setting solution. The kit offers decals for two aircraft. I chose to go with the decals for the CVW-19 Commander Aircraft from VF-191, “Satan’s Kittens”.

Comments
This kit was a pleasure to build. The parts fit was good. Cockpit and external detail is also quite good, and the decals were super. The overall quality of this kit is excellent. I was pleased with the finished model—an impressive model.

Burt Gustafson

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Photos and text © by Burt Gustafson