The Italian Air
Force (Aeronautica Militaire Italiana or AMI) is one of the few countries still
using the F-104, with the last few not far from retirement now. One of the AMI
units flying the Starfighter until recently was the Reparto Sperimentale Volo
(literally "Experimental Flight Unit"). This Starfighter was painted
in special markings for the unit's 50th anniversary (incorrectly labelled by
Hasegawa as "NATO 50th Anniversary"). The Hasegawa
1/72 model of the F-104S is a beautiful kit and builds into a very nice
representation of the "manned missile" straight out of the box.
However, I like to add some of the more prominent missing detail.
Note:
There has always been a lot of conjecture over a larger diameter rear fuselage,
as these aircraft had an uprated General Electric J79-GE-19 engine fitted, but
the F-104S DID NOT have a larger diameter rear fuselage.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
To
dress up the cockpit, a Verlinden resin ejection seat was used to replace the
kit seat, and a scratch-built throttle and some photo-etched mirrors were added.
The leading and trailing edge control surfaces on the main wings were cut off
and repositioned down. Angle of attack vanes were cut off and replaced with more
in scale items made from scrap etched brass. The F-104S has the front of
the ventral fin sloping rearward at an angle of almost 45 degrees, whereas the
front of the fin on the kit is perpendicular to the fuselage. The extra part of
the kit fin was easily removed. Construction was very
straightforward and I didn't have to use filler anywhere.
Once construction was complete,
the canopy and windshield were masked and the entire model was painted Gunze
Sangyo H2 Gloss Black, followed by a coat of Gunze gloss acrylic. Wheel wells
and gear doors were masked off and painted Tamiya silver enamel. The upper and
lower access panels were masked and painted tan, and the nose airbrushed white
freehand to get the feathered edge.
Decals for
this scheme, are included in the kit, and are printed by Aeromaster.
Unfortunately, there are some errors with the decals ("What, no surprise
there?!"):
- Each
of the gold 50s should have a gold star above and to the right of it, but
the gold star on the starboard fuselage side is missing - I hand painted a
white star gold.
- There are
not enough white stars to complete the decalling, I had to pinch some
suitably sized ones from my spares box.
- The large
decals for the left and right sides of the nose are simply mirrored. On the
real aircraft, the patterns are completely different. It took a lot of
cutting and repositioning of stars to sort that one out.
- The
instructions show some of the individual stars in the wrong places. I was
able to track down good all-round views of the aircraft (including the
underside), and get them in the right places (mostly, not 100%, but it will
be hard to tell otherwise).
- The winged
figures on the tail are too big and don't fit as they should according to my
photos. I can live with it though.
- The white
"REPARTO SPERIMENTALE VOLO" decals for down the fuselage sides is
too long. I had to cut and apply each letter individually.
- It is worth
noting the two stars actually applied to the clear perspex of the canopy
also, which are not mentioned in the instructions.
I also created
the candy stripe pitot marking on my ALPS printer (including the "HANDS
OFF" stencilling). The decals were sealed with another coat of gloss
acrylic. The panel lines were picked out using a wash of 10% Titanium White oil
paint, 5% Paynes Grey oil paint, 5% Raw Umber oil paint and 80% turps. The
entire model was then sealed with a 50/50 mix of Gunze flat and Gunze gloss to
give an overall satin finish. Navigation lights, which had been drilled
out prior to painting, were filled with 5-minute clear epoxy tinted with Gunze
Sangyo clear acrylics. Last act was to glue on the painted main wheels and
exhaust nozzle.
This is the second Hasegawa 1/72
Italian Starfighter I have finished and still have 3 more to go.
Reference
Craig
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
|