Norway purchased 22
surplus CF-104s (of which 3 were twin seaters) from Canada in 1972. These
were refurbished at Scottish Aviation in Prestwick, modified to RNoAF specs
including installing the M61 cannon and a new coat of paint. They then
flew off to enter service with no 334 Sqn in the anti-invasion role as
fighter-bombers. Spending much time at low level, they were frequently
seen carrying four tanks and a practice bomb and rocket dispenser. As
Norway started taking deliveries of the F-16 in 1981, 334 Sqn took over the
intercept duties of 331 Sqn, and they were fitted with dual Sidewinder launchers
on the belly. The CF-104s flew out of RNoAF inventory in 1982, and a
number of surviving aircraft went to museums or private display. www.starfighter.no
has a lot of useful information on the F-104 in Norwegian service.
Shortly after Hasegawa released
their F-104 series, I purchased this F-104C to "warm up" for the day I
would add a RNoAF F-104G to my collection. I ended up filling and sanding
more than I expected, and realised this would never make the grade for a bare
metal finish without an awful lot of work. So, do I finish it in
camouflage or put it back in the box? I decided to finish it in
camouflage, and convert it into a Norwegian CF-104. All the basics were in
the box with the exception of the extended rudder and fairing above the nozzle,
but these were easily added from plastic. The Radar Warning Receivers were
made from scratch - the rear ones are basically cut off cylinders with rounded
rear ends, so I used 4 mm diameter Evergreen tube filled with Milliput.
The RWR on the nose was more awkward to make, but taking things one step at a
time it's not difficult. First start off with a diamond shaped baseplate,
then I added the front piece from square rod that was sloped back in the side
view. When dry, I added the side walls from 0.5 mm plasticard that I
sanded to shape. The cavity was then filled with Milliput. The
spheres on the nose were also fashioned from Milliput. I made several, and
then selected the two that were closest in size, sanded them down to a
hemisphere, and glued them on the forward facets of the antenna cover. To
make it a proper CF-104 I needed to remove the IR sensor just in front of the
windshield.
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It is well known
that Hasegawa have been cheapskates when it comes to ordnance in their 1:48th
Starfighter kits, so I added wing pylons from sheet plastic using the drawings
in the Verlinden Lock On book for reference. The extra wing tanks were
modified from a pair of tanks donated by a fellow IPMS member - thanks Neil!
The vertical fin on the under-wing tank has a swept leading edge and vertical
trailing edge. The horizontal fins are symmetrical (unlike the tip tanks),
and are the same size as the outside fins on these.
As the cockpit was
already painted and the fuselage halves glued together, there was little detail
I could add, and changing the cockpit to the correct configuration was out of
the question. I purchased an Eduard Zoom set to add some details to the
canopy area and I also used the HUD frame. The coaming was detailed using
lead foil and some bits added from scratch. The seat was a bit bare, so I
replaced some of the moulded in harnesses and hoses with wound copper wire and
lead foil. While on the construction stages, I added some strips of plastic to
the leading edges in three sections. These would later become protective
strips painted red for an additional splash of colour. Normally, I am not
keen on FOD covers and the like as I think they detract from the lines of the
aircraft. However, I also try to show some of the characteristics of the
plane, and these would highlight the sharp leading edges the Starfighter was
famous for.
The CF-104s spent
their entire career with the RNoAF wearing locally produced paints approximately
matched to FS24098 on the upper surfaces and 26375 on the lower. The belly
colour should have a slight metallic sheen to it, but I was unable to replicate
this in a satisfactory manner, and in any case it is only noticeable up close,
and would not look realistic on a scale model. I am not aware of an out of
the tin match for FS24098, but the colour you're after is a warm olive green,
and -4097 is not warm enough. I mixed my own from approximately 50-50
Xtracolor NATO Green (the aeroplane colour, not the armour colour) and RLM04
Yellow. Towards the later stages of their service, the planes were
spot-painted in almost any shade that could be called "green", and
some aircraft could be said to be green variants of modern US Navy jets.
For that reason, and that the red and white 334 Sqn chevron would add a bit of
colour to an otherwise drab finish, I chose to represent my Starfighter in the
latest configuration of the late 70s and early 80s. Vingtor Decals - http://vingtor.net
- is a small company specialising in Norwegian military subjects, and these
decals are beautifully printed by Cartograf. The sheet offers details for
six aircraft (including a couple of two seater) from the earliest period
without RWRs and call numbers with Canadian font, to the latest, but there are
enough numbers on the sheet to make up just about any aircraft of any era.
The 1:72nd sheet has decals for two aircraft, and the 1:48th scale
sheet caters for one, but includes some useful extras for F-16s. The
decals are available in 1:32nd as well, but they have restricted the
numbers and only include decals to do one model. The decals went on
beautifully with my usual method of using Tamiya acrylic thinner as a solvent
over a clear gloss coat of Polly S, finishing off with an eggshell finish of
grey tinted Polly S clear.
Since I was making
the latest configuration, I also needed to add beacons on the belly and spine
from clear sprue as well as teardrop nav lights on the tip tanks in place of the
flush ones. The leading edge protective strips were painted red and
had Eduard Color Etch Remove Before Flight tags added to them with fine wound
copper wire.
As I started off with the
interceptor, the centerline pylon was not included, and I added this too from
sheet plastic - the sway braces were bent copper wire. Originally I was
going to scratchbuild a practice dispenser, but a look through a book detailing
the history of the Kongsberg Penguin Anti Ship Missile, showed a conceptual
drawing for a Norwegian designed nuclear missile! Norway's policy has been
to not allow permanently based foreign forces and storage or deployment of
nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil in times of peace, so this came as a surprise.
I then thought "what if...?" What if the cold war got really hot, and
the RNoAF were tasked with a strike at Murmansk before the Northern Fleet could
pose a serious threat to NATO shipping and Europe's lifeline to the US and
Canada? Well, it's too late to practice once a "silver bullet"
is strapped to your plane and you get the map and target coordinates, so I
decided to arm my Starfighter with a dummy nuke while the squadron was on a
foreign exchange to "some undisclosed European country". The
Belcher Bits CF-104 armament set has the now surplus RWRs and wing pylons, five
BL755 cluster bombs as well as two nukes - Mk.28 (with two different tailfins)
and Mk.43. Assuming that the Mk.43 would be the more modern weapon, I decided to
use that one, and lots of filling and sanding followed. Being a dummy
weapon, it was painted white and I supposed there should be some markings saying
"Inert" or similar, but I had none. When I glued the
"shape" to the belly pylon, I realised a problem. The rear body
and fins would make it impossible to retract the main undercarriage, let alone
open the doors! Not sure what was wrong here, but as I was already
committed to a delivery, I chose to ignore this. The clearance is minimal,
and that is accurate for almost anything carried under a Starfighter. From
a friend, I was later told that the Mk.28 was the standard NATO "special
store" for Starfighters, and later still, I was told from an ex- 334 Sqn
Starfighter mechanic that these aircraft were not equipped to carry nukes.
Luckily neither of us had to be proven wrong...
Jens
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