History
The
XF-88 was designed to fill a USAF requirement for a "Penetration
Fighter", a new class of aircraft for long-range escort of USAF bombers.
Two XF-88s were ordered (S/N 46-525, 526) in 1946 and the first flight was on 29
October 1948. The XF-88 was underpowered and the second aircraft was modified to
the XF-88A by adding afterburning engines which increased its maximum speed to
approximately 700 mph. The XF-88A design was used as the basis for the F-101
Voodoo.
The
Kit Itself
Lindberg’s
offering of the XF-88 depicts a 1/48th scale replica of the first prototype
aircraft, 46-525. This kit is old, and follows the traditional
1950’s/1960’s model type: build it, play with it, destroy it, and go buy a
new one. The kit has raised rivet detail, moveable control surfaces, a hinged
“engine compartment” on the top of the fuselage, optional wingtip tanks.
The kit has no real cockpit and no nose wheel well.
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images below to see larger images
Kit
Construction
I
decided early on that I was going to update this kit. The first thing I
did was to sand all of the rivet detail off the kit. I glued the engine
compartment cover in place. I then cut an opening for the nose wheel well.
The
kit cockpit consisted of a pilot figure and an ejection seat. So, I robbed a
1/48 scale cockpit out of the parts box and proceeded to squeeze it into the
XF-88. After some convincing, the cockpit was now a perfect fit inside the
fuselage. I used an F-100 seat on this one as it looked to the closest to what
the actual seat looked like. I placed styrene strips inside the cockpit to
represent structure.
The
kit comes with an engine to place inside the fuselage. It is very inaccurate, as
a matter of fact, it is the same one that is in their 1/48 X-3 kit. The
engine acts as the exhaust nozzles. Instead, I used 3/8” brass tube to make
the exhaust nozzles
Using
sheet styrene I constructed the sides of the wheel well and placed smaller
strips to represent structure inside the well.
Once
everything was built and fit tightly together, I added nose weight and glued the
fuselage together. Assembly of the wings was pretty straight forward, as well
as, the other major components. Nothing was really exciting or problematic with
the fit of the parts. This kit does have moving ailerons and rudder, which I
just glued into place. I didn’t fill them in, they looked just fine to me the
way they were.
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images below to see larger images
The
overall fit of the kit was actually pretty good. I have no idea as to the exact
original release date of this kit, but it’s really not that bad. After
some filling and sanding, I decided to try my hand at rescribing. I
rescribed the wings and some of the fuselage. I think it turned out pretty good
for a first time, but after I painted the kit, you can hardly see them.
The
nose landing gear required an extension, since there was a new wheel well to
occupy the gear, it wasn’t long enough. This was easily fixed with some round
styrene rod. I then cut a square flat piece the same width as the well and
drilled a hole the same diameter as my landing gear strut and glued it flat to
the top of the gear. This gave the gear a little more surface area to be glued
into the well.
On
the glare shield, I added some various rectangular bumps, as it had no detail
whatsoever.
The
clear parts were quite good. The only thing missing was the roll cage that was
in the sliding canopy. This was made using .010 styrene, .020 styrene for the
ribbing and .020 wire for the roll cage.
Paint
and Decals
I painted this
kit various metalizer colors, aluminum plate and stainless steel and Testors
Metallic Silver. I think the end result came out looking like a natural metal
aircraft. I am not a real fan of natural metal aircraft. Yes, I like looking at
them and I truly admire those people that build scale model aircraft in natural
metal, but it’s the process of getting it to that point of having the aircraft
look like it is real metal. It is very tedious and I have a new respect for
those individuals. The nose and the tail band is Light Sea Grey and the
anti-glare is Flat Black.
Most of the
decals came from spare that I have lying around. The only kit decals I
used were the tail number. I wish the decals came with the “McDonnell XF-88”
logo that was painted on the side of the aircraft at roll out. Stencil decals
were taken off of various decal sheets and placed in there “correct”
position.
Conclusions
Overall, I am
very happy with the finished product. I really like prototype aircraft.
This is the only XF-88 in this scale. I have said this in my other articles, but
I really like taking a kit that is a bad kit and turning it into something
presentable. To me, it is what makes this hobby fun. Maybe I’ll start that
Lindberg 1/48 X-3 next!!
Steve
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