NA Sabres |
1/72 Fujimi NA F-86F-40 Sabre |
1/72 Hasegawa NA F-86D Sabre Dog |
Gallery Article by Eric Bade
on
Oct 2 2003
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F-86F
Some years ago, I was amazed by the cover of one of the first issues of the French AirFan magazine. A flight of blue nosed Portuguese
F-86s which were described as the last NATO Sabres.
My kit actually started life as a Japanese F-86F-40. It seems Japan was the main user of this subversion of the Sabre. When Cutting Edge released a decal sheet featuring one of these Portuguese aircraft and I realised that Portugal actually had been using
F-86F-40s, as my original paintjob had yellowed I decided to repaint my model as one or these red crossed Sabres.
Construction
It is a nice recessed panel lines and well designed kit. It was built out of the box and as per instructions. No aftermarket details here, just quite a cement and paint project.
Cockpit was painted medium grey. A little of black on side consoles and instrument panels. White, red and yellow details and that’s it.
My only alteration to the kit was that I wanted slats dropped, which is the configuration of the real machines on the ground. Just a matter of careful slats cutting, and rebuilding of the hard wing leading edge with plasticard). Quite an easy task.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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Painting
These aircraft actually started their career unpainted. I decided I’d leave underwing fuel tanks silver. I used Humbrol 11 there. Rest of aircraft is XtraColour Air Defense Grey. One of my first experience with my Aztec airbrush. I suspect AirFan prints were a little under exposed or maybe that was due to blue Portuguese skies but it's blue is a little too deep on my kit, as it was on photos I had. I wanted to conform to the
magazine (photographic evidence) and not to Cutting Edge instructions. Later information proved I was wrong. Lesson learned : be careful with photo interpretation, even when printed in colour. All featured aircraft showed heavy staining on fuselage sides, which I reproduced with a wash of brown.
Maybe my next Sabre will be a more common Korea War USAF machine but I was happy to add a model of a seldom depicted air force in my collection.