The
very nice F-104C kit built as the altitude world record setter from Dec. 14,
1959. The pilot was Capt Joe Jordan. He was the first flying an aircraft under
its own power from T/O to an altitude above 100’000ft, and at the same tame
has beaten to old altitude record, setting the new mark to 103,389ft.
The
aircraft remained in regular service after this flight, until it ended like many
other “widow makers”. It crashed on a normal training flight; more
information about that accident I don’t have.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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As
mentioned, I used the Hasegawa 1/48 F-104C Starfighter, certainly one of the
best kits out of that house ever!
Nevertheless,
I could not resist adding the Aires exhaust, Aires wheel bays and Aires cockpit.
The cockpit is together with the exhaust a very nice addition, the wheel bays
are a bit luxury, as you can’t see much of them once installed.
Also
I added the Eduard ZOOM set, I mean the mirrors and probes (the rest of the set
is still untouched…). I added some scratch build parts like the brake lines
and some wires in the gear bays. The pitot in the nose is from Fine Molds, and
I’m very happy to have it. You very easily hit the nose somewhere, killing the
pitot when you travel to expositions. That needle is able to take a lot, as I
have experienced during the painting progress (the aircraft fell down the
table… see cotton gloves below).
The
pilot is from JP Production. I had to reposition him, as his arms are designed
to rest on the canopy rails, canopy open of course! The legs were also difficult
to fit into the Aires cockpit.
Finally
the decals are from Cutting Edge, CED48141, stencils are Hasegawa OOB.
The
construction was straight forward, the Aires parts fit very well. To paint the
silver fuselage I used Alclad II gloss black primer, covered with several layers
of Future (my magic I use it for everything tool!) until the whole aircraft was
shiny. Yes, I know, the gloss primer IS gloss, but nothing against Future!
The next layer was built with Alclad II highly polished aluminum. Since then I
was working with cotton gloves, not to leave any fingerprints. And I’ll put
them on when ever I touch the aircraft again. Other shades were made with
different Alclad II colors.
The non metallic colors are from the Valliejo Acrylic brand.
The
only headache was the CE decals, as the decals white color is very resistant to
Microsol and –set. Well, finally I managed that, too.
My
wife likes that airplane much, and because she has a better camera than I do,
she took the pictures for me. Thank you, Fabienne!
I
hope you like that sexy piece of history!
Leander
PS:
This model can be seen “live” during the upcoming 2005 Telford model show
(UK) on the IPMS Switzerland table.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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