Search the Community

Hi, Here is my last two builds : two F-86F-25 (F-40 wing) from 1/72 Hobbyboss kit. And with the HiDecal. Thanks to diego for the quality of its decalsheet. The first is from an Imperial Iranian Air Force plane. , Kamina AB, Congo, 103rd TFS, 1963. The second is from an Imperial Ethiopian Air Force (ex-Iran), Asmara AB, 1st Fighter Bomber Sqn, 1972. I hope you will like it. If you like it, you can find the complet set of photos there : Iranian, Ethiopian. Alain.

F-86Fs of the 435th Fighter-Day Squadron, 479th Fighter-Day Group at George AFB. Watched a terrible sci-fi movie on Youtube last night, "Gog", an Ivan Tors production released in June 1954. The highlight was a scramble sequence circa early 1954. Really like the yellow jeeps for the crew chiefs. Couldn't resist taking these screen grabs... Hope these help someone, Sven

Hi comrades! I decided to try NMF and new (for me) decal manufacturer - Armycast. So, the fantastic Hasegawa kit exists in my slash for 25 years and I don't remember why I bought it (I'm not big fun of Sabre...). Because the decals are dead, I chose different livery - 53rd Fighter Day Squadron, Bitburg AB, Germany. The build was straightforward, very small amount of acrylic putty was used. Nose weight was fixed with Tamiya two-component putty. Only aftermarket-resin seat by Quickboost and the decals. So far painting is complete. Next stage - decals and undercarriage assembly Thanks for looking

Hi all, Finally, I have the next one wheeled out of the paint shop. I had some delay because the white star decals I needed went out-of-stock. She is an F-86F-30 with the -40 wing, as supplied to Venezuela from US stocks in the late 1950s. You will have seen an earlier iteration of this machine when I built her around five years. I chose to build her again as I like the markings. These markings are of the earlier type, i.e. without the “wings” on the roundels. These gradually changed from 1958 following the January 1958 attempted Military coup. She is “8C36” in the older serial system, indicating the 8th aircraft of “C” Flight and is seen here (below) while awaiting delivery from McClellan AFB. The aircraft, like all the FAV Sabres, was assigned to Escuadron de Caza No. 36, Fuerza Aerea Venezolana, known as “Los Diablos”. The Venezuelans ordered 22 Sabres from the US in 1955. Some eventually went on to Bolivia to be the last operational Sabres anywhere in the world. The kit is the Fujimi which, in my view, is the best F-86F available in the scale despite being long in the tooth now. It has some drawbacks, not least of which is the fact that the wing doesn’t have the separate Leading Edge flaps. As you can see, I cut these and built my own. I’ve chosen to load her up with tanks too, appropriately, as shown in the image below. Apart from the seat, the inner tanks and the decals there are no another aftermarket extras on her. So, what did I do/use?. Well: 1. Kit – Fujimi F-86F-40 1/72. I removed the starboard inlet behind the wing which was a feature of the -40, rather than the -30. 2. Aftermarket – Pavla seat, Red Roo tanks 3. Decals – Aztec Juicy Jugs set for the roundels, Detail Decals (US-109) 1mm white stars, home-printed the serials etc, and the rest were from the kit. 4. Paints – overall Humbrol Metalcote Polished Aluminium (27002), with some 27003 Steel added to vary panels. Others paints used were: Humbrol Insignia Yellow, Insignia Red, Matt Black, Aircraft Grey (140), Light Grey (147), Colourcoats Insignia Blue. Finished with Humbrol Satincote. 5. Washes and Weathering – a mixture of Humbrol Dark Grey wash, Flory Dark Dirt, Tamiya Weathering powders. Prismacolor silver pencil for scratches etc around the canopy. Here she is. A few mistakes along the way but I hope you like her: Martin

Hi! As there are several F-86 Sabre builds here at Britmodeller I think I have to contribute as well. At least try to... First one up is the old 1/72 scale Airfix F-86D Sabre from 1975. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/airfix-02061-1-north-american-f-86d-sabre--263279 I've built that kit back then some time around 1976 and still have good memories of it. For some reason I painted it white. It looked at least "white' on the box and it looked so good with the blue decals and white stars. Airfix must have done an rather good job measuring the F-86D as this kit actually shapewise goes rather well with the later F-86D kits from Hasegawa and the F-86L from Special Hobby. It looks simple but looking at this kit closer one discovers that the Airfix crew actually made some serious work with this kit and the fit is rather nice. I've got this kit a year ago from "Hobbybokhandeln". A "second hand modell shop" in Stockholm, Sweden. Not long time after that I've found one Special Hobby F-86L and when a member of IPMS Stockholm sold an Hasegawa F-86D I've got the third "wanted kit". This made it possible to make an interesting "comparison build". As one can see I have slowly started the Airfix build. And one of the things that can be noticed is the rather small F-86F like "Jet Pipe Nozzle". Compared with the same parts from the Hasegawa and Special Hobby kits I took a "styrene pipe" (a 10 mm Evergreen plasticard tube), and inserted it into my "drilling machine" to adjust it a little shapeways and glued it on the old "bulkhead nozzle". The resultat is as you can se the new nozzle with the old "reversed" inside the fuselage. One can also see the intake duct and the rather "deep" cockpit. Next photo showing the cockpits from Airfix (with the intake duct), the Hasegawa kit (middle) and the Special Hobby kit. There are of course decals for the Hasegawa cockpit. And the Special Hobby kit has some very nice photoetched parts for the cockpit, the ejection seat and the rest of the aircraft. Among those parts countless small vortex generators fort the tail and horizontal stabilazers. And the three kits "side by side", ok "above and under". From top to bottom - Special Hobby, Hasegawa and Airfix... Cheers / André

Still a few weeks left on this GB and I would like to join in with a blast from the past, 1979 to be exact, the ESCI 1/48th scale North American F-86F Sabre operated by the Spanish Ejercito Del Aire from 1955 onwards. Last year was a bad year for me modelling mojo wise, am currently wrestling with the Kitty Hawk RF-101C Voodoo and I just want something straightforward which I can build and complete in a few weeks. I have never made any F-86 Sabre in this scale, I have several ESCI kits in the stash, so this one would be good to work on. The kit itself dates back to 1979, I think this is the original boxing, and has around 70 parts. Interestingly the panel lines appear to be engraved, not raised, and a first look on-line suggests that this kit is still produced from time to time by Italeri. The kit decals cover three subjects and the Spanish ones caught my eye. However they will be up to 40 years old so I will need a back-up in case they cannot be used. I do have some research to do about this kit, especially the type of wing which is something I know very little about, also whether these markings fall within the time period of this GB. Good to be here 🙂 Michael

A quickie to test Alclad, fourth finish of the year. Changed the photosetup a little and started futzing about with softboxes , looks a bit better...As is my current thing, everything is brand new, shiny and very pilotless. The kit is simple and has a mixture of good details and strange quirks as you'd expect for a £7 kit, for those interested there's an RFI here. Onto the pix:

My other builds have got me a bit bogged down as one is a resin that that nothing fits and has a surface like the moon and t'other needs a lot of sanding and filling, so I decided to dust this off and get her into the paint shop asap to try out my various Alcalds that I've had for forever but was inspired by how well they work as shown here. The kit was an Amazon freebie back in January for being a vine reviewer that I did some prep on four weeks ago and promptly forgot so a little timeshifting... Note one piece body/wings, lovely. Canopy with hideous lugs and matching canyons in fuselage, not so lovely IP cloned from Eduard etch Seat from Quickboost but with some bogus painting....note HB tree trunk control stick replaced with something more in scale. Fuselage canyons filled with canopy lugs and smoothed with skimming putty: HB aren't keen on the gear up option but that won't stop me, nor will the ludicrously misshapen and sized gear doors, Cricut Air 2 to the rescue, a smear of Mr Surfacer 500 and she'll do. Zipped up, magnetised, masked and ready for the Alcald grey first thing tomorrow. Toodle pip Anil

Following the posting of a recent 'Ready for Inspection' F-86F (the 1/72 Airfix kit painted to represent Pakistan AF Muhammad Mahmood Alam's famous Hawker Hunter killer from 1965), I realised that a major error had been made by the decal manufacturer. Looking at other references I realised that this error has become widespread. The RFI is here by the way (nice job!): I won't go into the controversy surrounding Sqn Ldr Alam's kills, but for information the Pakistan AF states that on 7 September 1965 he shot down five Indian AF Hawker Hunters in less than a minute. Alam's final tally for a short period was nine aircraft shot down, plus two probables from 6 to 16 September 1965. You can find more on Wiki etc. The error with the decals? Well it turns out that Cutting Edge in its sheets CED48023 (1/48) and CED72025 (1/72) had the aircraft's serial number as 55-4026 (tail number 54026): Also the Hobby Master diecast has the same s/n: And Kits World 1/72 KW172143 decal sheet: Plus a number of side-views on the internet (credits Wings Palette and unk) - both this time showing Sidewinder missiles mounted: Before I go further, here are a few photos showing Alam and the F-86F which was painted with his nine + 2 kills (though I cannot confirm that it was this Sabre in which he scored all or any of his kills): And a none-too-good shot of the aircraft on its own: So yes, for sure it's '026 - so the decals are correct right? Well no. First of all, the s/n shown in the references above (55-4026) did actually serve with the PAF, but only after it had been one of those initially delivered to the Japan Air Self Defense Force (in 1957), not used and then returned to the USA in February 1959. It was delivered on to the PAF circa 1965. But the PAF operated two F-86Fs marked with the ‘last three’ of ‘026’ on the nose. The second machine was Alam’s aircraft – and its correct s/n was 52-5026. This aircraft started life as an F-86F-30 (and delivered with the 6-3 wing) which served with 3595th Combat Crew Training Wing at Nelis AFB, then a series of other CCTW until transferred to the Royal Norwegian AF in January 1961; at this point it gained the long-span, slatted F-40 wing and also received TACAN equipment. It served there with 336 skvadron marked variously as ‘PX-2’; ‘PX-11’; ‘PX-B’ and ‘PX-Z’ before being struck off in March 1965 and transferred to the Pakistan AF just in time to see action during the April-September conflict. See these close-ups of the aircraft's Technical Data Block (TDB). The TDB provides the unique identity for USAF and ex-USAF aircraft types and is usually present even after aircraft are transferred to foreign air forces. These views prove the aircraft to be 52-5026: Though note that the TDB stencil has this Sabre as an F-86F-35, whereas it is in fact an F-86F-30. Ah well - no-one's perfect! The photo below shows 52-5026 just prior to transfer to the PAF: markings were removed but the anti-dazzle panel was retained along with stencils etc. Note that the RNoAF Martin-Baker ejection seats in some Norwegian F-86Fs were replaced with the original NAA seat before going to Pakistan. And this view shows the unusual ejection seat marking/arrow seen on Norwegian F-86Fs and visible on Alam's jet: Finally, when Sargodha Air Base at Mianwali in Pakistan was renamed to honour Sqn Ldr Alam, the base's Sabre gate guard was repainted to represent 'his' F-86F. They almost got the tail number correct, though the 'long' serial number is the right one for this historic machine (credit: History of PIA.com): Why the error? Well having two '026s in the same air force doesn't help for sure. But hopefully the above will go some way to setting the record straight. I've tweaked the side-view above and this is my best attempt at addressing the errors in various of the sources: And here is a photo of 52-5026 later in Pakistan AF service, looking nice and anonymous:

Concerning NMT F-86 Sabre... ...is there any "rules" in what parts of the aircraft that should be in darker or more "greyish" aluminium (except from gunplates and the rear part). Looking att pictures for example it's hard to see any differences in shade between slats, flaps, ailerons and other parts of the wings. Sometimes some parts have been more polished than other. But in the long run it's hard to detect that some parts on the wings of the fuselage should be moore dark or greyish aluminium than other parts on an F-86. Or where som parts factorypainted in silver as on the P-51D? http://www.saairforce.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7972 (Thinking of the picture of the SAAF aircraft with some plates on the fuselage in an different shade) Cheers / André

A kit pulled from the "shelf of doom" circa 2005! The kit had been in storage (along with others) from many,many years. It was rescued along with my other belongings two years ago. I decided to build a few 1:144 scale kits recently and this was one of them. Trumpeter 1:144 scale F-86F Sabre in Pakistan Air Force markings circa the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War. The model was painted with Tamiya and Testors Acrylic paints. Decals are courtesy of I-94 Enterprises. The base is an oval piece of wood with a tarmac printed out and glued on.

Hi all, A quick snap of my latest, although sadly not a great photo as I took it with my phone in the excitement of completion! She is one of a batch delivered from McClellan AFB to Venezuela prior to the 1958 revolution, hence the older style roundels. She is a Fujimi kit with some added resin. The decals were partly home made, partly robbed from a F-47 and partly reprinted from a dreadful Aztec set I had acquired that I was fleeced on! . I painted the tail stripes and added 1mm white stars individually. A few mistakes, particularly the positioning on the red rear fuselage line, but it was a too late when realised. The fuselage roundels are slightly too big too, but hey ho!!! I hope you like her. Martin See later Flickr images

F-86F-30 - 52-4929 in the colours of the Skyblazers Aerobatic team, pics thanks to Mike (Bootneck) at the Valiant Air Command Museum, Florida.

F-86F wheels 1:48 Eduard Bassin There are some good F-86 kits on the market but the wheels can be a bit on the soft on the details. These new wheels from Eduard rectify this with some nice crisp details. The main wheels come with separate hubs. There is a choice of early or late hubs for the nose wheel. Review sample courtesy of

A group build that I think I can hopefully achieve a completion on in time! I have the Academy F-86 in both 1/72 and 1/48 and have plumped for the 1/48 scale machine. I am planning to build a collection of Spanish AF aircraft and this will be my first one, although I have a couple of civil war aircraft on the go. LF Decals purchased to go with the Aademy kit, which will be OOB. I also plan on using Alclad for the first time - so here we go! Some obligatory pics to kick off with. Box art - possibly seen a few times before! Sprues Pilot x 2! Decals - yellow looks a tad lemon coloured Basic reference book which may be of some help - or not! Not many pics on the net of Spanish AF machines. Anyway looking forward to my first 1/48 jet fighter

Hello, apologies in advance for the noddy question, but I'm trying to ascertain whether the Italeri boxing of the Kinetic F-86F (1:32) is of the -30 or the -40 variety and what the differences are - I believe Kinetic did both? Thanks in advance, Andrew