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Hello, This is my last project, the F-100D piloted by Capt Allen Lewis and based at Tuy Hoa, circa 1969-70, with the classic “Snake and Nape” configuration. I am a big fan of the type and era, so I was quite motivated by this build. This is the very enjoyable to build 1/48 kit from Trumpeter with many modifications I made myself especially in the cockpit, canopy frame, landing gear bays & legs, extended 335 gal. fuel tanks, modified pylons, new refuelling probe made from brass, refuelling light and much more. I also used some aftermarket goodies such as a correct nose (Renaissance), tyres (ResKit, the one of the kits are horrible), exhaust and seat from Aires, pitot from Master, Eduard’s Mk82 and BLU-27, and a nice but fragile ladder from LP Models. Decals are from Caracal. I hope that you like it as much as I enjoyed this project. Antoine

As mentioned in the build thread, here are a few pictures my model of the F-100D flown by Colonel George E "Raven" Laven, Jr, on the ill-fated first mission into Laos on 9 June '64 out of DaNang. The model is a modified Trumpeter 1/72 scale F-100D as described here: F-100D Build Only one photo is known to exist of this aircraft, and this is my interpretation: Thanks for looking, Ed

This will not be a true in-progress build, because the model was built in slow stages, over a period of two years. Not exactly a shelf queen, but close. The reason for doing this model at all, is that this aircraft led, I believe, the first combat mission by an F-100, into Laos on 9 June '64, AND it was flown by then Colonel George E. "Raven" Laven, Jr, the commander of Clark AFB in the Philippines, on what he himself said was his worst mission ever -- but it was really not due to his fault. The mission was micro-mismanaged from Washington, courtesy of LBJ and Robert McNamara, just one of the earliest ones they screwed up. I'll stop here, or this will quickly become political. The only known photo of this aircraft known to exist was depicted in the excellent book "Super Sabre Units Of The Vietnam War" by Peter E. Davies and Dave Menard, which I highly recommend for those interested in such matters. A crop of this photo: The photo caption says that this is the take-off roll from Clark AFB a day or two before the mission, which the 450-gallon drop tanks would tend to support. Question is, did they also haul the rocket pods from Clark? I sort of think this is the actual mission roll-out. However, since Dave Menard has departed this vale, and no one seems to known what happened to his photo collection, we may never see a better copy of this picture, than what's in the book! Anyway, there's no use repeating all the steps required to get the Trumpeter F-100 kits right with the world, I'll just point you to my Laven F-00C build, where it's all laid out: F-100C Build Just ignore the F-100C-specific info, such as the tail, tailhook, main gear doors, ejection seat, etc. The model as glued together with all appropriate parts inside. Since I had purchased a cockpit set (Aires?) for the Trumpeter kit long before I found out the cockpit was too narrow, I went ahead and used that, and only widened the cockpit with plastic shim, to fit the windscreen and canopy I used. Also, the Esci nose copy was added, as in the "C" build: As shown in the following photo, I began with the "bare/discolored" metal on the rear end, which will be masked off and painted with various Alclad II paints: This turned out pretty good, and will be revealed in the final photos -- given that this was not a war-weary, discolored unto death aircraft. Next, the rear end was masked off with Parafilm "M", in preparation for the all-over aluminum lacquer finish that was used at the time to help resist corrosion on bare metal aircraft. This was well-represented by Tamiya TS-30 Silver Leaf rattle-can, decanted into another bottle by use of a soda straw. HERE IS A WARNING!!! When you shake this paint, as you must do before decanting (or spraying), apparently little bubbles of some gas or chemical are thoroughly intermixed with the paint, and IT EXPANDS LIKE CRAZY!! I had to switch to a much taller bottle to decant the paint. I waited a few minutes, then poured some into an empty Alclad bottle. Several minutes later, when I shook the bottle to mix the paint prior to painting, the little bottle also overflowed! In the end, if you decant this paint, as I like to do as it offers better control (and for later touch-ups), I would let it set in an open container for at least 30 minutes, maybe more to let the whatever gas dissipate before trying to use it. That said, the paint turned out wonderfully in the end: The final result will be shown in a moment, but first a picture of the fuel tanks: From the top, the standard Trumpeter kit tank, the 275-gallon model. Next down, the modified 335-gallon tank used for many missions in Vietnam, made by adding a scale 28" plug to the forward part of the tank. Last, the 450-gallon ferry tank used on this model, which I scratch-built. Note some F-101 tank as well as the tanks on the new Roden C-123 are the right size, but most feature the straight conical taper on the rear end, where most of the tanks I've seen in pictures on the F-100's are ogive (think "olive") tapered on the rear end. Lastly, the decals. I was fortunate enough to find a set of decals from the AMT Hasegawa F-100D from this era which had the lightning flashes, etc, and the buzz number "952", which was easy to swap around. I only had to add an extra "2" to each tail number, and I was good to go, without having to find a whole kit, or make up a lot of things. Spares box added a few markings. One last mention about the decals: I'm not certain that the wingtips and horizontal stabilizers had the colored stripes, but given Laven's colorful aircraft background, I decided to add them anyway. Also, I'm pretty sure there no white stripes between the colored stripes, but since I could trim down the decals from the Trumpeter F-100C kit, I took a dive here, and rather than having to mask and spray all the sripes individually, I only had to mask and spray the 450-gallon tanks, which turned out to be the hardest part of the whole model, BECAUSE I had chosen to add the white stripes! Anyway, the lacquer finish period for USAF aircraft didn't last very long, and it was good to add this one to my Laven collection! To sort of tone down everything shot a final coat of Alclad II Semi-flat lacquer, which really looks close to the real thing. Good thing this was the last step, as it takes weeks for this stuff to completely dry! It was however, dry enough to handle with white cotton gloves after one week, for final assembly: Without further ado, here's the teaser pic, with a few more to be added in RFI: Oh, and the pilot was from a Monogram F-105D kit. The RFI link is : HERE Thanks for looking! Ed

In the F-100 Super Sabre in Detail & Scale book, on page 22, there is a small drawing of a Combat Documentation Camera Pod that could be carried. I want to put one on my 1/48 F-100D model, but need more info than that one drawing. Does anybody have any detailed drawings or photos, showing the pod and its installation on the F-100D? Dimensions would also be quite helpful. An internet search proved fruitless. The KB-18A strike camera installation also looks interesting. This is the pod I am talking about: Larry

Ejection Seats Quickboost 1:48 Quickboost have been really busy lately releasing all manner of add-on parts for various models. These three sets provide resin replacement ejection seats for three different aircraft. Each seat is moulded in grey resin and covered in some really great detail. Each seat is packaged in the standard poly sleeve but fortunately they don’t appear to have suffered any damage. All the modeller has to do is to remove them from their casting blocks, give then a nice delicate paint job and fit them to the chosen cockpit. F-100D Super Sabre (QB 48 509) is quite a simple affair, but still packed with detail. The seat appears to be pretty accurate when compared with research photographs, although the ejection handles look a little low. They do need to be more prominent and hollowed out a little more, but once fitted they probably won’t be seen much. The moulded lap belts look ok, but the shoulder straps look a little limp and need a bit more body to them. Quickboost haven’t forgotten the back of the seat and all the high pressure lines are well represented, as are the seat fittings and attachment rollers. AV-8B Harrier II (QB 48 522) is a very nice representation of the Stencil S III S seat, and also looks to be very accurate. The seat belts are very nicely done and even the rear of the seat including the aircraft interface and ejection tubes are shown. The seat pan appears to be shown in the fully down position as there is a large gap between the seat pan top and the head box, obviously for the shorter pilot. The only thing that does need altering is the firing handle needs to be opened up as there is some resin flash in place. Sea Vixen (QB 48 540) these two ejection seats have additional parts included on the casting block and protected by large extension on the block ends. Now while the seats are really well moulded with some great looking straps and belts, although minus leg restraints, there is something not quite right about them. The basic seat framework is ok but it goes a bit awry at the back. The barometric time release unit and drogue gun and piston are missing, and the frame at the top doesn’t look right which has a very poor representation of the prominent scissor shackle. The seat pads also look wrong as the pilots seat and the observer seta differed in pad style and therefore straps, whereas these two seats are exactly the same. They look to neat and tidy rather than the organised mess that the real seats looked like. Conclusion While the F-100D and Harrier II seats look spot on for accuracy unfortunately the same cannot be said for the Sea Vixen seats which is a shame really as they had promise. I guess they could be modified to suit, but why would anyone want to buy an add-on, only have to fix the faults. The other two seats will look great with some careful painting and due to the detail on the backs of the seats could even be used in a diorama with the seats removed from the aircraft. Review samples courtesy of distributed in the UK by Hannants Ltd.

Hello everyone again. After my fourth build since before time began, the Airfix F-51 in NMF ( http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234939145-172-f-51-mustang-fourth-build-since-holiday/#entry1300965 ), I decided to do another NMF with stars and bars, because they're pretty, and I was on a roll with the NMF. So I chose the overly popular 'Triple Zilch' F-100D kit, made mostly straight out of the Italeri box that I got for £5 in a sale. This build very nearly started my own new shelf of doooooooom! Mess up after mess up. Then a general feeling that in no way did the out of kit decals match any image of the Triple Zilch I'd seen any where. Real life interfering a little too much. A 'crash landing' shortly after attaching the under carriage. Who knew how many extra kit bits you can create when that happens?! Loads of little things that drained any enthusiasm out of it and in the end I just wanted it to be finished.. please... stop... Just.. Be.. Finished. But I gritted my teeth and carried on and here it is, the very nearly a shelf of doom kit, 1/72 Italeri F-100D Super Sabre. Additions included: Master Pitot tube: I just love these things. Rob Taurus Vac formed Canopy: I thought I'd give this a try as they're cheap as chips. Not being used to vac form I messed up the front of the canopy but did better on the main. Zillions of these out there, but I still hope you enjoy looking at my meagre efforts once again. 5D2_1736 by IrritableRabbit, on Flickr 5D2_1759 by IrritableRabbit, on Flickr 5D2_1772 by IrritableRabbit, on Flickr 5D2_1765 by IrritableRabbit, on Flickr 5D2_1761 by IrritableRabbit, on Flickr

Hello all, Kia Ora (as the locals say). In the middle of a couple of long projects (1:48 Spit IX, Hurri IIc & RF-4), none of which I've not posted here, because I forgot and like a lot of modellers with 'long-range' projects on the bench, I'm taking a quick divert into a 'quick OoB build just to keep the creative juices flowing. So here's my 'diversion': Using the sweet Italeri 1:72 F-100 - secured without packaging nor decals from eBay for £3.00 just before we left for NZ, and the excellent Xtradecal sheet 72-116 I hope to finish it as FW- 319 as you see in the photo from 'Colour & Markings'. I've made a start by first spraying the rear section with Tamiya glossy black acrylic straight from the rattle-can: I've also sprayed the cockpit 'bath' and the insides (dk. gull grey). Will probably be able to get the fuselage buttoned-up this evening (our time). Photo's tomorrow, hopefully. Total time taken so far: +/-70mins. More soon, thanks for looking. Ian