Vought F-8J Crusader (Hasegawa 1/48)

[CatcliffeDemon]

I'm fortunate to have something of an Aladdin's Cave of a model shop just a few hundred yards from where I live in Japan and I've been itching to find an excuse to buy something from there and get building. I seem to have a lot more free time nowadays, although this is balanced by the fact that all my modelling tools, compressor, airbrush and the such like are back in the UK. Anyway, while I would have preferred a Vought F-8E, perfect for a Marine Crusader, the shop did have Hasegawa's 1/48 kit of the 'remanufactured' F-8J version in the guise of one of the VFP-73 'Eyes of the Fleet' birds, and I purchased it yesterday lunchtime for the reasonable sum of 2840 yen.

This is my first 1/48 aircraft kit, and my first model aircraft project for 25 years! I don't know a massive amount about the F-8s, other than they are probably second only to the EE Lightning as my favourite fast Cold War jet. I have spent a while now researching them on the Internet, but photographs of the 'Juilets' are hard to come by circa 1970-71 if you have no books. Anyway, I haven't decided which member of the Navy F-8J Crusader fleet to model yet, but it will have the full complement of Zuni rockets and possibly a payload of Mk 81 or Mk 82 bombs befitting the major role of the former gunfighters towards the latter stages of the Vietnam War providing close air support and flak suppression.

It's technically rainy season here at the moment and today kind of lived up to that with light drizzle. So stuck indoors I began work with some simple sub assemblies and the main wing construction. If I can get hold of a replacement Martin Baker Mb7 ejector seat for this model then I will, otherwise I'll just build it pretty much OOB, just chosing an alternative identity. The ideal would be one of the colourful late 1960s schemes in which the Crusaders were adorned.

The big box.

Pilots seat and tub

Intake

Landing gear - I probably should have painted the wheels before fitting them right at the end

I forgot to drill the holes for the pylons, but I have found drawings on the 'net showing where they should be located so no worries

The Zuni rockets - need some tidying up with wet 'n' dry

The rest of the kit

So far everything has fitted together nicely, with only the Zuni rocket warheads suffering from sink marks. I'm aware that there are issues with the canopy 'ears' and also that the wing may not sit properly on the fuselage so I will follow the instructions outlined by several excellent builds out there on the web.

If anyone has some suggestions of possible aircraft to model or locations of pictures of F-8Js in 'bomb' mode I'd love to see them.

Edited July 1, 2012 by CatcliffeDemon

[heloman1]

That looks rather tasty, I do like the Crusader, one of the 50's/60's nicer jets and the colour shcemes were bright to boot, just before it all got bland and grey. Thanks for sharing your build pics.

Colin on the Africa Station

[Bertie McBoatface]

Welcome back to the aircraft end of the hobby!

After 25 years away you will have the great joy of re-discovering all those annoying little ways to make life difficult for yourself (like painting wheels before fitting them), the great thing is that this time round, you'll probably learn from each kit you do and soon be producing masterpieces. You sound like you are enjoying yourself anyway and that's half the battle won. Welcome to Britmodeller too.

What have you been modelling while away from the aircraft?

[CatcliffeDemon]

Thanks. For the last couple of decades I've been into model railways, mostly dirty blue British diesels circa the early 1980s and various US 'HO' Scale eras and railroads. With all my modelling gear in storage in the UK, and having been impressed with the standard of work seen on this forum, I thought I would relive my childhood a little bit and actually try and do some aircraft properly this time. I used to be known for heavily reworking models and scratchbuilding but I'm going to try and keep this 'side hobby' simple as I doubt I'll be able to keep much of this stuff.

Btw the wheels thing annoys me but is entirely typical, as during most builds I'm having to fight my natural impatience. I might drill out the axle on the lead gear and at least paint that wheel separate. Having said that, I still haven't worked out how I'm going to paint this aircraft with no kit!

[smuts]

Hi,

if you can get hold of a copy of Vietnam Air war, there's some great pics of Marine F8's loaded with Mk82's doing CAS , & unlike the Navy birds these babies are DIRTY.....

not sure but either Aeromaster or Eaglestrike have USMC F8' sheets, another way is Academy's 72nd F8 boxart is taken from a pic in Airwars & thats a Shamrocks bird!..

HTH Andy.

[SaintsPhil]

Welcome to the GB and welcome back to Aircraft modelling!

Great subject to come back with, one minor criticsm though...that cutting mat needs much more weathering...

Phil

[CatcliffeDemon]

Thanks, and trust me, with a pretty well stocked model shop just a couple of minutes walk away this 100 yen store cutting mat is going to get a lot of work.

Today I popped into the shop as I could have sworn that I saw some of Hasegawa's 1/48 aircraft weapons sets on the precariously stacked shelves. Turned out that they didn't have set A, which includes Mk 81 and Mk 82 ordnance, but the nice obaa-san (old lady) in the shop has ordered them for me so I should have them by Wednesday.

Only a little bit of progress today as I've been 'googling' compressors that won't upset my bank balance or my neighbours.

The well for the main landing gear

I haven't done anything to this bit, but it as I'll probably mount the wing in the 'up' position I think I should add some piping

Regarding a particular choice of aircraft, certainly the most obvious CAS Crusader would be a Marine version as I've come across plenty of shots of attractively coloured USMC aircraft armed to the teeth. Sadly, as far as I can tell they never got the F-8J, so I have to find a Navy example. I'm actually tempted to just buy Hasegawa's F-8E and do a filthy Marines bird and make this a proper gunfighter. I don't think it is possible to have too many Crusaders.

Anyway, here are a couple of USMC Crusader shots that have done the rounds carrying the kind of weapons that my example will be fitted out with.

If I did a second one I'd probably cut the wings and put them in the raised position. Looks pretty cool.

Edited July 2, 2012 by CatcliffeDemon

[smuts]

Very nice....a Death Angels bird

Andy

[CatcliffeDemon]

Yeah, here's another one (from the VMFA-235 Wiki page):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...ang_Apr1966.jpg

[Bertie McBoatface]

Oooh dirty birds. I like dirty birds! Much more character than the perfectly presented Navy equivalents. Plenty of scope for a rail modeller to work the pigment magic.

[CatcliffeDemon]

As promised by my local model shop, the Hasegawa Aircraft Weapons A set arrived today and you don't half get a lot of explosives for your money. I paid 1,010 yen for this, which works out just a shade of £8. I've been looking at various Internet pages on all this heavy ordnance and I was surprised to find that a real 500lb Mk 82 bomb costs around $250 to make. I can't decide if I think that is good or bad value for money!

Anyway, this is the rather tasty box the eight packed sprues come in. As one of those pinky liberal types it seems wrong to be impressed by such a wide ranging selection of explosives, which even includes Napalm, but I got over that pretty quickly.

My god, it's full of bombs! There is even a small decal sheet. I guess that I'll be using the Mk 82s, although the Napalm is tempting. Anyone know when this version of the bomb was introduced?

Also, my tool collection is getting back to respectable levels courtesy of Amazon.co.jp.

Next job, buy a compressor and see if I can get at least one of my airbrushes sent over from the UK! Then I need to stock up on paints. The Hasegawa instructions recommend either Gunze Mr. Color or Gunze Aqueous paints. I've never used lacquers before so that's going to be a learning process. The alternative would be to go for Tamiya acrylics as I've seen a few conversion charts out there. Decisions, decisions!

Edited July 4, 2012 by CatcliffeDemon

[Peter Marshall]

For first time airbrushing either Tamiya with Tamiya X20A thinners, or Gunze Aqueous with Mr Levelling Thinner are both very nice to use (and should be easier to get there than in the U.K.).

Going with Gunze also saves converting paint numbers

[CatcliffeDemon]

Thanks Peter, and yes, the shop down the road has quite a large range of paints and for those that I can't get here I will almost be certain to find in Tokyo or from Hobbysearch etc. Even Amazon.co.jp Marketplace has several shops stocking all three types of paint I mentioned. I will make sure to use the recommended thinning agent, which is nowhere near as expensive here than what they can be back in the UK.

Edited July 4, 2012 by CatcliffeDemon

[CatcliffeDemon]

I've not moved very far on my Hasegawa Crusader this week as I've been buying Mr Color paint and I'm also waiting for my airbrush to be shipped to me. When this arrives I can start painting some of the sub assemblies pictured above ready for closing up the main fuselage. As well as spending money on hobby bits, I've also bought myself some books on the F-8s and after reading them pretty much from cover to cover, along with a bit more Internet research, I've decided on a particular paint scheme. This will be the colourful red and white checks of VF-211 'Flying Checkmates', circa its second tour of duty flying the F-8J Crusaders on the USS Hancock during 1970-71. Of course, this depends on me being able to get hold of the long out of print Aeromaster decals set (originally designed for the Monogram model), or my ability to twist the arm of a friend back in the UK who can produce pretty decent decals from my artwork. The other alternative would be to use the even older Microscale set, which I've come across for sale a couple of times. Although this depicts a bit of an oddball VF-211 machine it should be adaptable to look like one of the Crusaders pictured below:

I've also decided on a model configuration. This will be gear down and canopy up, the main wing and flaps in the closed position (although not fixed so I can raise it if necessary), speed brakes lowered onto the deck, eight zuni rockets and wing pylons loaded with either 8x Mk 82 500lb bombs (on rack) or 2x Mk 84 2,000lb bombs.

[Bandwagon 106]

Should be very nice, I do like Checkmate's markings. I shouldn't worry about the early Aeromaster decals fitting a Hasegawa Crusader-I did one in VF-103 markings and those decals were for the Monogram kit. Might be surprising to some, but Navy Crusaders flew a lot of air-ground sorties, especially flak-supression with zunis and it is more than likely they had their fair share of CAS thrown in, especially from carriers on Dixie Station. '235's F-8s are some of the dirtiest jets I have ever seen!

Joel

[Antoine]

Hello,

I'm building one at the moment, academy 1/72.

With the same idea of the bomb truck.

Maybe you can find some usefull links and things there.

[CatcliffeDemon]

Thanks Chaps. Those Marines F-8s from 235 really are incredible - very modellable and the obvious choice for a Crusader with a CAS load.

Anyway, here are the results of a trip for supplies to the big city yesterday. I got all the other paints recommended in the instructions last week, plus some detailing bits like various gauges of wire, etc. My airbrushes can not arrive soon enough!

Test fit of the wings and two fuselage sections. Absolutely perfect so I won't be requiring much, if any filler. What a great looking airplane - I see at least another one of these on my modelling radar, maybe more. As usual, the more you research these things the more subjects cry out to be modelled!

I'm also going to see if I can get hold of the Cutting Edge speed brakes set for the underside, otherwise I'll just scratchbuild the interior as I have quite a few photos of that area now. I've already ordered the Eduard cockpit detailing set as well, inspired by some of the superb 'pits seen elsewhere on this forum.

Edited July 15, 2012 by CatcliffeDemon

[CatcliffeDemon]

Another update - started to fit some of the sub-assemblies to the fuselage. Drilled holes for the weapons pylons and the revised RHAW antenna on the tailfin.

Then removed the small original style UHF antenna as moulded with a knife and fitted the long revised RHAW version provided in the kit. I also added the ventral fins making sure that they were at the same angle each side

Then added the main landing gear well, underwing area, tail hook and the intake/front landing gear section.

Progress so far, looking good. Still have to sort out the speed brake area and fit the underwing pylons.

You can tell I've a/ only been living in my flat a few months and b/ not been modelling there very long as the desk is still tidy and I'm not modelling in around six inches of space!

I even dug out the proper camera to take the pictures...

[Bertie McBoatface]

Good pictures. I like the thoughtful pose of the fuselage on the box. Very arty! Kit looks nice too.

[CatcliffeDemon]

Thanks for the kind words!

Latest update: Drilled the holes for the underwing pylons - I forgot to do this when it should have been done! I've not glued them in place as they fit quite snugly in their holes.

I also started on the bombs that I'm going to hang off the pylons. As I've also got a A-7C Corsair II that I'm about to start work on I decided to build up pretty much all the 'dumb' ordnance. I want to set the models up so I can change the loadouts if I feel in the mood and it makes sense to paint everything at the same time. There's a small amount of flash on the moulds but nothing that causes any big problems. Everything I don't load I might use in a aircraft carrier deck diorama.

I've also put the model together for a dry fit and it's looking good. Next job is to drill out the fronts of the afterburner cooling scoops and fit them, and I really need to knock up a brass replacement pitot tube.

[CatcliffeDemon]

Quite a few small jobs completed this afternoon, although the bulk of the work - cleaning up the various types of iron bombs for this project and my Corsair II - is unpictured.

Opened out the slot for the canopy to enable it to be posed in the open position. I had to slightly move the 'ears' on the glazing mould as well.

Drilled out the front of the afterburner cooling scoops - this is the comparison between opened out and unmodified.

There didn't seem to be any way to get these to fit around the curved exhaust without requiring some filler.

Multiple ejection racks for the Mk82 500lb bombs that will form the principle CAS loadout for this aircraft.

Drilled out the axle on the front wheel to repair my mistake from earlier and enable easy painting of the tyre!

Anyway, back to cleaning up bombs!

[hythe]

Lovely plane and lovely kit, though I can't think of any photos I've ever seen of Navy Crusaders carrying bombs - they left that to the Intruders, Corsairs and Skyhawks. And I cannot find anywhere (believe me, I've a lot of Vietnam air war books, and F-8 books) photos of an F-8J in USMC service. Actually, I just checked Steve Ginter's book on F-8s in USMC service, and the Marines never used the F-8J, apparently.

Being based on the F-8E, the J was of course perfectly capable of mounting pylons and carrying a load of bombs and Zunis over South Vietnam, but I can't find any evidence that it did!

For once, very happy to be proved completely wrong on this one...

UPDATE - Aha! I have proved myself wrong - found a pic of a VF-24 plane, dropping Mk.83s over Vietnam (North or South is unspecified) in the spring of 1972. However, most of the handful of photos I've found of F-8Js carrying air-to-ground ordnance are from training, and there are few references to Navy F-8Js conducting strike missions in Vietnam. The suggestion in the other Ginter book (F-8s in USN service) is that the F-8J, being heavier than the F-8E and losing about 1,000lbs of thrust, thanks to the BLC system, was marginal when carrying heavier loads, so mostly stuck to just Sidewinders. This and the fact that USMC Crusaders were land-based, so the double droops and BLC weren't so relevant, would also explain why the Marines didn't upgrade their F-8Es to F-8Js.

Edited July 23, 2012 by hythe

[CatcliffeDemon]

Haha, yes. Pictures sure are few and far between that's for sure. Bombing was not what the Crusader was designed to do, but that VF-24 image is good enough for me to show that it did actually take place, although it's maybe a stretch to load my F-8J out with zunis *and* Mk 82s. Even more so that I'm hoping to do a VF-211 "Flying Checkmates" Crusader, one of the premier MiG-killing squadrons. Ultimately, it's difficult to know just how much they were used in non-fighter roles as obviously most texts and photos focus on their celebrated fighter duties (although there are plenty of shots of them loaded up with eight zuni tubes which are obviously a ground attack weapon). That said, I'm still not too far down the road in this project to get myself the F-8E kit and do a Marine's bird. I'll see how I feel when I get paid at the end of the week

[vandy1]

Good to see you aboard Gareth.

Regards

Darren Sherwood-Jones

[CatcliffeDemon]

Hello Darren from a hot and humid Japan! Thanks for the welcome, it is very much appreciated. Bit difficult modelling British railways over here, but I do have an incredible model shop stocking pretty much every other kind of modelling subject you can think of not 500 metres from my apartment. It seems rude not to keep up my skills, as well as learn a few more! (and I have learnt some incredible things following some of the awesome builds on this forum).

Anyway, the Crusader is current on hold for a few days as I can't really move any further unless I can start painting things. As my airbrush is still winging its way across the planet and I haven't bought a compressor yet I'm kind of stuck. I get paid tomorrow, and first purchase will one of these: http://www.hlj.com/product/ATXAPC002 (although not from Hobbylink as they are always out of stock of everything).