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KittyHawk Voodoo! 1/48?


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I bought the Voodoo yesterday and started it right away.

So far, it seems to be a pretty nice kit. Is it a good model? Honestly, I don't know the Voodoo enough.

I find the photoetch a bit on the flat side to my taste, but with decals on, it doesn't look that bad on the consoles.

One front fuselage half had stress marks on it, and not the other. A problem with mould ejectors?

The airbrakes are covered in sink marks. Nothing a bit of putty won't cure, but it's a pain in the butt on a metal finish.

Finally, you got a two each of Genies and Falcons missiles, but I don't know where to put them, as there's no missile bay.

Question: was the F-101 natural metal, or dit it get a coat of aluminium lacquer?

Cheers,

S.

The missiles are not to be used for the F-101A/C, only the B version used these. KH has unsurprisingly announced an F-101B, the missiles are part of a common sprue and can be added to the spare parts box.

Colours: natural metal initially. However at some point silver paint was used to help preventing corrosion, at least on the aircrafts based in the UK. I've also read of grey paint being used but I've yet to see a convicing picture showing this. Of course, the picture will probably appear here in a couple of hours..

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The grey anti corrosion paint only appeared with the late scheme as shown below. It covered the spine and the centre fuselage above the engines. One or two complete airframes were painted grey. It was also common for late scheme a/c to be NMF all over (Bottom shot)

56-038_zpsba4897f3.jpg

54-1444_zps4223ed99.jpg

54-1464_zps704955e9.jpg

air-07_zps04d7f607.jpg

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Slime Lights.

A quick rule of thumb.

F-101A/C no slime lights

RF-101A/C slime lights fitted only after being repainted in SEA colours for Vietnam use.

F-101B slime lights as standard

RF-101F slime lights as standard in SEA scheme

RF-101G/H (converted F-101A/C) slime lights fitted on conversion and repainted into SEA scheme.

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The grey anti corrosion paint only appeared with the late scheme as shown below. It covered the spine and the centre fuselage above the engines. One or two complete airframes were painted grey. It was also common for late scheme a/c to be NMF all over (Bottom shot)

(Lots of pics!!!)

Can you tell us where those pics were taken?

Can't remember where F-101 were based in Europe.

I know about some TRW at Laon-Couvron AB, but don't know if there were also some pure fighters.

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Picked it up today in Tokyo for £24. At least KH have listened to the complaints about the previous boxings - MIG-25 and Mirage F1 where it was rammed in. This box is much bigger and the kit has room. I have the same stressed plastic on the one side of the fuselage.

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So I said it was a nice kit.

Then I started it.

As long as you are in simple stages of the assembly, it still is a nice kit: the cockpit tub and its pedals, the stick, the bang seat...

Once you get to more sophisticated bits, like the front wheel well, it starts going librarian poo.

Then you try to follow the instructions, and glue the wheel well to the tub and insert it into the front fuselage end. When you close the fuselage, you intensely think of Jeremy Clarkson's way of dealing with engineering. With a hammer.

It's a major pain in the sub-equatorial regions.

It's the third KH kit I try. I think this is gonna be the last.

Cheers,

Sebastien

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Step one: take a hammer.

Step two: smash the bloody thing into very tiny particles.

Er... no.

OK, I'll try and post something in the WIP section.

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You think that's tricky? Try the C&H conversion. You need the skills of a gynecologist to insert the nose gear bay.

It's not tricky. It's impossible.

Here, you need the skills of a MD in extreme proctology, C4, a belt sander, cask-strength Laphroaig (2 bottles), a Challenger tank and a llama.

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Another note about the kit, be aware the decals need modifying depending on your choice of scheme. I contacted Glen after he posted the colour schemes but it was too late to alter the decals as they were printed and boxed up!

1.41446 is correct but the shade of blue should be that of the National Insignia.

2. 60035 (3 colour fin) should not have blue over the top of the fin, this was left grey/natural metal depending on era. Also the triangular metal cover plate under the tailplane, where the workings are, was left silver. See Bentwaters81tfw post above for images.

3. 60007 should have silver tailplane pivot cover plates too.

4. The serials show FR prefix when it should be FB.

Simple fixes for the cover plates as they appear to be extra decals so just leave off. Trim the blue on 60035, but changing the blue flash colour on 41446 is a little tougher and getting matching B's to replace the R may be awkward.

Caracal will be producing a sheet of other colourful commanders aircraft of you can wait. For reference I can recommend the Squadron Signal USAFE 1948-1965 Vol-1 book by Robbie Robinson....that's where I get my info as he's my father and saw and photographed these jets!

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It's not tricky. It's impossible.

Here, you need the skills of a MD in extreme proctology, C4, a belt sander, cask-strength Laphroaig (2 bottles), a Challenger tank and a llama.

Sounds a little bit like their F-35B......... However I have a cunning plan!

Peter

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Sounds a little bit like their F-35B......... However I have a cunning plan!

Peter

Well, the F-35B was my second Kittyhawk kit, and I Clarksonned it.

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You think that's tricky? Try the C&H conversion. You need the skills of a gynecologist to insert the nose gear bay.

Yeah their RF-8 is the same!

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It seems a real shame that, with the apparent demand for their chosen subjects, Kitty Hawk have apparently failed to deliver satisfactory levels of accuracy and fit. Although it does seem eminently possible to build a decent-looking model out of many of their kits, each new release seems to be tinged with disappointment at some (sometimes many) shortcoming(s). There are a couple of their upcoming releases that I was interested in (UH-1Y, AH-1Z), but I am becoming rather disillusioned with Kitty Hawk and don't think I'll bother. Maybe, once I've had a go at building one or two of their kits that I do have (F-35B, Jaguar, Gripen and Texan), I'll change my mind :shrug:.

Andrew

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It seems a real shame that, with the apparent demand for their chosen subjects, Kitty Hawk have apparently failed to deliver satisfactory levels of accuracy and fit. :shrug:.

Andrew

With the F-35A and B that I have under construction there are not really any fit issues provided you take care, clean up all the sprue gates and ejector stubs, and apply a logical build sequence. I would even go so far as to say that the engineering is quite precise and that is why any slight mis-alignment or badly cleaned up parts can lead to problems.

One trick I have used is to assemble the upper and lower wing halves to their respective fuselage parts, rather than to assemble the wings as single pieces and then attach them to an assembled fuselage. A few bits of scrap plastic card ensured a strong joint.

Peter

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi all,

Regarding the formation lights (slime lights): they were fitted to the F-101B/Fs, RF-101A/Cs, and RF-101G/Hs sometime around 1969-1970. None of the F-101s were delivered with them. I couldn't find any photos of a "factory-fresh" RF-101B, so I don't know if they had them before they were converted to recon duty.

HTH.

Ben

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I too have this kit and find it a fair one to build. The fit of the cockpit and wheel well are perfect. You only need to remove a little triangle shaped plastic inside each front fuselage half that interfere with the vertical side consoles. Once removed, the halfes close nicely. At the rear end of the left front fuselage half, you need to remove a little bit of plastic aft of the bulge to make room for it.


About the intakes, take a look at this picture on this site: http://beyondthesprues.com/Forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=c9rh3knlo9cnrgb53r08ejo8l3&topic=654.0


Not entirely straight but possibly not as the B model.


I found the exhaust disappointing. When the outside panels are fitted, your left with a gap between two of the parts. Best you can do is hide it inboard next to the fuselage. Hoping for Aires resin exhausts.


The instructions would have you glue the main wheel well inner side wall C9 and C10 to the upper wing halfes, but a better fit is obtained by glueing them to the lower wing halfes because then you have the rest of the wheel well walls to support C9 and C10.


When fitting the tail section to the mid section you need to scrape down the flange on the mid section to avoid ending up with a step between the two sections, especially on the left hand side.


I didn't follow the instruction on constructing the front fuselage. I constructed left and right instead of back to front, so to say.


The spliitterplates inside the intakes are a bit too big. They need to be filed down a little. I glued them in and glued the intake top and bottom together only on the inside first. Leave it to cure and glue the outside with help of clamps.



So far my experience with the kit. Hope it helps with constructing the kit.



Dingwall.


Edited by Dingwall
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