F-100 First Combat Mission -- Laven's Last?

[TheRealMrEd]

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2018 by TheRealMrEd
added RFI link

[Hamden]

 

Nice addition to your collection, top notch work as always

 

    Roger

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks Roger,

 

Only have one more to go for my collection, the old Hasegawa F-110A boxing in 1/72 if I can ever find one!

 

Ed