Kinetic TF-104G/F-104G Starfighter Luftwaffe Trainer (K48089) 1:48

[Mike]

TF-104G/F-104G Starfighter Luftwaffe Trainer (K48089)

1:48 Kinetic Model via Lucky Model

 

 

The Starfighter was another of Kelly Johnson’s advanced designs, although some might argue that at least initially it wasn’t one of his best.  The initial design had problems with the ejection seat, which fired downward in early models, but its original remit was a high-altitude interceptor so that wouldn’t really have been an issue in all but the most extreme situations.  When its role was widened this became a greater problem, as did its relatively high landing speed and comparative lack of manoeuvrability in a dogfight, amongst other things.  It served in Vietnam, but was withdrawn pretty quickly from US service due to its general unsuitability, and while looking for suitable victims/buyers, Lockheed were embarrassed by and found guilty of passing huge bribes and “incentives” to companies and politicians to sell their “man in a missile” design to other counties.  Those politicians suffered embarrassment and resignations, as did the head of Lockheed at the time who resigned, although no-one went to jail IIRC.

 

The F-104G was a serious redesign of the aircraft, incorporating the larger tail of the two-seater, a new more powerful version of the GE J79 jet engine, new avionics and stronger landing gear, coupled with a larger drag chute helped reduce landing problems.  Over 1,000 of these airframes were made under license around Europe in total, with many of the engines license built in Germany by BMW, and scarily by Alfa Romeo in Italy (I hope that came with an AA subscription!).  It was made in single- and two-seat flavours, the TF-104G being a combat capable trainer, while the F-104G was a straight forward fighter, but also tasked with ground-attack roles with the addition of the M61 Vulcan cannon and suitable weapons loadouts.  Flying the aircraft at low levels increased the risk immensely, and with almost a 3rd of airframes lost to crashes that claimed over 100 lives, the aircraft quickly garnered the nickname “The Widowmaker” during the early years.  The Germans weren’t happy with the factory fitted Lockheed C-2 ejection seat, so had Martin-Baker redesign their Mk.7 into the Mk.Q7(A) to fit the cockpit’s size constraints, packing the chute in two fibreglass “panniers” that wrapped around the seat rail to provide the extra space lost from elsewhere.  This gave them the zero-zero capability that they desired, and probably saved a few lives in the process.  The F-104 was eventually replaced by the Tornado in German service, although the Starfighter continued development with a few specialised variants of the G that took new designations.

 

 

The Kit

This is a reboxing of the newly tooled F-104G Starfighter from Kinetic to include an additional new fuselage, cockpit etc. so that a single- or two-seat airframe can be made from the same box.  The kit arrives in the standard top-opening box, with the Kinetic Gold badge over a painting of a two-seat Starfighter, and inside are five sprues in grey styrene, one in clear, a small sheet of Photo-Etch (PE), decals and instruction booklet in black and white, which could do with being a little better printed in truth.  Happily, the parts on the sprues aren’t at all vague, and it is a well-tooled, nicely detailed kit of this type, with a good choice of decal options and the possibility of more on the sheet thanks to a large block of generic numbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with deciding whether you want to build a single seat or two seat aircraft, with the TF built on pages 4-13 and the F on 14-23 of the booklet.  This is a nice easy way for the modeller to build the aircraft, as it takes all of the either/or decisions out of the mix apart from that first one.  The sprues contain two complete fuselages, and around the rest of the sprues you will find the two cockpits, a new insert for under the nose and a slightly revised gear bay for the TF.  The TF-104 wasn’t fitted with the Vulcan cannon, and a little less internal tankage, no centreline pylon, and of course had a redesigned forward fuselage to accommodate the additional crew member, althought with no increase in overall length.

 

 

 

The seats for the single and dual seater are identical Mk.Q7(A) units, and are each built up from six styrene parts and a set of PE belts for each one, plus two more plastic parts that forms the launch rail.   The cockpit tubs are prepped with instrument panels, throttle controls and sticks, with the single seat ‘pit being… well, shorter.  Shocking, I know.  A scrap diagram gives you painting call-outs for the panel, but there are no instrument decals so you might want to pick up some of Airscale’s excellent Early Jet dials if you’re interested in raising the level of detail.  With the cockpit out of the way, the common radar and exhaust assemblies are made up, the former having 7 parts, while the latter has a rear engine face, afterburner ring and a two-part exhaust tube.  The tube has a couple of ejector pin marks on the inside, which will require some clean up if you think they’ll be seen, which will be complicated by the ribbing that is moulded into these parts.  It is best done before joining the halves, so break out the putty now, rather than later.  There are two exhaust nozzles on the sprues (four if you count both sprues), and only one is appropriate for this variant, although both have very nice detail moulded-in and a thin lip that will look good under paint.   The nose gear bays are subtly different, both with good detail after which (painting too) they’re inserted into the lower fuselage insert appropriate to their number of seats.  A common main gear bay straddles the narrow fuselage, again with good detail within and a scrap diagram showing which way round it should be inserted into the fuselage, then the nose cone is assembled from two conical halves split top and bottom plus pitot probe and is then set aside for a while.

 

 

The fuselages both require a little preparation, drilling holes for later use and detail painting the cockpit sidewalls that are moulded into the insides.  With these completed, the internal subassemblies are installed into their positions, taking care to align the exhaust by using the scrap diagram provided.  The cockpit is completed with one or two coamings with HUD on the front/only cockpit, then fitting the radar and radome in place, hiding that nicely detailed little assembly forever, which always saddens and confuses me a little bit.  The appropriate underside insert is fitted in place, with two parts for the single-seater, and just one for the two-seater, both now wearing the correct gear bay on the interior, and the same air-brake a little further aft.  The instructions have you putting the elevator on top of the enlarged fin, which is the same type with the G, then you make up the intakes on either side of the fuselage, which are again common and each made up from three parts each – shock-cone, internal trunk, and external fairings that blend with the fuselage.  The nose cone is also common, but the gun trough is only fitted to the single-seater, with a choice of two styles of muzzle.  The two-seater has an additional trailing jack on the oleo, but uses one of the two wheel options you have for the single seat option, with different bay doors for each option due to the change in fuselage shape.  The main gear legs are identical between variants, using five parts each and with a choice of two-part wheels for both fuselage types, and identical bay doors with clear landing lights within, and closed front main bay doors that have a bulged profile.  A scrap diagram shows the two positions that the open gear bay doors can be set to, with the forward bay doors drooping down slightly, presumably after loss of hydraulic pressure following shutdown.  To the rear are fitted a strake, clear light and the arrestor hook for emergency landings, not for carrier work!  The airbrakes and clear lights on the top/aft are able to be fitted open with the use of a retraction jack, or closed by cutting off the hinge-points from the door, with a little paint needed for the former, and careful fitting for the latter.  The little stubby wings are common too, with two parts for the main wings with separate leading-edge slats, flaps and ailerons at the rear, using one of the two sets of tabs and cutting off the others to fit the flaps retracted or deployed.  A few holes need opening up in the underside for weapons and tankage if you are using them, then they can be fitted into the slots in the fuselage, with PE insert for an airframe without wingtip missile rails or tip-tanks.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, the canopy installation is different between the two options, even down to the windscreen parts.  The twin seater has a small area behind the canopies that can be opened or closed to show off the electronics inside, with a combination fairing and glazed area fitted.  A fixed hoop goes between the seats, and a couple of pieces of PE are used to decorate the sills if you’re leaving the canopies open.  The movable canopy parts are prepared by adding demisting and other parts within the frames, some of which hook into the cockpit, so some careful masking will be needed, so you might want to get some of Eduard’s Tface masks if you airbrush or don’t have the steadiest of hands.  An overhead scrap diagram shows the correct placement of the sill parts, which is useful.  The single-seat cockpit has a large equipment bay at the rear of the cockpit that can also be shown closed or opened, again with a piece of glazing fitted to the top, and some detail painting needed if you are posing it open.  There are similar tubing and parts fitted to the single canopy, then PE to the sills, with another scrap diagram showing the correct location from overhead.

 

Angle-of-Attack (AoA) probes are attached to the sides of the fuselage, plus another group of sensors and lights beneath the nose, with a few additional parts added to the single-seater, checking out the scrap diagrams for correct orientation of the extra PE part behind the nose gear bay.  The Starfighter was a thirsty bird in either seating configuration, so two tip-tanks with separate fins and filler caps are made up, and two more pylon mounted tanks are built for use on the wing pylons if you wish.  If you don’t plan on using the wing tanks, there are alternative strakes provided, and under the centreline of the single-seater you can put a twin pylon arrangement that is made from a pair of curved parts and two pylon parts.  What you fit to those is up to you.

 

 

Markings

This is a Luftwaffe boxing, which includes two options each for one- and two-seaters, and those are shown in the back of the instructions in grey-scale, which makes envisaging the schemes a little difficult given that the printing isn’t the best.  It’s a gripe that’s fairly easily remedied by including a colour sheet, or you could just look below.  You can also find the full 4-view profiles on Lucky Model’s website.

 

• F-104G Fighter-Bomber Squadron 33 (Jagdbombergeschwader 33), Luftwaffe
• TF104G, JaboG 33, Luftwaffe, 1985
• F-104G JaboG 31, 1983.  Famous photo shows 6 aircraft in formation
• TF-104G JaboG 33, Luftwaffe, 1983.  Kept old squadron badges

 

 

 

Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.

 

Conclusion

We’ve not had a modern tooling of the Starfighter for a while, and this is a very nicely detail range of kits from Kinetic with lots of modelling fun to be had.  The poor quality profiles can be fixed by visiting Lucky Model, and my only other minor issue is that with two more sprues and ancillaries, the kit could have been dual combo kit with less plastic left over, but then that's probably just me being greedy.

 

Very highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

 

[Stephen]

Nice review Mike, it's a shame that a centreline pylon wasn't included for the single seater.

[Mike]

1 hour ago, Stephen said:

Nice review Mike, it's a shame that a centreline pylon wasn't included for the single seater.

There is the twin "sled" I described in the text, but I can't remember what other options are for the life of me