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The Nuclear Option - Iowa ANG late '60s - FINISHED


Chrisj2003

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My entry will be a F-89J from the ANG in the late 60s in ADC gray. The kit comes with 6 wing pylons with 4 Falcon and 2 Genie missiles but I couldn't find any pictures of an ANG plane with all 6 pylons so I asked on the Cold War forum. It turns out for the ANG the USAF removed the Falcons and pylons (electrics too sensitive) leaving the Guard with nuclear rockets only. 🤯

 

Reference material, sprue shot and decals; there are 3 Iowa ANG planes to choose from on decalsheet; photos of one are very common, so I will probably go with that. Need to finish my build in Vietnam GB now.

 

Chris

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Edited by Chrisj2003
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6 minutes ago, Anatol Pigwa said:

Great choice! I am also pondering the Scorpion as my entry (yours is the Hasegawa version of the Revell kit - right? ) and will therefore watch closely.  

 

No the Academy kit is a reboxing of the Hobbycraft, it’s supposed to be simple. The Revell is different. 

 

Chris

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17 hours ago, Chrisj2003 said:

 

No the Academy kit is a reboxing of the Hobbycraft, it’s supposed to be simple. The Revell is different. 

 

Chris

The Revell kit is indeed different, and better IMHO, although I'll reserve final judgement until I build it ... for this GB.

Edited by klr
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On 11/4/2020 at 12:30 AM, Chrisj2003 said:

My entry will be a F-89J from the ANG in the late 60s in ADC gray. The kit comes with 6 wing pylons with 4 Falcon and 2 Genie missiles but I couldn't find any pictures of an ANG plane with all 6 pylons so I asked on the Cold War forum. It turns out for the ANG the USAF removed the Falcons and pylons (electrics too sensitive) leaving the Guard with nuclear rockets only. 🤯

 

Reference material, sprue shot and decals; there are 3 Iowa ANG planes to choose from on decalsheet; photos of one are very common, so I will probably go with that. Need to finish my build in Vietnam GB now.

 

Chris

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Be careful with nose assembling, because my Academy ate a lot of putty in this place.

 

And yes, it's Hobbycraft repack, and yes Revell other model.

Differences? Revell more detailed, but have some different in geometry fuselage tail area - Revell more thin than Academy/Hobbycraft. Who right I don't know.

 

B.R.

Serge

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9 hours ago, Aardvark said:

Be careful with nose assembling, because my Academy ate a lot of putty in this place.

 

And yes, it's Hobbycraft repack, and yes Revell other model.

Differences? Revell more detailed, but have some different in geometry fuselage tail area - Revell more thin than Academy/Hobbycraft. Who right I don't know.

 

B.R.

Serge

 

Thanks for the heads up Serge. Shame fed up of putty on nose from my current build. 

 

Chris

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13 hours ago, Chrisj2003 said:

Shame fed up of putty on nose from my current build. 

For best illustrations my previous posting. This is what I had to face when assembling Academy  nose:

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Green is the "green squadron putty". At the junction of the parts, the plastic is relatively thin, given that the joint was not ideal, I had to work a lot with sandpaper, this led to the fact that, due to the aggressive effect of the glue, in some places the plastic became soft and fell inside, which required putty and long drying.

Therefore, do not repeat my mistakes, be very careful in assembling these parts.

The next problem is the bottom of the fuselage.  I do not blink how I did it, but I had to make an insert from a strip of plastic - in the photo it is white:

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Also Hobbycraft/Academy  made the inner l panel line on the tail, which should be outside like on Revell for F-89D, or they should not be at all for F-89J, as I think. If I'm right, putty on the tail

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is Your friend!

Of course, maybe these are not problems with the model, but with my hands that grow from the place where I'm sit and not from my shoulders....well, whether it is or not, we will learn from Your assembly of this model.

 

But have good news!

Revell does not have such an imitation of a piano loop,

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and it is very difficult to make it, but Academy/Hobbycraft has it!

Also, Academy / Hobbycraft has a better

relief cockpit interior

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than Revell, which will save You money on buying an aftermarket cockpit detail set from Pavla or save money and time to search for a rare photo-etching from Eduard.

 

A reasonable question - why haven't I made this model yet?  Because I firstly  bought Academy, 

then I bought Revell on good price, and next was aftermarket cockpit detail set from Pavla, and exhaust detail set from Pavla...and in general shark mouth version USAF F-89D from Revell my more likely than Woody Woodpecker ANG F-89J from Academy, but Academy box art more impressive than Revell box art, as for my.

 

B.R.

Serge 

 

Edited by Aardvark
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Hi Chris,

 

I have the same kit and the same book. Great lecture material!

I have built my Scorpion up to about 50%, and it is a great kit.

Unlike Serge @Aardvark, I hardly used putty on the nose (do not forget some lead in the same nose!!!). 

I haven't seen the Revell F-89, but one thing the Academy kit has on the Revell, is the protective screen located in front of the radar operator. That is quite a feature of the Scorpion and very visible through the canopy.

 

You will have fun with it!

 

JR

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I wasn’t intending to start this until I finished other builds, but with the RB-57E waiting for a weather window when I can get a rattle can out and varnish it ready for decals I have made a start.

 

First question was which airframe to build? I want to do an ADC gray bird from the ANG. Moving away from the kit provided Iowa ANG there are no currently available alternatives and the different Guard Units used different emblems on their F-89s so not viable for me. There are plenty of photos of Iowa ANG 124th FIS F-89Js on the web including a very attractive ramp scene from 1969 with two long lines of them, and the Wiki Commons image below. I can’t find any that clearly show 53-2524, but I can find plenty of the box-art example, 52-1949, including a clear colour photo on the ramp in the box scheme, so unless someone can point me to a photo of 53-2524 I’ll go with 52-1949, bort nr 😉  “white 06”. This airframe is preserved at March ARB museum in Southern California, so there’s plenty of photos in its preserved scheme, and because it’s outside, like the majority of exhibits, it’s open and can be visited with current Covid restrictions.

As I noted at the start of the thread by the time the Guard got the F-89 the airframes had been converted from the rocket armed D model to the front-line J with 4 Falcon missiles and 2 Genie nuclear rockets and then to just having the 2 Genies. In the ‘50s Scorpions were forward deployed en-masse close to the Artic: Alaska, North East Canada and Greenland all based USAF units. Iowa is pretty central in the CONUS so this ‘60s nuclear armed  🤯 interceptor unit has a feel of a last ditch defence.

 

As below I have:

-          Dry fitted the fuselage; looks to be no problems

-          Lightly drilled out some vents to the rear of the cockpit

-          Assembled the very delicate seats

-          Twist drilled the pylon holes on the wings

-          Assembled the wing tanks; I am sticking with the kit ones even though the Revell ones are more accurate and more pointy; like the rest of the kit, the tanks have a lot of lovely very fine detail. (What I don’t understand is why some panel lines are recessed and others raised.)

 

Help needed:

1.       The savage looking arrestor hook which needs scratch building; there are plenty of photos where it can be dimly seen but the D&S book doesn’t draw it: anyone get any dims for it?

2.       Serge says the tailplane should not have the panel lines shown; plan photos of the tailplane are non-existent and the Revell kit moulding looks identical in that area; anyone got photos showing how it should be?

3.       Model with Genies or not? (I can’t find photos of the 124th FIS planes armed.)

 

Thanks for looking.

Chris

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Glad to see you getting started on this one Chris :) 

 

6 hours ago, Chrisj2003 said:

3. Model with Genies or not? (I can’t find photos of the 124th FIS planes armed.)

Arm it up! :D Unless of course anyone can prove they never carried a missile, live or dummy, ever.

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6 hours ago, Chrisj2003 said:

 (What I don’t understand is why some panel lines are recessed and others raised.)

On my model, I'm rescribing this panel line with scriber.

6 hours ago, Chrisj2003 said:

2.       Serge says the tailplane should not have the panel lines shown; plan photos of the tailplane are non-existent and the Revell kit moulding looks identical in that area; anyone got photos showing how it should be?

 

No, Revell have recessed panel line, and I understand it's true, but Academy have inside panel line, I think it's not true. Photo real tailplane in this area I see, but don't remember were.

But maybe I misunderstood photo real aircraft.

 

B.R.

Serge

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

RB-57E (in Vietnam GB) done. So progress on this;

  • Lovely detail on instrument panels; dry brush and clear fix ongoing; once done a juggle of pieces to close fuselage up. 
  • Wing-tip tanks are different colour to airframe so painting separately (as other bits).
  • Wings assembled; main doors are closed as normal when parked; aluminium paint + Flory wash in wheel wells.
  • Liquid steel + polyfilla in nose cone

Chris

 

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While waiting for the clearfix to dry I got distracted. Its an interceptor but too far progressed for the GB. I don't know how long its going to take to finish the many separate very tiny white stars.

 

Chris

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Back on track with F-89J. Happy with the instrument panels dry-brush and clear fix so I closed the fuselage up; followed colour photos in D&S; grey seatbelts on grey seats. Forewarned by @Aardvark about fit I realised I needed to do all 5 parts in the first photo together, left and right fuselage, reverse curvature bottom, cockpit tub and front IP. Seams need rubbing down but apart from rear underside it all went together very well; the IP fit is nice and its a prototypical ridge on the rear upper deck; where the canopy slides along.

 

First coat of anti-glare matt black on inside halves of tip tanks in background.

 

Comments and advice always welcome.

 

Chris

 

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Coming together; wings and tail fit nicely but small tabs so have gone slowly; tiny bits of filler in a few places. Separately painted wing tanks dry fitted (and yes I didn't take red far enough on the left). ADC gray finish won't be much different from bare plastic now.

 

Chris

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Yup. In artificial light with my phone you can’t see the difference between bare plastic and ADC gray. Painted round back of air inlets, in 1/72 the gap is too small to paint. 

 

All good. 

 

Chris

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First poor fit on the kit; gap to one intake. Nose is painted; u/s is not; colour difference is too subtle for my camera with my hobby light. 😀

 

Genies assembled - smoothing join at rear end interesting. 

 

Chris

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  @Col. definitely shouldn’t be PE thin because these are the fin roots; from D&S pictures the fin pops out of the middle of the root before launch. So chunky but probably not as chunky as modelled. 😀

 

Chris

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Steady progress. Brushing with Xtracolour which as @PeterB notes has a hopefully authentic blueish tinge in some light. Lovely thin coats out of the tin, no thinner, but brushed on it still seems slightly tacky after 24 hours, so been leaving 2 days, which adds up timewise top and bottom.  Delayed by pre-painting between intake and fuselage, but didn't need too, gap is big enough. Apart from going back to filing the poor fitting intake ADC gray is done. Then leading edge of fin to paint black, and I am going to use the kit decal as a template to paint the large anti-glare panel. Not used Xtracolour before and because the paint is gloss and smooth I will try decalling without gloss coat. 

 

Centre of photo the only mod I am making, chain drilled a slot for homemade arrestor hook. The D&S elevation that partially shows it is @ 1:250, and its in shadow in photos, so a bit of a guess; now painted red at bottom left. Genies in white; as normal white taking a few coats to cover, 3 so far and I think more needed. Consensus on cold war pages is Guard never had live Genies but would use dummies which have large brown band around centre; extent of band is clear from B&W photos but I have found nothing in colour; anyone any ideas?

 

Chris

 

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Hi Chris,

 

Both the Xtracolour enamel and the Xtracrylic can brush on very well, but the enamel sometimes takes quite a while to dry - I used Acrylic which was a lot quicker.

 

Pete

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