Jump to content

Vought F-8E Crusader - "Last of the Gunfighters" - Nearly but not quite!


PeterB

Recommended Posts

As this GB has quite a long "shelf life" as it were, and I have quite a few other potentially eligible kits, I will probably build several more, though I will no doubt need to put more shelving up in my roof to store them - particularly if I were to attempt some of the larger kits such as the Hercules. For the moment I rather fancy building a replacement for my old 1979 moulding Hasegawa Crusader. With this in mind I bought the 1999 reboxed version 20 years ago.

DSC05778-crop

 When it entered service air to air misssiles were beginning to replace guns in the USN, and it did eventually aquire 4 Sidewinders, but it still retained 4 x 20mm cannon as a standard fit, unlike the F4 Phantom which replaced it, thus earning the nickname in my title. Although not eligible for this GB as it is "mid wing" I will also be building my replacement Grumman F-11F Tiger in parallel which is rather appropriate as the two were in competition for the fleet fighter role I believe - no doubt it will appear in the background from time to time, but more on that later.

 

Pete

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is the plastic.

DSC05784-crop

Not a lot really. A review in an old copy of Detail and Scale says it is pretty good - the only main niggles are the cockpit and wheel well detail and the fact that you can see through the nose intake so I will have to put in something to prevent that. Here is my previous build.

DSC05785-crop

The pic is a bit blurry but you can see why I wanted to replace it. 40 years ago I did not spray kits with a finishing coat of varnish so a combination of age, weathering and pipe smoke has pretty much wrecked the paintwork and decs. I could refurbish it but I would probably have to pay more for replacement decs than I did for the "new" kit and anyway I want it wheels down this time. Recent research suggests that it probably would not carry a full load of Sidewinders when toting bombs.

 

So before I start here is part one of a heavily compressed background story.

 

In 1917, Chauncey Milton Vought left his job as an engineer with the Wright Corporation and, together with his friend Birdseye Lewis formed the Lewis and Vought Corporation. In 1922, Vought renamed the company the Chance Vought Corporation, Lewis having either retired at that time as Wiki says, or else he had died in Europe in WWI according to Enzo Angelucci in “The American Fighter” - take your pick! The company was moderately successful between the wars producing a string of aircraft for both the US Army and Navy including the first Corsair series of biplanes, and ending up with the advanced for its time Vindicator dive bomber. However they are probably best known for their F4U Corsair fighters of WWII ( the A7 Corsair II should therefore perhaps be called the Corsair III but there we are). As the war was drawing to a close the USN decided to ask both North American and Vought to build them a jet aircraft as a follow-up the the FH-1 Phantom they had just ordered from McDonnell. Both companies produced conventional single engined straight wing planes, the North American FJ-1 Fury and the Vought F6U Pirate which were somewhat better than the FH-1 in some respects but were only built in very modest numbers as they were already being made obsolescent by improvements in engine design and captured German technology.

 

A few years later the Banshee and Panther fighters were in service together with the swept wing Fury 2/3 derivatives of the FJ-1 via the Air Force F-86 Sabre development, and Grumman were starting to build the Cougar which was essentially a swept wing version of the Panther. Vought replied with their F7U Cutlass which was much more radical – perhaps too much so and it was not a great success, but their next venture was a winner! The USAF was introducing the supersonic F-100 Super Sabre and the Navy wanted something similar. The Douglas Skyray was a transonic delta winged interceptor and the latest Grumman fighter was the F-11F Tiger which underperformed due to engine and other problems and could barely exceed Mach 1. The Navy issued a requirement in September 1952 for something faster, and out of 22 proposals from 8 companies there were 4 main contenders – North American proposed a navalised F-100 which they called the Super Fury, Grumman a re-engined F-11F-1F Tiger which eventually reached Mach 2, McDonnell's F3H-3 which was a re-engined Demon, and Vought's F8U Crusader, which was a totally new design and was named as the winner in May 1953.

 

More anon.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not much to look at but I have sorted the cockpits of the Crusader and Tiger.

DSC05796-crop

I have added a rear bulkhead and blanked off the rear of the intake, and this time I remembered to drill out the locating holes for the Sidewinder rails - I forgot on my first one. Hasegawa do not mention anything about nose weight and if the old one is anything to go by it probably does not need any but I stuck in a little under the cockpit to be on the safe side.I have already mentioned the review in D&S but in the Naval Fighters series Tommy reviewed the kit and said it was not bad, but he thought the cockpit was a bit wide and he did not like the Sidewinders for some reason. I don't know if it was the missiles themselves which look about right for AIM-9D to me so maybe it was the rails. He did not like the underwing pylons either.

 

Before I finish off the development history I though a brief overview of the F-8 might be in order.

The Crusader appears to be a fairly conventional carrier aircraft with an arrestor hook and folding wings, and a strong structure to withstand the stress of a catapult launch and an often heavy landing. Unlike the Cutlass, the high wing layout meant that the undercarriage was mounted in the fuselage and although that contributed perhaps to the considerable length of the plane, it meant that it was both short and strong. Carrier aircraft have to be able to take off and land at low speed which often results in them having a long nose wheel leg to angle the plane and wing up a bit, but Vought came up with a different solution. The wingspan was quite short but the wing area at 350 sq ft was large, so much so that there are at least two recorded instances of fully loaded planes accidentally taking off with the wings folded and managing to return to the carrier safely. The wing also had a saw-toothed leading edge which D&S say was the first fitted to a plane from new – others would have it fitted only on later models. Vought also took advantage of the new technique of boundary layer control with air bled from the engine and blown over the wing which had leading edge slots along the full length. On top of this the Crusader had a system where the wing was pivoted at the rear and jacks could push the leading edge up changing the incidence by around 7 degrees. This created the extra lift at low speed without compromising the pilot's view and as a bonus, when the plane flared on landing it acted as a large speed brake, helping with the braking!

 

As most students of early US jets will know, one of the major shortcomings was the engines which is why aircraft such as the Panther used copies of he R-R Nene, whilst the F-11 Tiger used a version of the A.S Sapphire. Early US engines were somewhat underpowered and/or unreliable, one of the worst examples being the Westinghouse J40 which nearly killed several designs such as the FH-3 Demon. Fortunately Vought were lucky – by then they were part of the United Aircraft Corporation, as were Pratt and Whitney, so they were able to design the Crusader around the new P&W J57 which was under development, and which turned out to be a very good engine. In its early form it produced around 10000lb dry thrust and with afterburning this increased to 16000lb in the Crusader. Oddly enough, the F-100 used the same engine though initially only giving 14800 lb wet thrust, and due to Vought using new and at times lighter materials in the airframe, in spite of all the extra naval equipment the Crusader was actually over 2000lb lighter than the Super Sabre so it had a much better performance, though probably rather less range. Initially it was given a fixed armament of 4 x 20mm Colt cannon, though these proved prone to jamming during high - G manoeuvres. Later variants had rails for 2 or 4 Sidewinders added, though they could also carry rocket pods. Pylons under the wings could carry drop tanks, Bullpup missiles, rockets or bombs.

 

At some point I will have to decide if I am building it with the wing up or down. As the cockpit will be unoccupied I suspect the wing would normally be lowered?

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • PeterB changed the title to Vought F-8E Crusader - "Last of the Gunfighters" - Airborne.
  • 1 month later...

As I have mentioned in several other builds/GB I have not been well and am still a bit under the weather, but after a long delay I have started building agian - this is how far I had got a couple of days ago.

DSC05808-crop

Progress will probably be slow, but even if I do not manage to finish by the deadline there is always the KUTA! The tailpipe is actually from my old F-8 and need repainting - I cannot actualy remember exactly why I decided to use it instead of the new parts - probably too tired to bother painting it at the time.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bit more done. I have made a start on the paint but the Light Gull Gray is virtually the same colour as the plastic!

DSC05816-crop

The Marine one had a white radome but I think I will do the Navy one from VF-162 so I will end up painting it black. Hasegawa seem to have moulded the nose leg in the fully compressed position as pics seem to show the strut a bit more angled down. Incidentally I now see that although Vought did look at blowing the wing they decided to make do with just the variable angle wing for the US ones - the blown wing was introduced on the French versions due to their shorter carrier decks. Not actually much more to do before I start putting decs on! For a few years now I have been using Xtracrylic XA1141 white for USN undersides as it is a slightly "off white" and looks better to my eye but I am running low and they seem to have stopped doing it for some reason - what does anybody else use I wonder?

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • PeterB changed the title to Vought F-8E Crusader - "Last of the Gunfighters" - Nearly but not quite!

I had hoped that I would finish this but when I went to start putting decs on yesterday I realised that in natural light they were rather more yellow than I had thought, so they are in a window in the hopes that they will bleach a bit. I will probably have to complete it in the KUTA GB which is a pity as it is almost done.

DSC05864-crop

I mentioned earlier that Hasegawa have modelled it with the nose leg compressed and so it sits a bit less nose up than I have seen in some pics, but then again the variable incidence wing did mean it needed rather less of an angle for take off than pretty much most other carrier jets. I will have to touch up the paintwork around the nose once the intake warning decal is in place, unlike in the Marine version where it is "solid" colour!

 

Anyway, I have enjoyed this GB a lot so thanks to the organisers, and good luck with those still trying to beat the deadline.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...