F-104 S Italian Air Force

[Dstream]

Hi all, 
I would like to share some pictures of my model of a Starfighter 'S' in Italian Service as it appeared in 1981. It carries the insignias of an interceptors of the 51^ Stormo, based at Istrana in the North of Italy.

 

The kit is the old 1:48 Hasegawa of the version 'S'. To improve the model, I sourced the following after market items:
-    Aires resin jet exhaust;
-    Master brass pitot probe;
-    Eduard resin ejection seat MB Mk7 and harness;
-    Eduard resin Sidewinder;
-    Aires resin Sparrow;
-    Skymodels decals.

 

This kit is by now outdated by the newer 'state-of-the-art' Kinetic one, but I found that the plastic is still very nice with crisp and finely engraved surface details, thin and clear transparent parts and it well reproduces the distinctive forms of this aircraft. However, lazy Hasegawa didn't include the full range of modifications that are necessary for the 'S' version, hence I had to re-work the most obvious ones. 

 

 

 

 

The version 'S' was designed by Loockheed in answer to a specification from the Italian Air Force for a more powerful, faster and better armed replacement of the standard NATO version 'G'. The aircraft started to be built by Aeritalia in Turin (former FIAT) in the late '60. It was powered by a more powerful J79-GE-19 and was armed with the version B or L of the Sidewinder missiles and with Sparrow missiles (from which the letter 'S' in the designation).

 

At take-off, the more powerful engine required a larger mass flow rate of air, consequently the air intakes were supplemented by rectangular openings on the sides that were not present in previous versions. In the picture below, I am showing the rectangular lids of these openings that I egraved on the sides of the air intake ducts.

 

The colors that I used for the Italian NATO camouflage were Gunze H-69 (dark sea grey), Gunze H-309 (dark green) and Vallejo Metallic white alluminium for the underside.

 

 

 

I think that this is still a good kit with a very good fit and I enjoyed building it. Beside the positive points, I am also listing what are, in my view, its few negative points:
-    Overstated rivets on the wings which shouldn't be there.
-    Incomplete range of details for the 'S' version.
-    Absence of external loads.
-    Decals with yellow/cream color in place of white for codes. I replaced them with after market decals.

 

 

 

 

The building log can be found here.

I hope you like my model, comments and suggestions are welcome.
Best regards,
Dan

[SebTartar]

Lovely!

 

It brings back childhood memories of Belgian Starfighters parked (stored?) at Koksijde that we were driving past when we were going to the seaside (De Panne) with my parents.

Need to build one one of these days...

[Pete in a shed]

I love a Starfighter, but the Italian ones seem to have the edge on overall looks for me. great model, well done 

Pete

[Chrisj2003]

Lovely model, great to follow it coming together. 
 

Chris

[kelly9mm]

Old Hasegawa but still with great potential. Very fine job sir!

[Ingo Ritz]

Brilliant!

[Rob K.]

Great looking Starfighter 👍

[Mynimal]

A masterpice. Well done.

[Dstream]

16 hours ago, SebTartar said:

Lovely!

 

It brings back childhood memories of Belgian Starfighters parked (stored?) at Koksijde that we were driving past when we were going to the seaside (De Panne) with my parents.

Thank you! I have a vivid memory of a couple of Belgian Starfighter doing aerobatics at an airshow when I was a kid (c.a. 55 years ago?). It was awesome to watch.

 

15 hours ago, Pete in a shed said:

I love a Starfighter, but the Italian ones seem to have the edge on overall looks for me. great model, well done 

Pete

Thanks Pete, I also have a soft spot for these NATO camouflaged '104 with large white codes and roundels.

 

11 hours ago, Chrisj2003 said:

Lovely model, great to follow it coming together.

Thank you Chris, glad that you liked my build.

 

10 hours ago, kelly9mm said:

Old Hasegawa but still with great potential. Very fine job sir!

Thank you! Indeed, as I wrote, I enjoyed very much building this kit (which I bought in 2002).

 

2 hours ago, Ingo Ritz said:

Brilliant!

Thanks for your kind feedback!

 

2 hours ago, Rob K. said:

Great looking Starfighter

Thank you for your great feedback!

 

2 hours ago, Mynimal said:

A masterpice. Well done.

Wow, thanks for your generous feedback!

 

Thanks also to the numerous 'like's!

Cheers,

Daniele

 

[franky boy]

Great work Dan

 

I enjoyed following your WIP thread for this build and will definitely remember to use Vallejo white aluminium in future for the underside of Starfighters where necessary. 
 

James

[HL-10]

What a beauty!

I remember visiting relatives who live near Treviso in Northern Italy and every day at noon two of these would overfly us! The noise was incredible they were really low.

Great work, very impressive!

 

[2lefthands]

Love airplanes with closed canopies Great work!

[Dstream]

On 3/20/2024 at 9:22 AM, franky boy said:

I enjoyed following your WIP thread for this build and will definitely remember to use Vallejo white aluminium in future for the underside of Starfighters where necessary. 

Thank you James! About the Vallejo paint, please consider that I used their specific 'metallic' paints.

 

On 3/20/2024 at 10:35 AM, HL-10 said:

What a beauty!

I remember visiting relatives who live near Treviso in Northern Italy and every day at noon two of these would overfly us! The noise was incredible they were really low.

Great work, very impressive!

Thank you for your kind feedback. I also remember that in the '70s in Italy. It was not unusual even to hear their loud supersonic boom above cities.

 

On 3/20/2024 at 9:17 PM, 2lefthands said:

Love airplanes with closed canopies Great work!

Thank you very much for your feedback! I often make models all closed up.

 

Kind regards,

Dan

[SAT69]

Very nicely done. I especially like the clean look.