As Aircraft go the F-104 has to be one or two top prototypes for all weather PMC converting.
When I got back into flying NAR contests (early 80's) an F-104C was my first "any Weather" contest model built. I litterally flew the wings off that original 1/48th model.
I've liked the flying Character of the F-104 so much I've built a stable of them in various scales with varing degree of detail for both Sport flying and contests.
It's become a habbit when prusing the Plastic Model websites to look at the available F-104 and F-100 scale models.
back in 1996 I saw and purchased a promissing looking 1/72nd kit from Hasegawa #1002 for 11.99.
With all the other things on the plate at the time, this model came in and was placed in the stockpile for later building. a couple years later it surfaced in a search for a 1/72nd F-104 to fill out my fleet of F-104's. Opening the box I discovered unlike most plastic kit manufacturers Hasegawa decided to press the main fuselage in 4 pieces rather then the usual two. That made me decide to rebox this kit and look for another to avoid the additional body seam. So this very nicely detailed model sat on a shelf again until earlier this year.
Giving it another look I decided it was time to bit the bullet and build it.
The kit came with German marking decal which I knew I would not be using so the very first thing was to downscale a previous 1/48 F-104's Decal sheet depicting aircraft of the 3105th Drone Squadron Orange and Chrome color scheme.
After MC Joining the 4piece main fuselage our Nose section was carefully removed using the first panel line behind the cockpit. Our cardboard cut-out and taped up parts showed we'll need 29.0g of nose weight to get her flying right so a false bottom had to be added to the cockpit to seal off the area for our #9 lead shot and Epoxy.
Working the interor of the model body our BT-5 and Coupling shoulder were fitted, shimmed and epoxy installed. This process also confirmed we would lack the necessary room to make this model a wheels down model so all wheel doors and openings were permanently MC sealed.
Most of the internal flight part construction went as planned until I tried to insert a spent motor casing only to discover the "Stock" estes 13mm motor hook used was almost a full 1/8" short of accepting their spent casing DOH!
It's OK I thought...this model is intended to be a sport flying model anyway so I'll simply cut off the exposed hook end and use friction fit interior and external tape wrapping the remaining exposed flat metal strip as insurance.
Shockcord for this model consists of a 5" long section of .024"dia. Stainless Avaition cable Anchored around the stock 13mm motor stop just ahead of the Stock Estes motor hook (which we found to be two short anyway). 36" of 100lb braided kevlar 3-half hitch tied to the crimped forward eye of the anchor cable and 24" of 1/8" Oval elastic.
We'll fly with a 12" Plastic chute with over the top 13lb Kevlar shroudlines and swiver connected to a butterfly knot about 1/3 down the Elastic from the tied on Nose section.
more to come.
When I got back into flying NAR contests (early 80's) an F-104C was my first "any Weather" contest model built. I litterally flew the wings off that original 1/48th model.
I've liked the flying Character of the F-104 so much I've built a stable of them in various scales with varing degree of detail for both Sport flying and contests.
It's become a habbit when prusing the Plastic Model websites to look at the available F-104 and F-100 scale models.
back in 1996 I saw and purchased a promissing looking 1/72nd kit from Hasegawa #1002 for 11.99.
With all the other things on the plate at the time, this model came in and was placed in the stockpile for later building. a couple years later it surfaced in a search for a 1/72nd F-104 to fill out my fleet of F-104's. Opening the box I discovered unlike most plastic kit manufacturers Hasegawa decided to press the main fuselage in 4 pieces rather then the usual two. That made me decide to rebox this kit and look for another to avoid the additional body seam. So this very nicely detailed model sat on a shelf again until earlier this year.
Giving it another look I decided it was time to bit the bullet and build it.
The kit came with German marking decal which I knew I would not be using so the very first thing was to downscale a previous 1/48 F-104's Decal sheet depicting aircraft of the 3105th Drone Squadron Orange and Chrome color scheme.
After MC Joining the 4piece main fuselage our Nose section was carefully removed using the first panel line behind the cockpit. Our cardboard cut-out and taped up parts showed we'll need 29.0g of nose weight to get her flying right so a false bottom had to be added to the cockpit to seal off the area for our #9 lead shot and Epoxy.
Working the interor of the model body our BT-5 and Coupling shoulder were fitted, shimmed and epoxy installed. This process also confirmed we would lack the necessary room to make this model a wheels down model so all wheel doors and openings were permanently MC sealed.
Most of the internal flight part construction went as planned until I tried to insert a spent motor casing only to discover the "Stock" estes 13mm motor hook used was almost a full 1/8" short of accepting their spent casing DOH!
It's OK I thought...this model is intended to be a sport flying model anyway so I'll simply cut off the exposed hook end and use friction fit interior and external tape wrapping the remaining exposed flat metal strip as insurance.
Shockcord for this model consists of a 5" long section of .024"dia. Stainless Avaition cable Anchored around the stock 13mm motor stop just ahead of the Stock Estes motor hook (which we found to be two short anyway). 36" of 100lb braided kevlar 3-half hitch tied to the crimped forward eye of the anchor cable and 24" of 1/8" Oval elastic.
We'll fly with a 12" Plastic chute with over the top 13lb Kevlar shroudlines and swiver connected to a butterfly knot about 1/3 down the Elastic from the tied on Nose section.
more to come.