Esci 1/72 RF-104G Starfighter


I usually build aircraft that I've seen in the flesh. I grew up near Volkel, the last and largest Dutch Starfighter airbase, and spent a lot of time there as an aircraft spotter. Therefore my Starfighter will be a RNLAF RF-104G of 306 squadron from Volkel air base. I liked them best either clean or fully loaded, with four fuel tanks and a centerline store, in this case an Orpheus recce pod. I want to depict it taxying: canopy open, pilot in the cockpit, flaps in take off position, and since the engine is running, several blow-in doors are sucked open by engine. Another thing to add were the RNLAF specific ECM antennas.

Model quality

The Esci kit was the best Starfighter available in the eighties, when its competition consisted of the Airfix, old Hasegawa, Matchbox and Heller kits. The Starfighter was part of a series of excellent 1/72 Esci models like the F-5A and the Harrier, that were among the very best of their time. Compared to current-day kits, the cockpit is rather bare, with decals for the instrument panel and side consoles. You can also build it as a F-104S, for which extra fins and pylons are provided, but the subtle differences such as the slightly different inlets, smaller ventral fin, Martin-Baker ejection seat, and the covered gun muzzle are not taken care of.

Model issues and reissues

Shown below are most of the boxings of this model, by Esci, Humbrol, Esci-Ertl/Ertl-Esci and AMT. The one I'm building has catalog number 9007. The model was later reissued by Italeri too, along with many former Esci models.

           
9011 9013 9037 9044
           
HK72008 9007 8243 8759

Model accuracy

The kit's main problems are the drop tanks and the canopy. The drop tanks have a too small diameter. The real tanks scaled down are 7.2 mm diameter, the Esci tanks are about 6.4 mm. Admittedly that's only 11%, but it makes a big difference in appearance. Maybe it's the cross section area that one judges, and that's 21% too small. The canopy is a slightly oversized in all directions. The length isn't much of a problem, but the increased width and height give it a slight bug-eye appearance. The thickness of the canopy is not constant, creating optical distortion. Smaller problems are the weak representation of the gun muzzle, lack of bulge in the main gear doors and narrow tires. The real tire measures 185 mm sidewall to sidewall, making 2.6 mm in 1/72 scale. Esci's tire is 2.2 mm, Hasegawa overdoes it with 2.9 mm. The bulge on the MLG doors is about 20 mm on the real thing, making 0.3 mm in 1/72 scale, or about the thickness of three sheets of paper.

Other kits

Hasegawa came out with a new Starfighter model around 1992, which I think is an improvement in a number of areas. The Hasegawa model has a much better cockpit, clear parts, tanks of the right diameter and shape, and nicer decals, but I definitely do not like the engraved rivets on the tail section. Esci's engravings look a little finer too. I will use Hasegawa tanks on my Esci model. The Revell F-104G, that came out in 1996, is also very nice. Unfortunately it too has rivets on the rear fuselage, and also on the vertical tail. In 2002, the Esci Starfighter was reissued by Italeri with minute differences. That makes it a difficult choice between the three kits: the overall quality of the Hasegawa and Revell kits is better, but the rivet detailing is really annoying and a lot of work to get rid off.

Accessories

I did not buy any detailing sets for this model, since I had the ultimate reference at hand (a real F-104G stood less than 50 meters from my desk at the time) and I like scratchbuilding. Some of the available accessories are the following. Eduard has a several photo-etched sets, 72-113 for the F-103D/J, 72-114 for the F-104G and probably some more; Verlinden has a 'TF-104G/J Super Detail Set' (#567), and CMK has several resin sets, including 7057 'F-104S/G detail set'. See this super 1/72 Scale Model Census site for a more complete list of accessories.

Construction

In this side view some of the modifications are visible. Somehow I managed to do all modifications in white plastic, which shows up nicely in the pictures. The dropped leading edge and trailing edge flaps come from an old Matchbox Starfighter (it would be simpler to sacrifice another Esci kit). Hardly visible is that the horizontal tail was mounted at a negative angle of attack, which is the standard trim setting before take-off. The model as seen here is basically ready for painting. The intakes inners and the shock cones are painted already.
The underside shows again the lowered flaps. After measurements from photographs I decided to drop them 20 degrees. Later I measured the take-off flap position on the real one (it has no engine, but is fully functional otherwise), and it turned out to be 15 degrees for both surfaces. I'm not planning to change the settings on my model though. Also visible in this photo is that the intakes pieces required some putty at their rear sides.
A close up of wing, showing again the flaps, the single blow-in door on the upper fuselage, and two repairs on the wings. According to a former Fokker mechanic, these repairs were needed because the aileron servo in the wing made the wing skin crack. The real patches are high-strength steel. I measured the repairs on a real Starfighter. Also visible are putty jobs on the intake and the rear fuselage connection.
A close up of underside nose. It shows two ECM antennas under the nose (not used by other air forces by the way) and the cover plate for the gun muzzle. The RF-104G had no gun, but had an extra tank installed in the gun bay. Another small detail (not visible in this picture) is a small NACA inlet in the gun cover (3.5 mm long). I've seen it only on Dutch RF-104's so far. You may wonder about the large amount of putty on the radome. I glued this model either with a bad plastic glue, or the gluing operation took too long. Anyway, the radome kept cracking, and I kept sanding the seam. After some time I noted that the radome had become seriously unround. I added putty and checked progress with a circle template until it was round again. With my current glue, super glue, I happily no longer experience this kind of trouble.
The underside of the fuselage. Starting at the front, a scratch built centerline pylon can be seen, measured a a real 104 (the pylon that comes with the SUU-21 is not correct). It has notches to accept anti-sway braces later. Just behind the landing gear bays, two elliptical two-door blow-in panels can be seen. I added these in error though: as far as I know now, these are only sucked open with the engine running at power, and I want to portray one running at idle. Therefore I will fill them again. Next are two reinforcement plates at the edges of the hydraulic bay door. Again as measured on a real one. A little more aft, two blow-in doors were made. They are in a slightly different position that the engravings on the model, I measured the true position on the real one. Note their asymmetry. Then comes the fuselage break, and this required putty all around, as can be seen. The last item is the rear ECM antenna. A small piece of tube was glued on a thin piece of plastic card to simulate the mounting plate.
A close-up of the cockpit area, showing a number of details. The bare cockpit tub with canted side consoles was scratch-built from card, using the 1/32 Hasegawa kit as a guide. This was all done in an age when resin detail parts did not exist yet! I cut the clear part in three pieces, because I wanted an open cockpit. The area under the rear canopy part was detailed with two stringers (which is all there is on the real one too). You can also see the puttying around this clear part. I treated it as a normal plastic part, puttied and sanded it until it sat properly, then polished the part clear again. One mistake I made was that I forgot to paint the clear part's edges in a dark color. The blueish putty will be visible after painting. Under the windshield the scratch-built coaming can be seen. It consists of a plastic gun-sight projector, and tissue paper 'fabric' covers. Like on the lower side of the radome, I had to putty the upper side considerably to make it round again. Last detail visible is the cover over the gun muzzle (this being a recce RF-104). Later I reshaped this part considerably, since its shape was more complex than I had modeled here.
I built a two-piece stepped instrument panel, and glare shield from thin card. The release of the Hasegawa kit solved the problem of the instruments: I cast a copy of a Hasegawa cockpit, and then sanded the instrument panels so thin that I got seperate instruments. I attached these to my own-built instrument panels and side consoles.

Painting

And then, after an undisclosed number of years after starting the kit, I finally base coated it! I looked for the best match to FS 26373, and concluded that Humbrol 127 would come very close. Humbrol 1 primer was a near-perfect match, but I had reservations against using a matt paint. I had had numerous problems before trying to spray matt Humbrol paints, but a recent paint test had shown that this matt primer sprayed quite nicely. The model shop was out of 127, and I decided to use Humbrol 1 after all. That wasn't too smart: the paint turned out with a rather rough surface all over the model. After a quick paint drying session at 50 degrees C, I wet-sanded the complete model with 1200 paper. But I was rewarded with a very nice model, with a lot less building errors than I had expected of my oldest model. It will require some touch-up jobs, but it is already pretty smooth. And what a pretty overall shape, I can't stop looking at it! It really brings backs those days in the early eighties at the fence, enjoying low-flying 104's and listening to the fantastic howl of J79's :-)
After a first round of touch-up jobs I airbrushed the model again, but this time I used Revell 374 RAL 7001, which is the actual color used on Dutch 104's. This Revell paint matches the color on the real item excellently. Both this front fuselage photo and the center fuselage photo above were taken after this second paint job. As you can see, the engravings are very restrained and nice. Like I wrote above, this old Esci model holds itself very well against the Hasegawa and Revell competition, and it has no stupid rivets on rear fuselage! I also painted the Hasegawa tanks that I will fit to the model. But it's almost a shame to add tanks to the model and spoil the fantastic clean lines. The clear parts were masked as usual with Cheap Chocolate Foil; see my Canopy masking with Cheap Chocolate Foil page for all the details.

With the model in its base coat, I compared it one more time with the 1:1 scale item, and I found a few areas that needed changes.

Next I started looking for suitable colors for the camouflage. I bought Xtracolor's X251 RAL6014, but it didn't match the color on a real RNLAF 104 very well, being too yellow and olive drab instead of green. Then I found a rather old tin of Humbrol Authentics RAL6014. It's color was very close to that of the real thing, but it wouldn't spray nicely. Note: from memory the upperside colors of Dutch and German 104's were not 100% identical, although they are both specified as RAL6014 and 7012. Perhaps Xtracolor is better matched to Luftwaffe Starfighters?

I took color matches with a FS595 fandeck from two Dutch 104's, D-8114 and D-8048 at Delft University:

Decals

I plan to use an old Modeldecal sheet (#43) for the larger markings and stencils. I compared the decals against the real ones, and the sheet is very accurate as far as I can see. Very impressive for a 1977 vintage decal sheet! I also bought the mind-boggling DACO 'F-104G Starfigher Stenciling' set (D7242), that is meant for a Belgian 104. I compared the small stencils with our Dutch 104, and it seems most can be used. It will be a major task to apply all of them (I guess some 250 decals), but I think it will be worth it. I may have the large serial numbers Alps-printed, since I don't like to assemble a serial from six separate decals, risking a 'wavy' serial. I also have a Dutch Decal F-104/F-16 set (72031), but the alignment isn't very good, and it doesn't include any items not already covered by Modeldecal and DACO. I haven't seen a later Starfighter sheet by Dutch Decal (72054) from 2002. The decal sheet of my Hasegawa TF-104G / F-104DJ also contains stencils, but they are printed far less subtle than the DACO set, and likely optimized for an F-104DJ.

One crazy detail that I plan for this model is a decal for the visor cover of the pilot's helmet. This area measures some 2 x 4 millimeters, but the Alps printer resolution is good enough to make a decent decal. I want the squadron's mascotte on it, a giraffe complete with helmet and oxygen mask, with the numbers 3-0-6 and a piece of film. This Danish Flightgear page has a nice photo. The helmets were HGU-26's as far as I can tell. Shown below is the partly-finished artwork.

I found out more about the background of this helmet cover design in the RNLAF magazine 'KLuPActief' issue March 2012. When 'Oude Delft' officialy handed the Orpheus recce pod to 306sqn in 1974, they presented a very large (half scale maybe) giraffe stuffed animal. This triggered Ton van Andel (air force maintenance officer and well-known aviation cartoon artist) to design a visor cover using a strip of film, the giraffe and the numbers 306. The head of the giraffe was custom-designed to feature good or bad features or characterics of the pilot involved.

Armour Collection makes (made) a 1/8 scale version the HGU-26P helmet. So far I found three versions: 6014 Belgian AF Red Devils, 6034 USAF green/brown/black camouflage, 6045 Portuguese AF Tiger Meet. They can be found on Ebay. I also came across a 1/6 scale HGU-26s by Metalcraft By Blair that look surprisingly similar.

Stores

The stores will consist of four tanks from a Hasegawa model and an Orpheus reconnaissance pod. I converted the SUU-21 bomb dispenser supplied with the kit to an Orpheus pod (bottom right), using a drawing obtained from 306sqn. An injection moulded one is now available from Daco Products, and earlier I bought a PD Models resin Orpheus pod (top right). The latter appears way too fat, and the panel lines are very deep. I will use the DACO pod, but I will sand off the ridges near the mating surface, I've never seen those on the real thing.

Modeling links

Concluding this page, some links:



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