CVW-16 Crusaders double build: RF-8G with F-8E escort
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BuNo. 146871. This jet survived flights over Cuba and Vietnam, including some over very hostile territory. It was flown by some noteworthy RF-8 pilots, including William Ecker, Andre Coltrin, and Tom Tucker. Remarkably it survived great battle damage, serving into the 70s when it met its fate in an accident.
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One of the F-8Es assigned to VF-111 during the 1966 USS Oriskany cruise. I find photos of F-8Es in Sundowner livery are not as common as F-8Cs, maybe because not as many were assigned to VF-111. This is the aircraft that can be built straight out of the Academy box.
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An example of RF-8Gs assigned to CVW-16 during 1966. They had the blended "AH" that VF-111 also wore on the tail, which was an uncommon practice for recce attachments, who almost always had their own tail code. These RF-8s also had no distinctive unit livery at the time--nothing on the strakes, tail, fuselage, nothing.
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A view of 146874, another Det G RF-8. I cannot find any photos of the upper starboard wing, which is where they often had codes. CVW-16 F-8s from VF-162 and VF-111 however did not carry them on this cruise, so I can probably omit the wing AH code for the RF-8 as well.
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Originally I planned to use the Academy decals for the VF-111 jet, but I have an issue with the red wingtip decals that come with the kit--they're way too wide looking. In every picture I see of VF-111 F-8s, the wingtips are much more narrow. So Furball decals it is.
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Kind of a nitpick but it just doesn’t look right to me being that wide, and the red color is too bright, probably because it was printed the same shade as the Marines jet. Also, the blended "AH" tail code is really “thin” and doesn’t look right either. Fortunately I now have two Furball sheets with the AH so both planes codes can look the same next to each other.
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The VF-111 pilot has his flashy sunset helmet design and army camo uniform, while the RF-8 pilot has a tan uniform and plain helmet, like how his aircraft will be painted
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The pilots who I chose to depict in this build, Lt. Andre Coltrin (left) and LCDR Dick Schaffert. Coltrin and Schaffert flew many hazardous missions together. Said Schaffert, he had “chased Andre across the Thanh Hoa Bridge and uptown Haiphong more times than I care to remember.”
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I repainted Schaffert’s helmet—I like it much better now
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The fuselage section of the RF-8’s wing is substantially different
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The forward fuselage is much larger and differently shaped, extending to the variable incidence wing
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After a lot of fussing with the pilots, the seats and cockpit tubs are assembled. I added some Eduard ejection seat handles and installed the control sticks, properly gripped
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Putting all the guts in. Since these jets will be gear up, no need to paint the bays, etc.
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The RF-8 camera bays and the little cameras inside were painted flat black with a little drop of gloss for the lenses
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The camera windows all have their own masks provided by the kit
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Fuselages are together. The RF-8 goes together nice if you manage to get everything lined up and shaved just right. I didn’t get everything so there’s going to be some seams to clean up
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Gear doors need to be trimmed to get them built “up”. I find stuffing the wheel wells with blutak really helps set the doors in place with less agony
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Put a lot of work into fitting the panels on the undersides
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The Academy gear doors are meant to be open, so they’ll definitely need some filler here
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Closing gear doors that weren’t meant to be is a tricky exercise. Even after gluing them flush as possible there’s going to be gel super glue and scribing
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CP2 was an adventure to install
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THIS was tricky. Particularly shaping the nose gear doors in place. The small aft main gear doors fit better closed on the RF-8 than F-8E though.
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The small doors didn’t align well here, I think I messed up this whole assembly starting with the gear bay fit. I’ll just have to fill in bigger gaps and scribe
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Like most F-8 kits, Academy’s does not include the catapult bridle on the underside (Sword’s does tho). I scratchbuilt it with plastic card and rod.
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Finishing up the cockpits so canopies can go on
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Soooo many struggles with clear parts
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Finally pushed through to getting the canopies on.
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Dry fitting the wings, trying to decide if I should attach them before or after painting
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Drilled out the afterburner cooling scoops and attached the small ECM blister this RF-8 had at the time. Gonna have to sand that crack out a little…
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The wings went together pretty well, all told
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Ventral strakes are installed. Gotta be getting close to painting if I’m attaching fiddly fuselage surfaces
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And the wings are on!
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There are absent panel lines on the RF-8s tail, so I scribed them freehand with a hobby knife.
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Getting the stabs ready to prime and paint. Missiles and Y racks need to be constructed too
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“Black-based” the top…
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…and “preshaded” the bottom
Коментари
62 26 February, 14:43
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Been cooking up this idea since I got the 1/72 RF-8. My original plan was to build the plane in the cover of the Osprey RF-8 book, flown by Lt Andre Coltrin over Vietnam. With a little help from a 1/72 version of the Furball MiG Master sheet, I will rearrange the nose and tail numbers to make BuNo 146871 as it flew in Vietnam during its 1966 cruise off the USS Oriskany.
I also found an Academy F-8E, which has decals for a VF-111 jet that flew on the same cruise, so decided I will build it as the RF-8's escort, which they often had during their photo runs. I also figured, why not build them together? They will be displayed in flight.
26 February, 22:47
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Good to have you gents, looking to start this one soon! I like researching and adding reference photos, so I just added some in the meantime.
29 March, 13:32
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Normally I don't follow 1:72 scale models...for this one I'll make an exception...😅😉, grab myself a seat here! Love those Crusaders...
23 April, 12:53
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Got intrigued by Rando's comment on Jos' build, so I popped over here. Looks like a very interesting build as well!
23 April, 13:10
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Happy to have you gents here, I'll be getting to this one just as soon as my elaborate P-51 build is done...
24 April, 14:14
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Here we go, double Crusader build. Gonna be comparing the short-run Sword RF-8 with Academy's F-8, which has been the go-to in 1/72. I have extra Academy kits so I'm swapping out the RF-8 kit's nice resin seat, I'll use it for a future open canopy build. The pilots will be obscuring seat detail in a closed canopy anyway.
15 May, 03:54
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Welcome David!
I assembled the PJ pilots and started nipping off parts to assemble the fuselage. Getting the pilots to fit in their seats is tricky so far. Fit on the Academy kit parts is pretty nice. Sword kit is not as easy since there's no locator pins but they align well
19 May, 04:25
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Pilots are fully painted now. The F-8E pilot is based on Dick Schaffert, who was a pilot on this 1966 cruise. While I don't know of any specific plane he flew, F-8 pilots often flew jets that were assigned to others, so he's flying 149180 on this escort mission. In order to accommodate them, I had to remove the rudder pedals and front of the cockpit tub on the F-8E. It won't really be visible when the cockpit is buttoned up anyway.
27 May, 14:17
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I didn't like how the Sundowner helmet turned out so I stripped the paint and airbrushed it this time with tiny wedges of tape, then shaped and touched up everything. Just need to add a black stripe for the visor groove.
29 May, 03:49
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Thanks and glad to have you J35J! Pilots, seats, ejection handles, and joysticks are all in place. Time soon to start putting the jets together.
31 May, 04:40
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Hello Guy, welcome 😊
Fuselages are together. Now getting all the panels and gear bay doors to sit flush.
8 June, 04:20
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Thanks Calvin! It's quite nice if you remember it's a short run kit and you prep and test fit parts a lot before gluing anything. Has been a far from perfect first effort by me but I like how it goes together. It's shape is pretty accurate too. The Academy kit is very plug-n-play in comparison
8 June, 19:52
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Welcome S M! I have been painstakingly installing the gear doors closed. Stuffing blutack in the wheel wells helps with frustration. Both F-8s have tiny aft gear doors on the main bays that took a lot of time to line up. The RF-8's nose doors were also very tricky. Happy to say I'm done getting the gear doors on.
22 June, 04:14
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Me too - Bonanza gear struts. God bless Albion Alloys. Great stuff if you've not used any of their items.
23 June, 19:39
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I have not but am always looking to add new things in this hobby, I'll check them out! I actually have an old Minicraft 1/48 Bonanza that I might do something with one of these days.
23 June, 20:49
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Took a big long tour on the clear parts struggle bus this past week. Got glue smudges on a camera window, the windscreen, and canopy on the RF-8, which all had to be buffed out. Hopefully I get the canopies attached snug without issues tomorrow night. Finding that carefully lining the attachment point with Revell Contacta on a toothpick is less risky than TET.
28 June, 03:57
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Like the planes. Like to see them in flighr. Like the effort you put in.
Feel you when putting pilots properly in and closing wheel well doors.
Anxious for the paint job.
1 July, 04:07
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Thanks all, getting closer to painting. A ton of work has gone into smooth out and scribe the lines around the gear bays on both jets, not to mention persistent seams. Also turned my attention to sanding down and rescribing the fictitious bumps on the folding joints, which the RF-8 has as well. The RF-8 also has wedge-shaped plates on the droops, which were only present much later, so those were sanded down as well. There's still a few things I want to try to perfect before I begin painting. I also have to decide if I want to paint the wings separately, in all likelihood I'm going to glue them on first because I want the fuselage section to be flush.
21 July, 02:23
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Alright, wings are on. I feel like this will make masking more complicated, but better for making sure they conform to the fuselage. I am so ready to paint these jets
8 August, 03:55
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I missed this one, following. I love these side by side builds.
Great progress so far. 👍
9 August, 05:14
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Hi friends three months later I'm finally painting the damn things. Here's my current take on preshading, blackbasing, what have you. Gave the white areas a white base that I preshaded with dark gull grey. Then mottled the black with white for some variation with the light gull grey. Elsewhere I built the missiles, launch rails, and painting the horizontal stabs.
16 August, 04:18
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Coming along nicely! Your blackbasing tedhnique looks very effective, I am curious how they will turn out!
16 August, 05:04