F-8E Crusader VMF(AW)-312: Done 2014.11.1 Summary Posted

[EmperorKai]

You are most kind Paul- Thanks!  

 

I think I've gotten my second wind now that it's starting to come together and am getting pretty close to finally painting something

 

Kai

[EmperorKai]

Latest update, steady progress...

 

The Aires refuel probe bay is pretty nice and much more refined than the kit piece though it's a little short and fits kinda funky.  I tried to use Eduard PE in the bay area as well but the only piece that turned out to be usable was the aft bulkhead of the bay.  I also added a lead foil strip along the forward edge of the opening.  There is also a small fillet in the upper left corner that needs to be added.

 

The Aires refuel boom- very crisp.  The armature opposite of the A-arm is provided as a resin piece, but mine had a curved warp in it, so I replaced it with thin-walled brass tuning with flattened ends.

 

Filled in the nasty punch marks on the interior of the intakes with CA.  Tough spot to get at.

 

Finally getting around to fixing the bulged nose (er, lack thereof).  .015 sheet plastic has been carefully cut to bracket the raised vent panel which should actually be flush with the fuselage side.  The pieces were rolled around the hobby knife handle to get the curve started and then glued with liquid glue so it could be nudged into place.

 

Once the glue dried, the edges were carved and scraped until a proper contour was achieved.  Gunze dissolved putty and Surfacer 500 was used to smooth out the rest.  Then the panel and rivet lines were restored.  

 

So I'm now working the other side.  Even after these are cleaned up, there are similar panels that need to be added to the nose cone itself and on the forward corners of the windscreen, but I'll have to wait until the fuselage is together to finish those up.

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Kai

 

 

 

[P Stoner]

Very nice work Kai. Detail work is top notch.

 

Paul

[blackbetty]

very good work!

Edited June 12, 2014 by blackbetty

[Starfighter]

Looking great! Be careful with your nose modification though - not every F-8E had the larger radome and thus the triangular 'fade out' extension on the forward fuselage. Early 'E's had the narrow radome and thus no extension on the fuselage. The raised panels around the vents are always incorrect, though... I think there were some excellent photos showing the different nose configurations in Barry's build.

I am not going to bother you with the forward landing gear issue on the Trumpeter kit (which is a huge on IMO) as I seem to be the only one who cares about it. Keep the pics coming and keep up the good work - I really love what I am seeing!

[Kagemusha]

Superb work, taking many notes.

[Bill_S]

Amazing work, Kai!

[EmperorKai]

Very nice work Kai. Detail work is top notch.

 

Paul

 

very good work!

 

Superb work, taking many notes.

 

Amazing work, Kai!

 

Thanks much guys!

 

Kai

[EmperorKai]

Looking great! Be careful with your nose modification though - not every F-8E had the larger radome and thus the triangular 'fade out' extension on the forward fuselage. Early 'E's had the narrow radome and thus no extension on the fuselage. The raised panels around the vents are always incorrect, though... I think there were some excellent photos showing the different nose configurations in Barry's build.

I am not going to bother you with the forward landing gear issue on the Trumpeter kit (which is a huge on IMO) as I seem to be the only one who cares about it. Keep the pics coming and keep up the good work - I really love what I am seeing!

 

Thanks Starfighter- to be honest, I wan't aware of the early E noses, though it's not a surprise.  I went and confirmed that the bulged nose is appropriate for the Danang F-8E's (at least all the ones I was able to find).  I refer to it as the Danang birds because the Checkerboards VMF-312 Crusaders were turned over to the Death Angels VMF-235, who then turned them over to VMF-232 Red Devils.  For the most part (barring attrition or replacement) pictures of these at Danang are pretty much the same airframes.  I understand that VMF-232 brought them back to the states where they were then turned over to the Navy.

 

Through various pictures in my references and on the internet, I was able to follow this lineage to confirm not only the nose, but some of the specifics of the aircraft.  For example, the ECM detection fairing on the fin which was not present on all the F-8E's.  I also noticed that it appears that in some cases the squadron number was carried over from squadron to squadron.  For example, F-8E aircraft 149199 was marked with squadron number 10 in both VMF-312 and VMF-235.

 

With that in mind, here's a pic of an F-8E of VMF-235 (apparently) at Danang, definitely with the bulged nose.

 

I've studied this pic quite a bit as this is very close to the way I want to depict this build.  The only differences will be the refuel probe out, speed brake and 4 zuni launchers instead of 2 shown here.  Of interest, if this picture is truly at Danang, then it is one of the few I have been able to find at Danang that did have the ECM detection housing on the fin.

 

In regards to the nose landing gear, I now have both the SAC and G-Factor gear, and I'd like to re-visit the differences between these sets and reconcile with the actual. 

 

Edit: shortly after originally posting this, I found one of Starfighters postings on the front landing gear that notes:

• Main leg is about 5mm too long
• Fork is too big
• Tire diameter is slightly too big

I think Karl mentioned that the diameter of the main leg is also too big in diameter, and of course the "horns" should be removed for the F-8E.  I'll be looking at references soon, but as a thumbnail, does that cover it?

 

Thanks!

 

Kai

Edited June 12, 2014 by EmperorKai

[Kagemusha]

Great fix on the nose, not noticed that before, well that I can recall, just looked at photos of the French Navy F-8P and the bulged fairing is there 

[blackbetty]

somewhere i read that the F8 was retrofitted with the A-7 wheel/strut becaus od strutural problems with it. maybe there were two sizes? trumpys A-7 front LG is smaller than the F8 gear....

[Starfighter]

Kai, you've done some serious research here! I agree with you, the bulged nose is the right one for the a/c you've chosen. 

 

I don't think there were different sizes of nose landing gears, even if they have been modified. The issue you see the most when looking at the Trumpeter landing gear is the oversized fork which is different from the A-7 anyway (keeping in mind that the A-7 has a dual wheel forward landing gear and the F-8 has a single wheel one...). 

I have made a corrected scale drawing of the fork for my RF-8 at the time - I should still have that on my parents computer, so when I visit them for the next time, I'll check their computer and see if I can find it. If you want me to send it to you, I'd be glad to do so, Kai.

Keep your momentum, this is going to be one fine model!

[EmperorKai]

Ok, spent some time digging into the landing gear questions.  Be forewarned that what follows is a completely unscientific review, and I encourage anyone so inclined to come to their own conclusions

 

I'd also like to apologize in advance for the verbose post.  If you could care less about the landing gear, it's okay to look at the pictures and move on  

 

The 2 items I want to share in this post are:

1.  Comparisons between the SAC, G-Factor and kit landing gear parts.

2.  Thoughts on the dimensions of the nose landing gear

 

First up- a comparison shot of the nose landing gear.  From left to right: kit, G-Factor, Scale Aircraft Conversions.  As previously mentioned, the kit gear has the crispest execution, but it is otherwise blocky.  Note also the 3 punch marks inside the fork frame which will be a pain to clean up.  The G-Factor piece has alot of the missing details, though it has some minor issues as well.  Worst of which is the same 3 punch marks inside the frame on the fork, nicely preserved in brass- a bigger pain to clean up.   For the record, the G-Factor brass is relatively HARD and it will take some work to clean up.  Also, the fork is molded as part of the main gear.  One might be inclined to try to bend the fork open enough to get the nose wheel in, but considering the malleability of the metal, drilling straight through for an axle is a better approach.  Lastly, the SAC piece which does not compare well to the kit or G-Factor pieces.  'nuff said there.

 

All 3 pieces have the horns on the fork, which will need to be removed for an F-8E.  Dimensionally, they are all very close though the kit piece is longer than the other two.  The kit piece also has the thickest diameter, the SAC piece the thinnest.  I don't have any conclusive measurements for this but the thinner diameter does look "more right" to me.

 

In regards to the length of the nose gear, I don't have a scientific way of measuring this available.  I wish I could hop in the car and visit a local museum, but I think the nearest F-8 is about a 6 hour drive.  So, in lieu of a more direct approach, I can speculate the length based on relative dimensions of visual queues such as the landing gear doors, wheel rim, etc.

 

When I look at various detail pictures of the nose gear, it seems (though not absolute) that the upper smooth part of the landing gear ends at about the same point as the edge of the forward landing gear door.  The kit landing gear door is .220 inch in the vertical (noted in green).  As a visual queue, this would imply that the gear is  about .075 inches (1.9mm) too long.  I didn't bother with measurements below this point as it varies on the actual aircraft nor am I going to rebuild it from scratch even if it is off

 

In regards to the fork, an equally unscientific opinion.  The diameter of the kit wheel rim is .410 inches.  Using this as a yardstick, then the apparent length of the fork (no horns) should be about .982 inches.  Granted, this photo is not a perfect isometric view, but I did a similar comparative with another pic and came up with .987 inches, which is pretty close.  The fork on the scale pieces range between 1.004 and 1.037 inches.  Lengthwise, it's apparent dimension is .035 inch (.89 mm) too long.  Height-wise, I didn't measure specifically because of the angles involved, but the aspect ratio of the scale pieces look okay to me.

 

As far as the tire is concerned, the diameter of the kit part is too big and it has a round cross section (like a donut).  The tire in the picture above (from an RF-8, but typical) shows a more squared cross section with a tread pattern on the edges and grooves on the contact plane.  Short of getting ahold of some Contacte Resin wheels (out of business), I scraped down the outer circumference of the wheel to resemble the squared cross section, and in doing so, reduced the overall diameter.  It's probably still too big, but at least not as noticeable now.  (Sorry, no pic for the wheel at the moment)

 

I don't know the official name for this piece, so I'm going to refer to it as the nose gear "A-Brace"  From left to right: Kit, G-Factor, and Aires.  The SAC kit does not include this.  The differences are fairly obvious though it is clear they are all very similar.  The Aires piece is the most accurate with the small tabs.  The kit part is also only detailed on one side- the opposite side (which would face up when glued in place) is smooth and devoid of any detail.

 

For comparison, from an F-8A though it is similar for the F-8E.  The F-8J has a more pronounced V shape and no lightning holes. (Vladimir Yakubov via www.SVMS.com)

 

The main gear.  Both the G-Factor and SAC pieces are weight adjusted.  Detail and execution are the same as the nose gear.

 

The braces for the main gear.

 

Conclusions:

There are worse things on the kit than using the kit landing gear.  Actually, they aren't that bad and I would not consider aftermarket landing gear as a must.  

 

However, if one is so inclined to use AM on their build (as I am), then G-Factor wins.

 

In my case, my game plan will be

• Use G-factor main gear
• G-Factor nose gear, but shorten the nose gear and replace with brass tube with slightly smaller diameter
• Grind off the horns
• Drill and run an axle for the nose wheel
• Aires nose gear A-Brace
• Slightly flatten the wheels 
• Add brake lines and some fiddly details until I can't stand it anymore then move on

Thanks for looking!

 

Kai

 

 

 

[LSP_Paul]

Kai, I'd say ya got a winner in the G factor gear. He does a great job on all of his stuff. Just cut the "horns" off with a grinding disk and file things smooth. 

Paul

[Starfighter]

Very interesting comparison, Kai! Could you do me a favour and measure the fork of the G-factor landing gear? It still looks too big to me. I have found a scan of my scale drawing and it states that the fork should have a length of around 25mm. 

I have made my drawings using a Goodyear tyre chart which contained the tyre dimensions of the Crusader tyres. I was then able to calculate the o/a diameter of the front wheel (which is about 15,8mm in 1/32nd scale) and to scale a good photo of the real thing accordingly which led to a fork lengt of 25mm (including horns!).