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F-86 Sabre in Korea (SAAF)


Madmax

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Thanks Matt - I trust the figure painting is coming along well. Looking forward to seeing more of your Sopwith Camel.

 

 

 

If I were to ask which South Africans have done well in an international way, you would probably be hard pressed to name anyone other than Nelson Mandela. Here are some others you may have heard of:

 

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No, not Tom Hardy - Charlize Theron! Yes, yes, she really is South African...  (Which movie poster would you have used in my case?)

 

And these guys:

 

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For our American readers, that is the 2019 Rugby World Cup winning team - The Springboks. Rugby is similar to American Football, but generally played without helmets (not clever, I agree).

 

Most won't remember these however:

 

 

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They also wore a Springbok emblem, but were known as the "Flying Cheetahs". 2 Squadron (SAAF) volunteered to serve alongside the other American units shown in this row of operations buildings, and together they made up the 18th Fighter Bomber Wing in Korea. For nearly three years they fought side by side, sharing the trials and tribulations of war, first in Mustangs and eventually in Sabres. For a brief moment in time, these South Africans did well on the international stage. 

(The photograph of these buildings recently surfaced in a collection posted by Vladimir Yakubov on the Barracuda Studios Ready Room / Facebook site) https://www.facebook.com/groups/848474938507986/

 

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Just in case you were wondering what the South Africans were doing in Korea. There is actually a lot more to the story, and maybe I'll tell it it alongside a Mustang build one day.

 

 

Here is some much anticipated brass of my own:

 

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I must admit that I am a little out of my depth with this order-your-own-etch thing, and I got it slightly wrong. I knew I would have to trim each slat track's front attachment since the slat tapers toward the wingtip, but not that I had misread the "droop" angle. A little messy, but they will do the trick. 

 

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This is one of the key features of the Sabre that I really wanted to capture in this build - detailed extended slats. Very satisfying! Even if the rest of the model is a flop, this would have been enough reward for me. Yeah, cheap date.

 

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Being part of the 18th FBW meant that these Sabres had to drop bombs. It was known as "mudmoving" in Korea, and also what we called it when I was with 2 Squadron, forty years later. Here a 1000 pounder is being prepared to hang on a SAAF F-86F.

 

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Given that ground attack was the SAAF's primary role, it was important to get some bombs onto the model. There are none in the Hasegawa kit that I have, and no indication of where they go. Firstly I had to work out where the pylon fits. According to this diagram, the pylon is 72.25 perpendicular inches from the fuselage centreline.

 

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So 72.25 x 2.54 is 183.5cm divide by 32 equals 5.73 cm and Bob's your uncle. You will notice some pencil lines just to check that it runs parallel to the droptank and wing join lines. The final pylon you see here is modified from the ones provided in the Kinetic kit.

 

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The 1000 pounder is from Eduard Brassin, and apart from undersized attachment lugs, is a fine piece of aftermarket resin/brass.

 

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I then prepared the fuselage for the wing join. This basically involved deepening the recess for the upper half, and cutting a slot for the lower mounting (which is a thick piece of styrene glued to the wing). Hopefully this will be strong enough. :huh:

 

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Before joining the wings however, some detail on the fuselage must still be taken care of. The canopy requires quite a bit of attention, and so far I have only attended to the main sliding hood. I was tempted to use the Aires rear deck, but it was clearly made for the Kinetic kit since the Hasegawa canopy runners didn't fit the rails. Have styrene, will scratch...

 

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Slowly but surely getting there.

 

Till next month,

 

Sean

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1 hour ago, Madmax said:

If I were to ask which South Africans have done well in an international way, you would probably be hard pressed to name anyone other than Nelson Mandela. Here are some others you may have heard of:

You forgot to mention ‘Sailor’Malan, top South African ace during WWII and anti-apartheid activist post-war.

 

39-C5-A3-DF-2282-4-CD1-95-E6-16497-B7303

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On 7/25/2021 at 8:19 PM, quang said:

You forgot to mention ‘Sailor’Malan, top South African ace during WWII and anti-apartheid activist post-war.

 

39-C5-A3-DF-2282-4-CD1-95-E6-16497-B7303

 

Although Sailor Malan was an exceptional fighter leader he was not the highest scoring South African in WWII. That honor belongs to Pat Pattle.

Two more to  mention were the two VC recipients in Bomber Command, John Nettleton and Edwin Swales.

 

Edited by Cheetah11
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15 hours ago, quang said:

You forgot to mention ‘Sailor’Malan, top South African ace during WWII and anti-apartheid activist post-war.

 

 

 

Hi quang, you certainly chose to highlight one of South Africa's finest sons - a brilliant leader and a highly principled man. Thanks!

 

14 hours ago, Cheetah11 said:

 

Although Sailor Malan was an exceptional fighter leader he was not the highest scoring South African in WWII. That honor belongs to Pat Pattle.

Two more to  mention were the two VC recipients in Bommer Command, John Nettleton and Edwin Swales.

 

 

Ja Nick, three more great men. You have an unfair edge in knowing more people than Charlize and the Bokke! :lol:

 

Squadron_Leader_Pattle_of_33_Squadron_RA

 

Pat Pattle is one of my favourites, in no small part because of the tragedy and mystery of his legacy.

 

For those who don't know about him, he is largely accepted as being the highest scoring RAF pilot of the Second World War, but there is a problem with that - the official records of 80 and 33 Squadron were destroyed in Greece so as not to fall into enemy hands. As a result, his final tally isn't a clear number like Johnnie Johnsons 38, and more often quoted as between 40 and 50, or even between 40 and 60. We will never know.

 

He was shot down by a BF 110 over the bay of Eleusis, trying to defend an Irish squadron mate.

 

Roald Dahl, the famous author, joined Pattle's Squadron just as things started to go wrong for the RAF in Greece. He wrote about Pat in Going Solo, and penned this haunting observation: "He was a very small man and very soft-spoken, and he possessed the deeply wrinkled doleful face of a cat who knew that all nine of its lives had already been used up."

 

12 hours ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Fantastic work, Sean!

 

Kev

 

Thanks very much Kev.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks for the response guys, really appreciate it!

 

The windscreen isn't a perfect fit given all the mods I did to the nose. The easiest solution is to glue it in place, checking that the windscreen slope matches the fairing on the fuselage. Then it is just that painful thing of sanding a transparency to shape. Finer and finer sandpaper grit, sanding sponge and eventually some micro-mesh cloth. It hardly needed any polish to finish the job!

 

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Now at last, the wings can be attached. Seems as if it took forever to get to this point. :beer:

 

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Just like these guys at the Oregon Military Museum, I realised that getting the wings onto the Sabre requires quite a bit of co-ordination. Many models of the Sabre that I have seen look like they have no dihedral, so I was quite careful to check that I got the 3 degrees built in. It took a bit of shimming, and here you can see the Tetris game that I played with bits of styrene to get the wings snug.

 

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The flaps and ailerons appear to made of a thinner aluminium than the main plane of the wing, and in photos they show a bit of "pillowing". Here is my attempt to get that surface feel. I just sand with folded sandpaper down selected rivet lines (that have been deepened with a sharp point), then smooth it out with a sanding sponge. 

 

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Drop-tanks were a thing in Korea, and I imagine they were strewn all over the North Korean countryside by the end of the War. It appears that the most commonly used tank was the 120 gal combat tank, although many photographs also show the 120 gal "Misawa" tank (a modified F-80 tank) that was used as the others ran out.

 

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The Kit tanks have the pylon attached to one half, and I had to remove it in order to scribe the fuel cap and the plumbing cover that goes under the pylon in front. The fins are wrong for the Korea tanks, and need to be re-shaped into triangles. I also added weld seams by glueing stretched sprue into deeply scribed panel-lines.

 

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Finally for today, the undercarriage doors. This is like cleaning the inside of a fridge - nobody notices. Ejector pin marks sanded out, re-riveted and the folding nose wheel door hinged and detailed.

 

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Nearly time for paint... 

 

Sean

Edited by Madmax
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