Italeri CF-104 Starfighter "Kicked up a Notch": KLP Publishing eBook now Available!

[Alex]

Spectacular work as always!  And envious of your Airscale stash!  I've bought a few of their products and liked them a lot.

[monthebiff]

Fantastic pit Chuck, I love using Airscale products as they are so good and as you rightly say the decals really do work so well!

 

Regards. Andy 

[Oldbaldguy]

For some reason even after all these years, I never paid much attention to where the gun is located on a 104 until I started following this build.  Just today, I realized that the muzzle is cheek by jowl against your left butt cheek!  I can’t imagine what that must have sounded and felt like when you ripped off a couple of hundred rounds.

[chuck540z3]

Thanks guys!

 

58 minutes ago, ScoobyDoo said:

By 1979 your jet would have had a gun, as Jari pointed out.

 

In regards to the wing dilemma, Hasegawa Tri-tool makes a donut ring stamper. I love it, it actually stamps a ring. I can get you the part number if needed.

 

Hi Gary!

 

Although I'm not sure of the year, this jet does not have the gun.

 

What is this "wing dilemma" and rings that you speak of?  Sounds like I need to learn something new to me.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Neo]

8 hours ago, airscale said:

quite sublime work as usual Chuck - you make what I always thought would be a useful addition to a modellers arsenal look better than I had ever envisaged

 

Thank you too for the shout-out

 

 

 

LOL - worth a try

 

I sent Chuck some stuff as I just loved watching what he was doing and I like giving something back through the forum - I still do it today

 

Great 'pit Chuck - you can be rightfully proud of it and I just know this is going to be your best build yet

 

Peter

Oh indeed. Every Christmas raffle Peter gives out the ultimate airscale package 

 

One of these days ill get lucky. 

 

@chuck540z3 thanks for mentioning these and showing us  the potential. Ill take your advice and grab your favorite pick. 

 

Amazing work on that cockpit. 

[ScoobyDoo]

On 12/17/2020 at 3:34 PM, chuck540z3 said:

As I learn more and more about F-104's and CF-104's specifically, one of the funny ironies of the Canadian version is that they didn't have the nasty gun early on until ~ 1974.  We Canadians are more civilized than that.  Instead, they used the ammo and gun area to store extra fuel so that it could, among other bombing missions, drop a Nuke and have enough gas to crash somewhere safely past the blast area.  Ahhh, the good 'ol Cold War days.  

 

Since I digress from modeling, here's another distant memory that is still vivid in my mind.  When I was a kid, maybe about about 10 or so in the mid 60's, my Dad took me to the local airshow which was at the old Calgary Airport called McCall Field.  In those days the flying displays were very close to the crowd and I remember having a CF-101 Voodoo and CF-104 Starfighter do head to head flypasts a low level right in front of us.  I recall looking left and right and seeing the small specks that were these jets in the distance and not hearing anything but a distant roar, then suddenly they had crisscrossed right in front of us in silence, with the load roar coming a few seconds after they had.  WOW!  It was such a rush, especially when you're only a little kid.  It now surprises me that I'm finally making my first CF-104 56 years later.  Maybe a Voodoo one day as well?  I don't think they make a 1/32 version other than vacuuform, which is a pity.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

My flight instructor was a former 104 driver. He had some incredible stories about the nuke days in Europe, like you say, after the nuke was dropped on target he’d turn for home until he ran out of gas. It was a one way trip. I was lucky to get one flight in a 104 before they retired.

 

And like you say, they were amazing at airshows. You had to be on your toes to see them coming, if not you only looked to the trailing sound after the jet had already passed.

[ScoobyDoo]

On 12/22/2020 at 8:58 PM, Finn said:

 

 

 

also when you get to the weathering stage, there was a panel that was opened to access fueling controls: 

 

 

Jari

That is my buddy Gene fueling this 104 in Baden. We were in air cadets, air reserves, and the regular force together. I went out and had beers with him before Covid hit. We were still in high school when this picture was taken, I joined the air reserves when I was 17 in grade 11. Our summer OJT was in Germany working on the 104. A lot of fun for a 17 year old just learning about girls and beer. Our presence permitted guys stationed in Germany to go on leave.

 

This particular summer Gene pulled a serious prank on the RCR infantry regiment. I don’t think it was ever discovered that Gene was the person who carried it out. The prank resulted in the entire Airforce contingent (Lahr and Baden) holding a parade to apologize to the army.

 

Recently we were discussing this event on our squadron Facebook page. One of our Aerospace Engineers at the time, who is now a Alberta Court of Queens Judge, stated due to the statute of limitations we can now discuss Gene’s involvement.

[aircommando130]

2 minutes ago, ScoobyDoo said:

That is my buddy Gene fueling this 104 in Baden. We were in air cadets, air reserves, and the regular force together. I went out and had beers with him before Covid hit. We were still in high school when this picture was taken, I joined the air reserves when I was 17 in grade 11. Our summer OJT was in Germany working on the 104. A lot of fun for a 17 year old just learning about girls and beer. Our presence permitted guys stationed in Germany to go on leave.

 

This particular summer Gene pulled a serious prank on the RCR infantry regiment. I don’t think it was ever discovered that Gene was the person who carried it out. The prank resulted in the entire Airforce contingent (Lahr and Baden) holding a parade to apologize to the army.

 

Recently we were discussing this event on our squadron Facebook page. One of our Aerospace Engineers at the time, who is now a Alberta Court of Queens Judge, stated due to the statute of limitations we can now discuss Gene’s involvement.

 

Aaaaaaaaaah yes....beer and women....now I know where all my money went when I was younger!

 

Cheers and Happy New Year! Ron

[ScoobyDoo]

1 hour ago, chuck540z3 said:

Thanks guys!

 

 

Hi Gary!

 

Although I'm not sure of the year, this jet does not have the gun.

 

What is this "wing dilemma" and rings that you speak of?  Sounds like I need to learn something new to me.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Sorry Chuck, I’m reading through this in chronological order, getting caught up due to my absence from visiting this site. After I posted this a few pages later I realized you already decided to go gunless.

 

In regards to the wing comment, I was reading you weren’t sure how you were going to deal with the flush rivets. To describe them better they were more like a rod stamped into the wing, sanded flush and filled with putty. They were not indentations. The best way to describe how they looked visually is they looked like stamped circles. And Hasegawa has an excellent tool that stamps these circles. But reading on I think you solved what you are going to do. They were definitely visually noticeable, I’ve read a lot of people say they weren’t.

 

This is the tool:
 

https://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=875

 

[Finn]

As mentioned earlier the gun didn't start getting installed until 1974 and it took awhile before they all got them put in. At that time there were at least 4 CF-104 squadrons so it took some time.

 

Speaking of war stories, back in 1985 a US base in Germany was having an exercise, and as per standard procedures other squadrons would practice airfield attacks on the base. A CF-104 was doing just that and after he dropped his simulated bombs on the base he shoved his throttle as far as it could, unfortunately he had a finger sticking out enough that he hit the Emergency Jettison button and blew off his tip tanks. The tanks hit a HAS, caught fire and burnt a truck that was parked beside it, since an air attack was taking place everyone was under shelter so no causalities, except for the truck.

 

Jari

[ScoobyDoo]

13 minutes ago, aircommando130 said:

 

Aaaaaaaaaah yes....beer and women....now I know where all my money went when I was younger!

 

Cheers and Happy New Year! Ron

Yes, what fun. Except for that apology parade, it was a hot summer day and I was hung over.
 

Happy New Year!

[ScoobyDoo]

3 minutes ago, Finn said:

As mentioned earlier the gun didn't start getting installed until 1974 and it took awhile before they all got them put in. At that time there were at least 4 CF-104 squadrons so it took some time.

 

Speaking of war stories, back in 1985 a US base in Germany was having an exercise, and as per standard procedures other squadrons would practice airfield attacks on the base. A CF-104 was doing just that and after he dropped his simulated bombs on the base he shoved his throttle as far as it could, unfortunately he had a finger sticking out enough that he hit the Emergency Jettison button and blew off his tip tanks. The tanks hit a HAS, caught fire and burnt a truck that was parked beside it, since an air attack was taking place everyone was under shelter so no causalities, except for the truck.

 

Jari

Were you around for the parade I mentioned?

 

He changed the RCR crest on their memorial to an RCAF crest. It took awhile before anyone noticed the change. I wasn’t involved, he kept it quiet from everyone.

[MikeA]

I checked the photos of 104704 in Patrick Martin's "Canadian Starfighters" book. It certainly had its cannon installed by 1980.

 

Cheers,

[chuck540z3]

Looks like this build thread has brought back a lot of RCAF memories!  Great to see, since Scobby Doo, Finn and I believe Winnie all worked on or were around CF-104's back in the day and can offer me tips.

 

Speaking of Finn (Jari), he emailed me today with some good news and some bad news.  The good news is that he showed me a third pic where the red and white arms at the side of the seat were poorly painted, likely by hand, so my effort wasn't all that inaccurate.  Good, because I'm not re-doing these suckers! 

 

The bad news is that he has never seen those oval yellow things at the foot wells of my cockpit before.  I wasn't sure what they were either and couldn't find a decent pic of this area, so I just assumed, wrongly, they were a couple more emergency pull rings since they were so well defined in the resin.  They were tough to paint with a brush and even harder to decal.

 

 

 

Well, after more research I have discovered they are nothing more than foot well vents, so it was back to the drawing board!      I found some that were grey and one set that were black, so I went with that so that I could easily paint the interior black as well to indicate a cavity within.  I have since re-done most of the photographs above that showed this error, just in case somebody tries to replicate my mistake in the future.  Consider them repaired!.... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by chuck540z3

[Winnie]

I have another one for you.... The Canopy lever on the right hand windowsill is grey with a white end. Forward is locked.

 

I never officially worked on it, but I worked at a museum in Norway and disassembled 104870's cockpit down to the bars bones.

 

Cheers!