Hasegawa

1/48 Scale F-104 Starfighter "Red Baron"

Kit Number: 09749

Reviewed by  Fred Amos, IPMS# 6672

MSRP: $43.50 Thanks to Dragon USA for the review kit. (www.dragonmodelsusa.com) A brief history: The civilian Starfighter F-104RB (for Red Baron) was used by Darryl Greenamyer to set the low level speed record in October of 1977. Greenamyer built his F-104 over a period of twelve years with parts scrounged from aircraft junkyards around the world. The engine was a J79-17/1 turbojet borrowed from a McDonnell F-4 Phantom. Greenamyer broke the previous speed record on October 24th, 1977 by recording a speed of 988.260 MPH after five passes over Mud Lake, near Tonopah, Nevada. He remained supersonic for most of the twenty-minute flight and was rarely more than one hundred feet above the lakebed. Several months later, while practicing for an attempt at the world's absolute altitude record, he was forced to eject when his landing gear failed to extend. Gear-up landings in Starfighters were verboten due to the fact that fuel lines run through the belly area of the aircraft. Fortunately, Greenamyer landed safely, but if I recall, the F-104 ended up in a mudhole some where in the desert. [Ed.Note: Permission for IPMS to use this photo granted by copyright holder, Dave Lednicer.] The kit: The Hasegawa F-104 series of kits have been available for several years and this is the third one I have built. For the most part, the kit goes together very easily but there are a few areas to be aware of. I must admit that when I received this kit for review I jumped into it so fast that I eventually made a mess of it and went to a local hobby store and bought another one. The area that I messed up was in the cockpit. I forgot to place the instrument panel and hood in the fuselage half before I put the two halves together. In prying the nose apart to wedge the panel into place it wouldn't go down enough to seat correctly. That eventually messed up the fit of the windshield. I misread the instructions for the assembly of the ejection seat. This caused the top rails to set too high and the movable section of the canopy wouldn't set properly. That's when I decided to start all over and bought another kit. It's a good thing I did and I will explain that later. The first step in the assembly was to fill in the gun trough. On Greenamyer's Red Baron the trough was faired over to reduce drag. The kit provides a resin piece but it doesn't fit well and is too small to sand it to shape to fit. So I stretched some sprue, placed a tapered piece into the trough, and then filled the rest of it with Tamiya putty and sanded it into shape. I placed a fishing sinker in the nose cone for balance. Following the instructions I was able to get the kit to the point of painting. With the canopy in place and masked I sprayed the model with Floquil Reefer White as a primer (best primer in the world) for the red color. For the red color I used Testors #1103 Red in the small bottle. I spray gloss colors very thin and build up the gloss a little at a time. Afterwards a good coating of Johnson Floor Wax was applied for protection. The intakes on the Red Baron were highly polished, so I slid a piece of paper between the fuselage and the cone in the intake and masked off the red. The intake area was then painted with Alclad Polished Aluminum. It didn't cover the red as well as I would like and if I had it to do again I would use Floquil Old Silver. I wasn't too sure of the color of the wheel wells and landing gear so to be safe I painted them with Floquil Reefer White. The decals were next to go on and here is where problems started to mount up. The decal pieces are very large, with only four pieces covering a side of the aircraft. The decal that covers the speed brake was too short and wouldn't match the opening left for it. The piece that goes on the vertical fin was too narrow and didn't match where the two pieces joined at the base of the fin. Fortunately I had the extra decal from the first kit and I was able to cut and snip pieces to cover the problem areas. After another coat of Future had dried I removed the canopy masks and covered the front frames with Bare Metal Foil. Then the landing gear and doors were glued into place. The last item to place was the pitot tube in the nose. I know how fragile this item is so I cut a straight pin to the correct length and super glued it into place. So all in all I have to say that the F-104 Red Baron is a reasonably good kit for your time and money. Be aware of the issues I pointed out and you may not have any problems with it. I would like to thank Hasegawa through DragonUSA for providing the kit for review.

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