Hasegawa

1/72 F-104J / F-104DJ Starfighter 'JASDF' (2 aircraft in 1 box)

Kit Number: 00873

Reviewed by  Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP: $34.95 Imported by Dragon Models USA (www.dragonmodelsusa.com). Thanks to Dragon for the review kit. The Aircraft Hasegawa appears to have a love affair with the F-104. Dragon currently lists 37 Hasegawa F-104s, 9 in 1/72, 26 in 1/48 and 2 in 1/32 scales. One of Hasegawa's first plastic aircraft kits, back in the 60s, was a 1/70 F-104, whose success put them into the plastic aircraft kit business. Japanese F-104s (F-104J and F-104DJ) were built by Mitsubishi, except for the first 3 examples, which were Lockheed built. The JASDF had 210 single seat Js and 20 2-seat DJ trainers. Since the Japanese constitution forbids offensive weapons, the F-104Js did not carry any weapons except the Vulcan cannon and sidewinders. The last 104Js were retired in 1986, after 24 years in JASDF service. The last military F-104s were Italian, and were retired in 2004. There is currently a civil F-104 demonstration team, the Starfighters on the air show circuit. Their show has been described as "15,000 foot loops and high speed passes". This pretty well describes the F-104's maneuverability and performance. If you want to see a Starfighter fly, their 2008 show season will be announced on their web page at www.starfighters.net. I saw an F-104S do a low-level pass on 5 ATAF HQ in Italy in 1995, and I was impressed by what I saw. I didn't have a direct view of the runway, and the gray blur I saw between the buildings was definitely fast and loud. The Kit You get 2 F-104s in the box. The 2-seater is featured on the box top, and that's what I built for this review. The F-104J has 101 parts, the F-104DJ has 114. All are molded in gray plastic, except, of course, the clear parts. You get 4 clear sprues, plus 9 gray ones. I can't figure out why they included sprue "E" in there, since you use none of the parts. You are welcome to ponder this while you add an ejection seat and exhaust ring which are obviously for the F-104G to your spares box, as well as the under wing pylons the Japanese never used. This appears to be a recycled mold, as there is a tiny bit of flash on the main gear doors, indicating some wear on the mold. This took only minutes to remove with a hobby knife with #11 blade. This is not a "knock" on the kit, just an indication that those 8 other Hasegawa F-104s share some common parts with this one, and they're getting their money's worth out of the tool, which also saves you some money at the hobby counter. Assembly This kit is pretty straightforward. I've built Italeri's F-104, and the Hasegawa kit is as good, with differences. You expect engraved panel lines, and you get them. The only difficult part I had was due to the fact that this is a double kit. The aft part of the fuselage is identical for both aircraft, with only the nose, from the back of the intakes to the "pointy end" being any different. This imposes putting the forward fuselage together, then the rear, and then mating them. There were no fit issues for the front or rear fuselage sections. The join between the front and rear sections was difficult for me to get really true. As a result, some putty came to my rescue. I was impressed at how well the main landing gear wells, struts and other parts went into this assembly. Everything just….fit like it was supposed to. Having had my share of adventures with cockpits that are too large for the fuselage, this was gratifying. The only other "feature" of this kit was that the wings have holes to mount those weapons pylons, which were not on the JASDF aircraft. You have to fill them. The wings did fit cleanly, and they fall into the correct anhedral when assembled. The tip tanks also go together well, and there's a little pin to stop you from putting them too far onto the wing and splitting that seam. Painting

For the 2-seater you have 3 different aircraft with 2 different "paint" schemes available in this kit. The one featured on the boxtop is overall gray. The other two are natural metal/silver overall. Since I liked the "teddy bear" tail markings for 203 Squadron, I did a silver one. I used Testors' Metalizer ® for most of the parts. Aluminum covered most of the aircraft. The darker parts were Burnt Metal. For the tailpipe, I used Jet Exhaust. The tops of the wings were done with Floquil Reefer White, which I find to have excellent coverage and it stays white for decades. The great feature here was down in a corner of the markings instructions. This enables you to use a scanner and printer or a copier that enlarges to produce a 1/72 drawing, which will help SO much in producing a mask for a difficult paint scheme. As it was, I was able to just use fine fingernail scissors, a magnifier, and Tamiya tape to produce the required paint scheme, as the different colored panels change colors at the panel lines. It is really necessary to put Future or some other protective coating on the model, as the Metalizer does not stand up well to any handling, with scratches and worn spots showing up. Decals After the Future dried I put on the main decals. I was happy with the way they came off the backing sheet only a few seconds after being dipped in water. I am finding a correlation between required soak time and quality in decals. The quicker they can be moved off the sheet, the better the quality. The decals went on nicely. I had to use some Micro Sol ® on the wing Hinomarus to get them to snuggle into the panel lines, but they did, and I'm happy. Another coat of Future, and then I finished the small decals, such as the ejection triangles, the fueling markings, the turbine warning stripe and the "No Step" on the wings. And another coat of Future. The aircraft shines like a new penny. The Last Parts With all the handling required for decaling, I left the horizontal stabilizer and the landing gear parts off until I finished the decals. I was gratified that the tail plane fits so well that you really don't need glue to hold it in place. Nevertheless, I did use a little, just in case. The landing gear legs had to be assembled very early in the build, but I put off adding the wheels and doors until I had finished decals. The system works well for the gear, and the doors sit in the right configuration with only a tiny bit of prodding, and the aircraft sits level. With a fairly nice cockpit interior, and an iffy fit for the 5-piece canopy section, I decided to put the canopies in the open position. This can be a less-than-trivial exercise, as the canopies swing open to the left side, and there's no support or stop for them. Fortunately Tamiya tape again came to my rescue, as you can see in the photo. The very last thing was the nose probe. This part is so long and thin, it probably will be broken soon. The part fit the hole in the nose perfectly, with a slight drag when it was inserted, but with no wobble and perfect alignment. Overall Recommended If you're looking for a pair of JASDF F-104s, these will do nicely. I don't know how many Heller 2-seaters I've got in my stash, but I've never gotten around to building one. Maybe never, now that I've got a nice one finished. Thanks to Dragon USA for the review kit, and IPMS/USA for the motivation to actually build a 2-seater.

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