WE were really
excited to see Kittyhawk bringing
out a new model of the F-94C Starfire in
1/48th scale injection moulded plastic – not as excited I suppose
as Eth was to build it! Here we go with part one of a several part build of
this new kit from a new company – we expect good things from the first
impressions of the kit we saw – let’s see if it lives up to our expectations…
The Lockheed
F-94C was a subsonic fighter designed to serve as an interim all-weather
interceptor. It was based on the airframe of the T-33A trainer, but fitted with
a more powerful after burning engine, interception radar and armament.
Built to a
1948 USAF specification for a radar-equipped interceptor to replace the aging F-61 Black Widow and North American F-82 Twin
Mustang, it was
specifically designed to counter the threat of the USSR's new Tupolev Tu-4 bombers (reverse-engineered Boeing
B-29). The Curtiss-Wright XF-87 Blackhawk had been designated to be the USAF
first jet night fighter, but its performance was subpar, and Lockheed was asked
to design a jet night fighter on a crash program basis.
The F-94 was derived from the TF-80C
(later T-33A Shooting Star]) which was a two-seat trainer
version of the F-80 Shooting Star. A lengthened nose area with guns,
radar and automatic fire control system was added. Since the conversion seemed
so simple, a contract was awarded to Lockheed in early 1949, with the first
flight on 16 April 1949. The early test YF-94s used seventy-five percent of the
parts used in the earlier F-80 and T-33As.
The F-94c
Starfighter, from Kittyhawk Models, (http://www.kittyhawkmodel.com/) is the company’s first release and
upon inspection looks to be an excellent offering. However there is a faint
“orange peel” look to the plastic that could cause problems with the bare metal
finish. There are two very colourful sets of decals included as well as a very
useful fret of photo etch, although this is not pre-painted.
So where to
start? Well seeing as this is an aircraft we start with the cockpit, so no
surprise there then. The bang seats are multi parts with photo etch straps for
the harness. Looking at the seats it would appear that they are more than good
enough detail wise to not need replacing with aftermarket resin examples, a
point in Kittyhawk’s favour.
For the
navigators console there is a choice of photo etch parts or decals. For some
reason the photo etch parts were chosen over the decals, in hindsight this was
a mistake on my part, more on that later. The cockpit floor should have four
locating holes for the seats, unfortunately on mine the locating holes were
missing altogether, so it was back to the “MarkOne eyeball” to get the positioning
correct. The rest of the cockpit went together easily. One thing to note, the
cockpit floor is handed, so make sure you have it the correct way up otherwise
the cockpit walls will not fit correctly. With everything installed a quick
coat of LifeColor(LC) UA-001 was sprayed on and put aside to dry.
The exhaust
was assembled next and there is a piece of photo etch supplied for the ring.
Unfortunately, because of the ribbed nature of the inside of the exhaust, it is
impossible to remove the seam lines inside the exhaust. So a coat of Alclad
Engine Manifold was sprayed on the inside of the exhaust. The reason for this
being the darker colour would make it much harder to see the seam once the
exhaust was in place.
There are
some serious knock out points here that take quite a vigorous sanding to remove
them. Thankfully though, when fully assembled they will not be seen. At this
point the instruction call for the front wheel to be installed, however this
can be left until later on in the build and instead the front wheel bay housing
was attached to the floor of the cockpit. Now it was time to assemble the
fuselage.
This was a
straight forward assemble the only issue being the part numbers for the air
break inserts, as always dry fitting will save a lot of heartache later on.
With the
fuselage together it was time to add the intakes. Again these are handled and because of the
seam line i assembled these and then used some dissolved putty to fill in the
small gaps.
As you can
see very little putty was used and cleaned up very easily. Mr Dissolved Putty
is fast becoming my filler of choice. For small gaps i use a cocktail stick to
apply the putty and then wipe it away with a piece of kitchen towel moistened
with some Mr Color Thinners.
The last item
to attach is the three part nose cone. Kittyhawk supply some nose weights here,
however it is tricky to get all three in and in the end two were placed between
parts C34-C36 and one between parts C34 and C3. That was not the biggest issue
though. The nose cone is totally the wrong shape. It is proud at the sides, the
nine and three o’clock positions, and is shallow at the top and bottom.
Wondering if I had made a mistake I had a word with a friend of mine who is
building the same kit and he had exactly the same issue. If this is the same
throughout the production run of this kit then it will cause consternation
amongst modellers. However the fix is not too problematical; fill the top and
bottom and sand down the sides.
Putting aside the fuselage for now, it was time to assemble the wings. The plastic that Kittyhawk use is a bit on the brittle side, although not as bad as AFC Club plastic can be, but care needs to be taken when cleaning up the assembled plastic. There is the option to have the flaps deployed in the down position but this would entail filling in the location holes and that would be a task for someone far more patient/skilled than i am, so they flaps were assembled in the “up” position.
Before the
wings are attached it is best to attach parts C22 and C31. In both cases the
parts were found to be over sized, C22 being the worst of the two. So check fit
first and sand down to size as needed.
There is a
small gap where the wings meet the fuselage on the upper side, but with the
application of some super glue, it was possible to close up the gap without
resorting to the use of filler.
One thing
that does need mentioning here is the finish of the plastic, there is an
“orange peel” effect to the plastic that really needs removing if we are to get
the sort of surface finish needed to build a bare metal finish jet. More about
that in the next article.
Keep checking back
to see what this little kit turned up like – it looks quite promising!
- Starfire Schemin' - Walkaround colours for the new 1/48th F-94C from Kitty Hawk
- Kitty Hawk models F-94 - Update- last minute sprue shots- Starfire Schemin' - Walkaround colours for the new 1/48th F-94C from Kitty Hawk