North American T-2C Buckeye Special Hobby 1/48

The T-2 was the US Navy's intermediate trainer, used to introduce pilots to jets after basic training in piston engine aircraft. It was intended as a straight wing follow on to the T-28, entering service in 1959, and serving until replaced by the T-45 in 2008. The A models were single engine, later giving way to the more familiar twin engine B and C models. They were built in the North American assembly plant in Columbus, Ohio, thus the name "Buckeye."

This is the Special Hobby kit, which was mixed media, including plastic and resin parts. It came to me partially assembled - I cleaned up a few seams and blemishes, did the painting, decals and final assembly, a process which was filled with many hours searching for missing parts! An email to Special Hobby resulted in delivery of some of the parts I needed within a few weeks of my request - great customer service.

Decals are from Two Bobs and are absolutely amazing, going on easily with a bit of future and micro sol. Paint was from Model Master, with some light weathering and a fairly heavy application of clear flat to simulate sun fading. The model represents an airplane assigned to VT-23, based in Kingsville, Texas in the mid 1980's.

I now know why all us old geezers are building old kits - the main gear struts were five pieces each! The inboard main gear door actuators are not installed, since they were flashed over resin and trying to clean them up resulted in their destruction, as they were about the diameter of human hair. The canopy had been masked over for quite some time, so removing all of that and the goo left over took up the better part of several hours. Some of the clear parts were microscopic, and the the nose and tail pitot tubes (also microscopic) were both lost to the carpet monster. There truly is a fine line between hobby and insanity...

Thanks, Jack!

6 additional images. Click to enlarge.