Airfix 1/72 F-86E/M - Honduras

Started by George R Blair Jr · 42 · 3 weeks ago · 1/72, Airfix, F-86E/M, Honduras, Sabre
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    George R Blair Jr said 7 months ago:

    I have heard great things about the Airfix 1/72 F-86, so I wanted to build one for the last of my F-86 trilogy. Having done 2 NMFs in a row, I wanted to build something in camo. Back in my early days of flying the C-141, I remembered seeing F-86s during a stop in Honduras. I thought it might be fun and nostalgic to create a Honduran F-86.

    History:
    The Honduran Air Force received a small number of CL-13 Mk.4s in the mid-1970s. These planes started life in the RCAF, and were then sold to Yugoslavia. They were, in turn, sold to Honduras. Prior to arrival, the planes were refurbished, bringing them up to F-86E/M standards. One of the interesting things about these planes is that they had a Martin Baker Mk.10 ejection seat installed. It seems that not long after these planes arrived in Honduras, one of their most senior pilots was nearly killed when the standard ejection seat failed during an emergency. Apparently all of the Honduran F-86s were fitted with a new seat.

    So far, this model has shared many of the highs and lows of the 1/48 version. It is well-engineered and the parts fit together well. That's the good part. The bad part is that there are a number of very large ejector pin marks in very noticeable places, as well as some really huge sprue attachment points. I needed to replace the kit seat with the MB Mk.10, and by coincidence I had files to print the seat in my 3D printer. I want to paint this model late in its career, with some fairly weathered camo. I am also thinking about adding Sidewinders to this model. I don't have any pictures of the F-86E with Sidewinders, but the late model F-86s were capable of carrying Sidewinders, so I may take a leap of faith.

    Here is a YouTube walk around if you would like to see a preserved Honduran F-86:

    16 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Carl Smoot said 7 months ago:

    This should look good George (@gblair). A camouflaged Sabre is an attractive scheme.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 7 months ago:

    Another awesome entry and ditto progress, my friend @gblair! This looks to be a good kit, however it is quite noteworthy for a modern mold (2010) that the sprue gates are thick and nasty ejector pin marks are present. The Mk.10 seat looks excellent!

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    George R Blair Jr said 7 months ago:

    Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten). You would think that finding places for ejector marks that won't show would be normal now, but some of these are really bad. The cockpit floor has 3 deep ejector marks. But the fit on this kit is really good, so it all balances out.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 7 months ago:

    A great addition to this Sabre group, George @gblair
    Always nice to have another camouflage variant being build.
    Those printed seats are really nicely detailed.

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    George R Blair Jr said 7 months ago:

    Thanks, John (@johnb). This has been a fun build, so far, and it looks like the seat will just fit under the canopy. I am still amazed sometimes about the detail you can get in a print.

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    George R Blair Jr said 6 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Now that the 1/48 Airfix Sabre is complete, I can start moving again on this one. The big parts are basically done, with the exception of some finish sanding. I spent my time today cutting all of the small bits off the overly-large sprues and cleaning them up. I also painted the tires. I added 2 pairs of pylons under the wings, one pair for the drop tanks and one pair for the bombs. I originally had the idea that I would add two early Sidewinder missiles to the inner pylons, but I did some research and discovered that Honduras never used the Sidewinder. I may decide to keep the pylons empty on the final model.

    Airfix's annoying habit of placing sprue attachment points in inconvenient places continue. The sliding portion of the canopy had four attachment points, each of which was carefully positioned to sit on a portion of the glass of the canopy. Probably fixable.

    The model does not have any form of gunsight, so scratchbuilding something to represent the sight is my next task.

    Cheers everyone.

    3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 6 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Progressing nicely, my friend @gblair! Funny Airfix omitted the gunsight in this relatively modern mold.

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    George R Blair Jr said 6 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hi, Spiros (@fiveten): It does seem strange to not add something like a gunsight. That is my project for tomorrow. Really nice kit otherwise.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 6 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Some nice progress done, George @gblair
    Good luck on scratch building the gun sight.

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    George R Blair Jr said 6 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Thanks, John (@johnb). I hope to get the sight done and start on the camo today. I need to find some really thin clear material for the glass in the gunsight.

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    Alfred van Paaschen said 6 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Nice progress so far, George!
    Success with your DIY gunsight. Curious how you will tackle this one.

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    George R Blair Jr said 6 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Thanks, Alfred (@alfred). Adding detail to a 1/72 scale kit can be a real challenge.

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    George R Blair Jr said 6 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Today was the tale of 2 different camouflage schemes. The decals that I have feature markings for two different Honduran F-86s in camo. The older scheme had three colors: a dark green and a reddish-brown over a gray belly. The more recent scheme featured four colors similar to those used in Vietnam: a dark green, a middle green, and a tan over a gray belly. The photo of the plane I wanted to model showed a very faded camo of faded green and a reddish-brown that was fading into a yellowish brown. Up until today, I thought that this was a faded example of the earlier three-color camo, but I was wrong. Tonight I was preparing to start painting and I compared the painting diagram that came with the decals to the photos I had. The camo patterns didn't match. Hmmm... I then compared the photos to the diagram of the four-color Vietnam style camo and discovered that the patterns matched. It took a minute to figure out why there was only one green in the photos. Closer examination showed remnants of the second green color, but most of it had completely weathered into oblivion. Cool. My goal is to paint a weathered, but still active airplane.

    When you look at the photos, there are areas of bare metal showing, so I started my painting by applying areas of various colors of Vallejo Metals to the areas that are likely to show wear, mainly the leading edges, the intake, and the gun panels. You can see these areas of wear in the photos. I plan to let the metal areas dry for 24 hours and add some chipping medium before I start working on the camo.

    My next project was adding the gunsight which is missing from the kit. The Airfix kit is really nice, so I was surprised that it was not depicted in the kit. First step was to secure a photo of the gunsight online. The actual scratchbuilding was relatively easy with just a few bits of styrene and some paint. Finding something that would work for the glass turned out to be a little more difficult. I eventually found some clear packaging on some art stuff I had purchased.

    That was it for today. Tomorrow I can start trying to come up with some believable weathered camo. Cheers.

    9 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 6 months, 3 weeks ago:

    That four colored camo looks really nice, George @gblair
    Excellent work on the tiny gun sight, does add a lot to the interior.
    I'm sure the throttle will look perfect in the end as well.