Hasegawa 1/72 North American F-100D Super Sabre

HASEGAWA 1:72 N.A. F-100D SUPER SABRE

Reviewer: Mark B (SMAKR Webmaster) (smakr1@optusnet.com.au)
Kit Built + Review Submitted: 5 April 2008

Kit Details:

Hasegawa 02611 - BT11:800 - F-100D Super Sabre

Aircraft History:

The F-100 has the claim to fame by being the first US production Supersonic Fighter - able to break the speed of sound in level flight. Nicknamed the 'Hun' as a shortened version of Hundred - signifying its F-100 designation, the aircraft was based on its predecessor, the F-86 Sabre and thus was named Super Sabre. In spite of this, only a few components were actually common between the two aircraft and the Hun was otherwise completely new plane. It needed a long take off and landing run but pioneered the Century Fighter Series production and performed well as a fighter-bomber with a number of NATO countries. The F-100D was the definitive version and served particularly with the USAF extensively through the Vietnam era and was only retired from service in the early 70's.

In addition to the above information I scavenged from another review, some other interesting information includes that it is said that the pilots nicknamed the aircraft Hun, partly because it was easier to refer to than the "Super Sabre" nickname given by North America. The F-100 was first developed in 1949 and dogged by problems in its career, particularly with low stall speeds, high speed and lengthy landings and some fatigue problems in the wing. The F-100A was the first version as a strike interceptor aircraft and as a result of early crashes, had its tail and wing areas enlarged. The F-100B was the initial designation given to a radical plane that was later redesignated the F-107. The F-100C was the first tactical attack aircraft produced, followed by the F-100D. The F-100F was a two seat trainer version of the F-100D and over a quarter were lost to accidents thanks to the problems mentioned above. A number of F-100F's were also reconfigured to be the inaugural "Wild Weasel" aircraft in Vietnam.

The thunderbirds aerobatic team used the F-100 for 13 years, longer than any other aircraft up until the F-16 in the mid 90's. At one stage the team would have flown F-105 Thunderchief but didn't like them and returned back to the F-100's.

The F-100D was the most numerical version of the Super Sabre with 1274 produced and was really geared as an attack version. 108 F-100D's were fitted out with rockets for zero launch capabilities. It was the first real tactical strike aircraft used in the Vietnam war with its first strike in Laos as a reprisal for the shooting down of a USAF reconnaissance plane. It had an enlarged tail and also incorporated a refuelling probe. It also had the ability to carry at least 75 different weapons and countermeasure equipment, most notably the Bullpup missile which was guided by its pilot onto the target.

People who know me well are well aware of my love for the aircraft made in the 50's & 60's - the experimental nature, the sheer rawness and appeal these aircraft brought (USSR aircraft included!) and sometimes I wished I grew up near a USAF base like Edwards just to see some of these wonderful aircraft fly! I certainly have a soft spot for Century series aircraft, but personally I think the F-100 is a gaping looking ugly aircraft! But hey, before you walk out on me, it is just my opinion, I still think highly of this aircraft and it's amazing place in history.

The Kit:

Don't expect an up to date beauty here because this is one of the older Hasegawa kits that came out probably not long after they stopped reissuing Frog kits in Japan, and started doing their own molds (the mid to late 1960's). Inside the box you will find four injection molded sprues in their own cellophane bag containing around 53 parts in a light grey. Inside another cellophane bag is the decal sheet and one-piece thick and a little distorted canopy. The injection molded parts are thick, with very little flash at all (a testament to the age of the molds) but there are some nasty ejector pin marks on the internal (and not so internal) areas of some parts which will need attention. There's also a number of one-piece parts (the cockpit seat and rear deck most notably) which have ugly mold-seam lines down the middle which also need attention. Surface detail is nothing spectacular, the model detail is also fairly basic overall, and panel lines are raised. Yes this is certainly a Hase dinosaur!

Instructions:

The instructions in this boxing were printed in 1986 by which time Hasegawa had changed to a format that is renowned for their kits nowadays. The foldout strip provides a brief history in several languages and then a familiar matrix listing the ordnance that the F-100 could carry with some sideview scrap profiles of the F-100 compared to other Century series fighters in 1:460 scale. Half a dozen assembly steps in Hasegawa's usual format that is generally quite easy to follow is spread across the next few sheets, underneath which are symbol explanations and the usual Gunze Sangoy/Mr Color table for painting the aircraft. On the back and rounding out the instruction sheet is a large four-view diagram of the single example the kit covers and then a sprue map.

Construction:

Hasegawa are not known for having detailed cockpits, we all know that from many years of reading Hase reviews, but in the case of the F-100, the cockpit is very spartan, even for a Hasegawa kit, and that is saying something. A roughly molded seat connected to a rear deck is placed on a floor which is affixed inside locating pins in the fuselage half. An overlapping dashboard is placed on the front with a decal supplied for an instrument panel. Other than a very poor excuse for a pilot figure, there is nothing else in the kit.

I toyed with the idea of scratchbuilding some internal detail, and I did put in some structural sidewall plus replaced the pilot figure for a more suitable one and fabricated a control column, grab handles and harness out spares and leftover etched sets. The molding for the seat was terrible, with ejector seam lines and a large ejector stub to remove (which I didn't quite achieve) before installing the cockpit into the fuselage half. Medium Sea Grey from Humbrol was used to paint the cockpit interior. I left the dashboard/instrument panel off as this is installed later according to the instructions.

The fuselage halves go together very nicely and didn't really require clamping (although I still used pegs and rubber bands for precautionary reasons). One area of disappointment though (and a trap for young players!) is that the cockpit does not fill up all of the interior space. I made the mistake of glueing the cockpit into one fuselage half with the rear deck against the side of the fuselage (as you would think) but on affixing the halves, the cockpit was leaning way too starboard and the deck obviously is not glued to the fuselage - ie: only the cockpit floor is glued to the fuselage half. You can see this easily if you did a test fit first with the fuselage halves closed (I obviously didn't - when I tested the fuselage halves I left the cockpit out). This was corrected by carving through the dried but not yet cured glue to price the rear deck behind the seat from the fuselage.

I then coaxed the cockpit into position and once the fuselage halves were affixed together, there was a big gap all around the rear deck behind the seat. Some very cheap chinese hobby glue did the trick as a gap filler, applied carefully with a toothpick. Then of course I had to repaint all of the rear deck of cockpit area. Just remember that later on if you are doing a natural metal finish, often any blemishes such as panel lines, not quite flush sanded putty and glue marks will be easily seen.

After it all dried and cured properly (glue and paint) the tailplanes and main wings were installed. The former needed test fitting, a slight trim around the alignment tabs and then fitted well but very minor gap at the join with the fuselage needed a dob of glue to fill. The main wings are made up of a lower wing piece and two upper halves. Test fitting revealed these were a very tight fit, and were hard to get off before I had even applied the glue! The tight fit made for no gaps at the wing join.

As with all F-100 model kits (to my knowledge) in this scale, the nose ring and the exhaust are separate components which are placed onto the blunt closed ends of the fuselage. The problem here is that it means an extremely shallow intake and exhaust. I realise this is an old kit but the same problem is found on newly tooled F-100s which is annoying, nowadays it might be better to incorporate the nose intake as part of the fuselage and actually mold it closed further back down the trunk. The only way around this of course is to paint the ends of the fuselage black to give it some depth and try not to lose sleep over this inaccuracy. The interior of the intake was painted grey but I tend to paint the last say 10th of the interior of the intake in black, so it sort of blends in with the back wall to enhance the feeling of depth... well just a little. Test runs fitting both the nose cone and the exhaust revealed all the respective mating surfaces needed a bit of preparatory sanding and even then the nose cone once affixed needed a run around with the wet n dry to blend it into fuselage - at the expense of some panel lines.

The wheel wells are almost devoid of all detail, save for some cross beam generic detail within. For wheels-up modellers like myself you are in for a helluva task getting the doors to fit. They need continual test fitting, removal of their alignment tabs that were engineered for wheels down and a liberal amount of carving around their edges before they will fit snugly into place. Basically the doors are just too thick - even for wheels down. With the damage done there is the need to fix up afterward with putty and sanding.

The kit allows for underside air brakes to be deployed in the open position. I opted to have these closed, so again, some test fitting followed by careful carving along the edges will eventually achieve a reasonable fit. Likewise the rear tail bumper but the forward fuselage machine gun panel fits very well once a little bit of flash is scraped off the edges.

Colour Schemes:

Disappointingly, Hasegawa give you just one choice, a natural metal machine with various colourful streaks and fin flashes as shown on the boxart. This aircraft is a USAFE 48th TFW "Commander's Aircraft" (Demonstrator at 1960 Williamtell). Its a nice looking machine and probably one I would have chosen if other choices were allowed in the kit. However, nothing gives me the shits more than buying a kit and only having one choice to build, or is it because we are spoiled with three or four versions to choose in other kits like Italeri? It would have been nice, if not to have other air forces decalled, to have other USAF Super Sabres as schemes, particularly grunts from the Vietnam War. Anyway, that's all you get in this kit but there are plenty of aftermarket USAF F-100 Decal sheets available. The good news is that older boxings of this kit in the older style of boxart had three versions in the kit, from memory, a Natural Metal version and two Vietnam camouflaged aircraft (two-tone green and tan over light grey). I used Humbrol Silver for the majority of the airframe with aluminium, polished aluminium and polished aluminium with a couple of drops of sovereign gold to replicate other panels of the aircraft. I think I overdid the latter but it still looks the part.

Decals:

The reasonably well sized decal sheet contains fairly thick decals with a bit of excess film and a satin finish - colour register is okay but nowhere near perfect with the red a bit dark and the white more an off-white colour - perhaps due to the age of the decals? All of the blazers and colours as seen on the boxart are provided on the decal sheet, meaning you only need to paint the aircraft natural metal and the decals do the rest. There is also an adequate amount of stencilling provided.

The main issue I had with these decals was they took ages to come away from the backing sheet whilst soaking, and I managed to tear a couple (thankfully ones I could easily put back together) by virtue of one side of the decal being ready but the other not. I managed to reduce some of the soaking time by keeping the water at a luke warm temperature. They bedded down very well using Gunze Sangyo setting solution but as is often the case with Hasey decals, the fin blazers and wingtip flashes have excess carrier film that needs to be trimmed later. These decals just needed a bit more care than usual but look the part when they were finished. Also plan ahead, at times the decals will go over small ducts and navigation lights so you may need to score them first accordingly. Once on the model I allowed a few days drying time before carefully and delicately sealing them in with Testors Gloss Lacquer but the decal film can be seen easily when examined in any type of light.

Accuracy:

The basic outline and profile of the F-100D is captured reasonably well although the aircraft appears to be smaller in nose and exhaust area than it should. The tail fin is not quite correctly shaped particularly around the trailing edge, the wing planform has too much of a square change in direction where it heads to the fuselage and others will point out the missing ducts and panel lines. The main issue concerns the dimensions with the kit being at least half a centimetre under in span and length. If this was the only F-100 on the market it would be one of those kits you would live with in my view.

Overall Recommendation:

The Esci kit that came out was much better in many respects than this Hasegawa kit and then the Italeri kit (which also found its way into Revell boxes) was a new tool kit that came out in the last decade was another jump in quality again, both kits probably cheaper to get as well. So it makes for a hard case to recommend this kit for the serious modeller. I did enjoy putting this one together but would like some other choices on the decal sheet and perhaps even a Vietnam camouflaged example. I would not buy this kit again given the other examples mentioned which are usually also generally cheaper.

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