Sword

1/72 T-38 Talon model kit

Product Article by Murph

 

 

 

In the late 1950's the USAF felt that their advanced trainer of the time, the T-33, did not have the performance required to prepare students to fly the then current generation of fighters As a result Northrop proposed a development of their N-156 project. The trainer version of this project became the T-38, the world’s first supersonic trainer, while the fighter version became the F-5. The T-38 first took to the air in prototype form in March 1959 and entered service in March 1961 two years later. With it's small, swept wings and supersonic performance the T-38 was much better suited to introducing students to the flying characteristics and speeds of the Century series fighters. In practice the supersonic performance proved to be essentially useless. At most, the pilot training syllabus included only a single supersonic ride (which was frequently terminated for a fire light anyway, but which at least relieved the boredom of the ride), and currently the USAF SUPT program includes no supersonic rides. In 1972, when production ended, Northrop had built 1,187 T-38's, the vast majority of which served with the USAF. Other operators of the type included NASA, the U.S. Navy, German Luftwaffe, Portugal, South Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey. Over the years several modification programs for the T-38 took place. Some were to extend life span, while others were to correct certain definite limitations the aircraft demonstrated. The Pacer Classic program, initiated in 1984 was designed to extend the useful life of the Talon by replacing major components as were the USAF Wing Life Improvement Programs of 1997 and 2001. Currently over 500 T-38's are still operational with the USAF and are going through two different upgrades to extend their useful lifespan through 2020. The T-38C is replacing various avionics and adding a "glass" cockpit, to better match what graduates will see at their FTU's. The other program is the Propulsion Modernization Program which adds new inlets and nozzles to increase the T-38's less than stellar takeoff and single engine performance, especially in hot weather. Through the years the T-38 has maintained an excellent safety record despite its demanding flight characteristics, and has provided an excellent stepping stone for students to eventually go on to bigger and better aircraft.

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Till this point, the only options for building a T-38 in 1/72 were either using Hasegawa's ancient kit (which was really an F-5B anyway) or converting the much better ESCI/Italeri F-5's through some major surgery. The Sword T-38 is a recent release, and seems to be a scale down of their 1/48 kit. They did take the opportunity to correct certain problems, such as the fairing in front of the windscreen. Sword’s T-38 allows one to build a T-38A straight out of the box. Modifying it to an AT-38B would be a relatively simple process, while converting it to a T-38C would be much more involved. The kit consists of a single sprue of gray, injection molded plastic, a clear sprue, a prepainted, photo-etch fret, and a small bag of resin parts. All detail is recessed, and generally well done, while the clear parts comprising the two canopies and windscreen are somewhat cloudy and would probably benefit from a dip in Future. The fuselage is split into three major plastic parts: left and right fuselage, and aft fuselage bottom. A resin “plug” provides the airbrake and main wheel well area, and other resin pieces the intakes and nose wheel well. The wings and vertical stab are all separate, one piece items, which you'll have to be careful gluing, since the kit has no locating tabs anywhere. The cockpit is a combination of resin bathtub and seats, supplemented by the photo-etch, which provides the instrument panels and side consoles.

The main let downs for me are primarily the omissions and mistakes, albeit small ones. The seats make an attempt to reproduce the later drogue chute equipped head rest of the Northrop seats but fail. These will require some file and sandpaper to bring them to the right shape, using walk around photos from here on ARC. In addition, they also lack the seat-man separator strap and the headrest mounted canopy breakers. The other cockpit omissions are the AOA indexers on the coamings, and the Plexiglas screen between the front and rear cockpits. Ostensibly there to protect the rear seater from wind blast and ejection forces, the Plexiglas frequently serves the much more useful purpose of preventing the IP in the rear seat from reaching up and strangling the student in the front. The final omission is the metal fairing that joins the two burner cans on top. Other quibbles with the kit are the decision to reproduce small items in resin. There is no way I could find to separate the control sticks from the resin block without breaking them, and the photo etch also has some ridiculously small parts to bend for exterior use, which I don't anticipate being able to use. Finally the last faults center around the landing gear. The nose gear is bulkier and more akin to the F-5 nose gear than the T-38 nose gear, not to mention the strut is much too compressed. The main gear wheels have the locating hole for the axle on the wrong side; that will mean some filling of the hole on the wrong side (I would recommend a sprue plug) and drilling on the other. A test fit of the main components showed that, even without locating pins, they fit very well, so I would anticipate no major problems there. The shapes all look good, and match up well against available drawings, pictures and my memories from flying the Talon.

The kit provides markings for two white jets, a Holloman jet with tail codes and a T-38 without codes from an unidentified base, and finally for a Vance jet in the later FS#16081 and FS#16473 gray scheme. The decals are thin, glossy, and generally in register with the exceptions of the full color ATC symbol. The instructions are generally well laid out in booklet form; although, they do have errors. They neglect to mention the pitot tube in construction and would have one place the rear cockpit’s mirrors in the wrong place. They should go on the frame between the canopies, not on the inside of the rear canopy.

Overall, this is not a kit for beginners, because of the mixed media and lack of locating pins; however somebody with moderate skills can make a very attractive kit of this long lived trainer without having to resort to the compromises and surgery required before.

Murph

Photos and text © by Murph