The Cadillac of jets
Okay, the last model I presented
was quite sweet, but after the Fiat G.91, it was time for something bigger and
the F-102, the first airplane ever to be developed as a weapons system from the
very beginning, is in fact large in size … at least when you keep in mind this
was a single seat fighter. When building this aircraft, engineers used the
"Area Rule" for the first time when they noticed that a powerful
engine still wouldn’t be sufficient to make the prototype go supersonic. Some
years later the resulting coke-bottle shape was also characteristic of the Delta
Dagger's successor, the F-106 Delta Dart. Designed as a pure interceptor, the
F-102 carried its rocket armament in an internal missile bay. No guns were
installed on the F-102 because of the new sophisticated weapons system. In a
wartime situation, after electronic equipment on board the F-102 had located the
enemy aircraft, the F-102's radar would guide it into position for attack. At
the proper moment, the electronic fire control system would automatically fire
the F-102's air-to-air rockets and missiles. The F-102 was capable of carrying;
Three Falcon heat-seeking missiles and one nuclear Super Falcon, or three
radar-and three heat-seeking air-to-air missiles and up to 24 unguided 70-mm
rockets.
Case X or Case XX??...
During their service period the
F-102 production was changed from the original Case X wings ("Case
Ten") with upward oriented wingtips to the later Case XX wings ("Case
Twenty"), which had downward oriented wingtips providing better flight
characteristics. This conversion started with serial number 56-1317.
Before falling in love with one
of those great markings provided in various aftermarket decal-sheets, you should
have a closer look and see if they're correct for the Case X wings that come
with the kit … unless you're willing to rebuild and modify the wings into the
Case XX wings.
I decided to stick with the Case
X wings. But finding the correct decals was again not that easy. I had a
Microscale sheet depicting a F-102 of the Pennsylvania ANG, but … you're right
… that wasn't proper for Case X. Even the kit decals showed markings for a
Case XX plane! Fortunately an ARC regular read my prayers on the ARC discussion
board and sent me decals for a Delta Dagger of the USAF Europe of the 32nd FIS
in Soesterberg, Holland. Finally a Case X plane! Thanks again, Murph!!
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The Kit
The F-102 is one of the older
Hasegawa kits. All details are raised and the modeler isn't expected to spend
much time on such boring areas as the cockpit (pilot, seat, panel and floor) or
the landing gear bays. Therefore I picked up an Airwaves photo-etched set to add
some detail.
Construction
Before I applied any glue, I
sanded off all raised lines and rescribed them. I used an engraving needle from
Bare Metal, which helps greatly on getting clean engravings as numerous panels
that are somewhat complex (with round "edges" and so on). It took
quite a long time to finish this task.
When finally finished rescribing,
I was ready to start construction beginning with the cockpit. Photo etched parts
were used to create a new instrument panel, new side consoles and an improved
ejection seat. The basic color of the cockpit is Dark Gull Gray FS 36231. I used
Humbrol 140 for this. Consoles are black and are later washed with gray. The
bang-seat is a bit more colorful: Headrest and armrests are red, seat cushion is
olive and catapult triggers are yellow. During cockpit construction you should
dry-fit it again and again to the fuselage halves to avoid any fitting problems.
As soon as the ejection seat and a scratch built control stick were glued into
the cockpit, I glued the finished cockpit section into one of the fuselage
halves. Now it was time to install the instrument panel and the fuselage halves
could be glued together.
Some areas of the resulting seams
had to be filled, but the general fit was quite good and I only needed to sand
some areas of the seam to get a smooth surface. Next the air intakes were glued
in place. Now I turned to the internal missile bay, which caused some problems.
The missiles provided with the kit do not show any detail and do not correspond
to the early variant, which I needed for my Case X plane. So, I decided to build
the bay in the closed position. I think the instructions do not mention this
option for a very good reason: the fit of the 6 covers that cover the missile
bay is horrible. I filled and sanded all gaps but stopped before the seams were
totally smooth. When you look at reference photos you'll notice the different
sections of the bay covers so you shouldn't give your model a smoother finish
than the real thing.
The next challenge was cutting
the one-piece canopy in two pieces. Therefore I masked the canopy at both sides
of the cut line to avoid scratches and outbursts of anger. Step by step I
started to work on the canopy with an x-acto knife and after about 45 minutes I
had two … more or less cleanly separated canopy parts. Small scratches and
impurities were removed with both sides of a fingernail manicure-file. After
that I put both canopy parts on an absorbent (paper tissue) and dropped some
Erdal Glänzer (the German "Future") over them. After drying in a dust
free area the canopy parts looked better than the original (Guess where I first
read about this method?). If I had been a bit smarter I would have left the
canopy in one piece, as you will see …
Painting
I started with the black anti
glare panel and then painted the wheel wells and landing gear doors Interior
Green FS 34151 (ModelMaster 1715). Originally the decals for the tail were
printed in red, white and blue so that they would cover the whole tail. I cut
off the red sections and airbrushed them instead. Next I wanted to paint the
yellow-golden sealing-frames of the canopy … but suddenly I had to take a deep
breath. I had cut the one-piece canopy in such a way that I now became aware of
the insidious trap Hasegawa had prepared for the one who wants to install the
canopy in an open position. The clear canopy part didn't represent the whole
canopy! Using it in a closed position is not that bad, but an open
representation is nearly impossible. The red-bordered area in the drawing is the
approximate size of Hasegawa's clear part. To get the whole canopy the hatched
area would have to be cut out of the fuselage halves and glued to the clear
part. But it was too late to do so as the fuselage halves were already glued
together. After that little shock I decided to let the cockpit disappear under
the closed canopy. After the yellow areas of the canopy were painted and masked
with parafilm-M, I airbrushed the main external color Aircraft Gray FS 16473 (ModelMaster
1731). The auxiliary tanks, exhaust area, landing gear and some position lights
were painted silver. Next all parts received a coat of "Erdal Glänzer"
to give the decals an optimal smooth surface. The radome was not glued to the
plane until all painting was done. Its black color is a little bit shinier than
that of the anti glare panel and I didn't want it to get the final finish of
silk-matte clear lacquer.
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Decals
The decals went on smoothly with
no problems. Some markings like the national insignias were taken from the
spares-box. I used Mr. Mark Softer on some of the larger decals. For example,
the tail markings adapted the somewhat curved shape of the model without any
problems. When there were no decals left on the sheet I sprayed another coat
Erdal Glänzer to seal everything and to prepare the model for a washing with
diluted black oil paint. Some engravings that lay under the decals were redrawn
with an x-acto knife to get a better effect from the washing.
Before airbrushing the last coat
of clear lacquer I attached all the small parts like the landing gear for
example. The last parts to be glued to the plane were the nose section and the
fragile pitot tube.
As I said before, this Hasegawa kit is one of the older efforts of that
company. But if you spend the needed time on detailing, rescribing and searching
for proper decals, it'll turn into a nice replica of one of the most elegant
jets ever built.
References:
- "USAF Europe 1948 - 1965
in Color" by Robert Robinson; squadron/ signal publications; ISBN
0-89747-132-6
- "F-102 Delta Dagger in
Europe" by J.D. Ragay; squadron/ signal publications; ISBN
0-89747-220-9
- "Century Series in
Color" by Lou Drendel; squadron/ signal publications; ISBN
0-89747-097-4
- Modeling magazine "Wing
Masters"; German issue # 17
- Walk Around on
www.aircraftresourcecenter.com
- Construction manual of the Pro Modeler F-102 Case X Wing kit with walk
around pictures
Special thanks to R L Donaldson
who helped me with this translation (original German article can be seen at
www.modellversium.de in the jet-gallery).
Text is from myself and photos by
Deun Yu and myself. Thank you again!
Bernd
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