Im thinking about a Trump 100. Ive read a few reveiws on it, but I realy trust all of you here better. Sooo what do you all think? Whats the best variant to build out of it? I know there is tons of resin & AM stuff out there.Let me know what you all think…Harv
My Dad has the kit but he hasn’t put it together yet. It looks really nice though, and their other kits are really good…
Same subject different Manufacturer. Hobby Boss will be releasing a 1/48th scale kit of it next year, I don’t have a date yet but if it’s anything like thier F-105 it will be great…
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1/32 F-100D, my opinion |
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Spending time looking at the parts and the instructions, this is my opinion of the Trumpeter 1/32 Scale F-100D. I have not test fitted any parts or checked any measurments. Just my observation of my knowledge of the F-100 Lead Sled, not anywhere official. This is my opinion only. Cockpit. It looks nice, but it lacks detail. The side consoles have some detail molded in, but it lacks a throttle. There is nothing on the cockpit side walls. The instrument panel has the drag chute and gear handle included. Missing are the emergency landing gear and emergency drop tank jettison handles. The instrument panel is also the early type and not the type found in most later F-100D’s. The seat doesn’t have any gas lines or hoses or a lot of the linkage seen on the real seat. There will be many AM sets to correct these problems. Engine. The engine included is a generic J-57 and not the -21 as used in the F-100. The nose dome accessory housing is cone shaped where the -21 had an elongated pointed down housing. I can’t tell you what we called it, don’t want to get banned. It does not have the OPAH or EDGB on the engine at all. The PE parts for the compressor would not be seen once the engine is assembled. If you want to show the engine “Top Halved” or “Split the case” as we called it, then the compressor section would be visable. The only problem there is, it wouldn’t be accurate as the J-57 had a 16 stage compressor made up of the low pressure side (N-1) and high pressure side (N-2). They only give you 11 stages of blades. Also the stages were cone shaped, getting smaller the further aft you went. There is no combustion section detail, only a blank space. The turbine section has one turbine wheel. The actual engine had three wheels, the T-1 and T-2 sections. I know I am rivet counting. Pylons. Most Sleds carried pylons which had a saddle type sway brace mount. These are not included with the kit, only the centerline pylon has the saddle to add on. They do have the Y pylons to carry the supplied AIM-9’s. Fuselage. The long intake will be a problem filling and sanding. I am sure a resin intake will be released. The forward electronic, radar and radio compartment can be shown open or closed (colse. as the instructions calls it). If opened, you will have to scratchbuild the black boxes that go inside it, as only the weight is included. You also have the choice of early or late style speed brakes which is a very nice touch. Aft section. The aft section can be installed or removed. There is no detailing at all inside the aft section so ribs, stringers and bulkheads will have to be scratch built if removed. The tail skid should have a well inside. None is included so the actuator is not mounted to anything. Crew chiefs would paint the skid red so if the pilot hit the runway with it, it would scrape off the red paint showing bare metal. Just before payday, a lot of crew chiefs would take a file after engine start and file away the red paint on the end. After flight, they would show it to the pilot, who would then have to buy the crew chief a case of beer for hitting the runway. I never did anything like that. If you do show the aft section removed, show the tail hook down, not like the pictures shown in the kit. Ext stores. Not much is included with the kit. Only one LAU-10, AN/ALQ 87 ECM pod, AN/ALQ-31 ECM pod, four AIM-9B Sidewinders, two SUU-21/A Practice Bomb Dispensers (called practice bomb in the instructions) and three 275 Gal ext tanks. The AN/ALQ-31 was never carried operationally by the F-100D, only tested but replaced by the AN/ALQ-87 pod for operational use. It would have been nice to have some LAU-3/A and BLU-27 Napalm tanks included with the kit. I hope someone comes out with a set of 335 gal fuel tanks, which was most often seen on the Sled. With the 1/32 scale weapons kit released by Trumpeter, I hope they don’t follow Hasagawa by not including weapons with their kits. Wings. The mount for the wings doesn’t look like it would support the weight. Where it mounts to the fuselage there are only very small tabs that insert into the fuselage. When I build mine I am going to beef up this area. I will have to check clearance to make sure there will be enough room inside the fuselage with the intake and engine installed. The wheel wells look shallow to me. It could be because the well is molded to the lower wing half and not the upper half. Berny Phormer Phantom Phixer
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Berney, thanks sooo much for the great review. I do think there are already wing tanks on the market for it. Dont remember who. Also several seats have come out as well as a cockpit(I think). There are several decal sets out also. I really do want to get one. On one of the other forums, one member has one for sale for $110. I dont know if I should wait awhile longer.But I`m defetly interested, as well as the new F8. Decisions decisions…Harv
DB
I haven’t found the tanks. I did get the Avionix cockpit and a set of decals from Cutting Edge. The set I got was CED32090 which has markings for three aircraft. I am going to build 54-3580 from the 31 TFW, 308 TFS, tail code SM.
Berney, good luck with your build. I hope you post lots of pics, I`ll be watching real closely…Harv
Here’s the guy that does the tank, seat, gun-sight etc updates…also has an intake cover so you can hide that nasty intake trunk seam.
http://mysite.verizon.net/resqt29j/ click on his “Photobucket” tab for pics of his stuff.
He’s Harold over on LSP
Here’s a list of his Hun stuff:
32001 Replacement ejection seat with belts and hoses for Trumpeter F-100 $12 shipped
32002 Replacement ejection seat without belts and hoses for Trumpeter F-100 $12 shipped
32003 Insert for the 335 gallon Trumpeter drop tanks with corrected airfoiled pylons. new RWR fairing added to set. $11 shipped.
32004 335 gallon front tank replacement with corrected airfoiled pylons, plus RWR fairing for Trumpeter F-100
32007 FOD cover for the Trumpeter F-100 $5 shipped
32009 200 gallon drop tanks for the Trumpeter F-100 with corrected outer pylons $15 shipped
Now here’s my take on it…looks more like a Hun than it does a toaster. I have every 32nd Trumpy jet they have put out…in fact I have more trumpy kits than any other brand. Just got my trump F-8 Crusader…ding ding ding…another winner!
On mine, I attached the rear tail section to the main fuselage half on both sides. Got a near perfect fit and it looks like a one piece fuselage half.
Or if you want to have that intake naked, you should look into the Zactoman Hun update. Be careful you can easily spend the kits cost in updates and extras!
Hi guys,
I’m working on one right now. It’s not the most accurate F-100 kit (Monogram’s is still the best), but it will build into a good “looks like an F-100” model. If you want to go sparingly on the aftermarket, I’d suggest AMS’s seat, his drop tank noses if you’re building a jet from 1964 onward, Renaissance Models resin wheels (Trump’s mains are much too big), and Zacto’s intake. Those will go a long way toward dressing up the model. Plan on replacing the decals. Everything on them is wrong - fonts, sizes, some lettering is in Cyrillic, etc. If you want to really go nuts, Aires’ cockpit is better than Avionix’s (but almost twice as expensive). Eduard’s color photo etched cockpit parts are amazing. The instrument panel is made up of several layers of PE so you get a nice, 3-D appearance. I’m not sure the rest of their PE sets for the airframe are all that useful for what you pay for them.
Overall fit is pretty good, but the afterburner section of the engine has a lot of ejector pin marks and seams to fill. I just rolled up some .010 styrene and stuck it in there so I’d only have one seam to deal with instead of four plus a dozen pin marks.
The main gear wells are way too shallow, but the wing is too thin to allow you to fix them. I may try to make some sort of spar to help the wings. There are a lot of small dimensional errors on the kit, but nothing anyone but the most … um… picky F-100 fan would notice. (What, me picky about F-100s? [:D])
Out of the box, you can build an F-100D after serial number 55-2783, up until 1964. F-100Ds before that serial number had the same one-piece inboard main gear doors as the F-100A & C. All of the Huns purchased by France, Denmark, and Turkey were pre-2753. If you want to build a Vietnam jet, you’ll need to extend the drop tanks 28 scale inches. I’d suggest AMS’s drop tank noses, so you’ll only have one seam per tank to fill instead of two if you use the plugs. If you want to do an Air National Guard jet, Master Details makes a beautiful F-102-style afterburner nozzle.
Markings & painting FYI: after around 1967-'58, the Air Force began painting F-100s aluminum lacquer. By 1960, you can probably safely say all F-100s except the T-Birds were painted silver.
If anyone has any questions or need reference help, feel free to give me a shout.
Cheers!
Ben (the F-100 nut)
Ben, I will not need the drop tanks. I am going to build mine with the engine removed going through inspection. I have been in contact with Gary Ransom from Pratt & Whitney. He has sent me some good pictures of the OPAH, MFC, EDGB, NDAH, ABFC, and main harness on the J-57-P21A engine. I will have to scratchbuild ribs, stringers, formers and bulkheads for the aft section. I will also have to detail the engine bay. Who said it was going to be easy?
Wow, Berny… great review!
Harv, I know you remember that we have “D” at the Aerospace Museum of California (McClelland Air Museum). My cohort, Vern was a crew cheif on the HUN and knows all about the electronic systems… We’re there on Sundays.
She’s aged and has some funky paint, but it’s complete. I think it’s got auxillery tanks of 750 gallons… Is that right? They’re really humongus.
Hi Trexx, those drop tanks are 335-gallons. They have the 28 inch plug installed at the break at the leading edge of the pylon. The tanks without the plugs were 275-gal. That’s a really nice F-100 y’all have there! I stumbled across a walkaround of it online recently.
Berny, I heard a rumor that Master Details was working on an interim mount (the contraption they attach to the top of the fuselage when they remove the aft section) for folks who want to dispay the tail removed. No word on if/when it will be released. I have an old trashed Hasegawa F-86 that I stole the turbine wheel, compressor face, and Dog [[XX]CENSORED[XX]] from to fix up my Hun’s engine. They fit pretty well with just a little modification, but the only thing you’d see on mine is the turbine, and then you’d need a flashlight. A friend who was an F-100 crew chief told me they had to completely remove the hook to get the tail off. Apparently it was bolted to a panel that had to come off before you could get at some of the bolts.
Couple of things I forgot to mention. The tail is the pre-Vietnam type with the thin fuel tank vent fairing. Some VN-based jets were fitted with radar warning gear and had the chin antenna fairing, a display on the glare shield above the drag chute handle, and and the tail fairing was widened so they could install the antennae there. The 1/48 Monogram kit has this modified tail fairing. If you’re in the US and want Renaissance Models resin wheels, I got mine from Strada Sports. They’re a car modeling shop, but Kevin, the owner, was kind enough to order a couple of sets for me.
Cheers!
Ben (no affiliation with any of the above-mentioned companies[:)])
I have a few detail pictures of the McClellan F-100D on my web page here:
http://yolo.net/~jeaton/century/100/hun.htm
The paint was in better shape back then.
What mount are you talking about? When I saw the aft section removed, a dolly would be placed under it and rolled out of the way. The only thing that would be placed in the forward section was top skate mount extensions. Not much could be seen in the engine bay. Only the wing torque box, main fuel line, main wiring harness and top and side engine mounts. Everything else was hidden by the insulation blanket.
On the old F-100C that I worked on for a very very short time, the tail hook had to be dropped, but not removed. The old “C” also had turnbuckles for the dragchute cable. We had to adjust the tension and safety wire it every time the aft section was installed. With the “D” & “F”, the turnbuckle was replaced with a clevis pin and cotter pin. Made it much easier.
Hi Berny,
It’s the brace on top of the fuselage, right at the break (from F-100.org): 
Doesn’t look like it would be too hard to scratchbuild something like that.
I mis-remembered what my friend said about the hook. They had to remove it to get access to the hell hole aft of the main gear well, not to remove the tail. My memory ain’t what it used to be (which wasn’t much![(-D]).
Cheers!
Ben
I finished my first one about a month ago- turned out nice. The comments above are all accurate- my next one will incorporate more of the lessons learned from the first attempt. I have built several of the Monogram kits- they have an edge in fidelity to the real thing, but the 1/32 size difference really makes for an impressive model. The unfortunate part for me was that I started building it before some of the more desirable AM stuff came out (so I guess I’ll have to do another one…). I used the Avionix cockpit and the AMS seat as well as the AMS 200 gallon tanks. I am very happy with the outcome, but the next will be better. The one thing I would recommend is doing research into the airframe you want to do at a specific time in it’s life- there were a lot of changes made to these birds over the years (the tailhook, 275 vs. 335 gallon drop tanks, etc). The F100.org site is extremely valuable in that respect. The real critique will come when I give it to my former Hun-driver Dad.
I see the picture now. You are talking about the “Strong Back”.
In 1/32, Zactoman has the intake and FOD done…
That’s it!
D. Blackwell, what unit(s) did your dad fly F-100s with?
Cheers!
Ben
Dad was in the 356th at Myrtle Beach about the time I was born in '57 and then went to the 428th at Cannon from '60 to '63. I have many happy memories of going to to the flight line and enjoying the smell of freshly burned JP-4 when they came back from deployments (TDY to you Air Force guys). I did the Trumpeter model for “his” bird in the 356th, 56-3444. My Monogram effort is in the FSM July 2008 gallery in the same scheme. It sits on his bookcase, along with a Monogram HU-16 and a Testors C-131 that I did to depict various planes he flew during his Air Force career. I have a Monogram T-28 ready for him and am contemplating a T-34 kitbash along the lines shown in FSM a while back to round things out. Now if someone will do a Sabre Hog in 1/48th…