F-104 Color Question

Quick question…

I am working on a 1/72 F-104 and the instructions say the wings and tanks on the ends of the wings are white. I am seeing a few photos online of the tanks being metal like the rest of the aircraft. Which one is correct?

Thanks!

Depends on the specific aircraft. F-104’s can be found with tiger stripes all over them too. You’ve got to be more specific. If you have a photo then I’d go with the photo if it matches the markings that came with the kit.

More info needed but off the top of my head the JSDF had white wings, I think.

I don’t have a photo but the one on the box is the Tenn Air Guard. I painted the wings white, I just wanted to know about the tanks on the ends of the wings…

I’m building an F-104 right now and have downloaded a ton of pictures of Starfighters (Google Image Search is your friend). Most of the pics definately show NMF wing tanks. You can see the variation of the different panels of the tanks. A few may be white, hard to tell. At least one pic shows gray tanks, but it’s a gate guard so that might not be accurate (may just be corrosion repair).

As far as the wings, it’s my understanding that most, if not all, were white on top with the NMF birds (except the YF-104s which appear to have NMF wings). It’s not clear to me if they were gray on the bottom or NMF. I have seen recollections of folks that worked around them stating that the undersides of the wings and tail surfaces (maybe both top and bottom) were painted gray as corrosion protection after they had been in service a while. This may be true of the tanks too.

Myself, I’m painting the top of the wings white, the bottoms gray, leaving the tail plane NMF and putting sidewinders on the wingtips. I know those were white. [8D]

I’m not sure if this pic is of much use ; It’s from Squadron Signal’s publication of the F-104 Starfighter in action . Obviously it’s an F-104B , but it has the TENN AIR GUARD markings . I have also built the Italeri 1/72 scale F-104A Starfighter . However as yet I haven’t had the courage to attempt a NMF finish , so I airbrushed my F-104 ADC Gray [gunze sangyo H-57] with white wings and white wing tanks , white on the underside of the nose cone and flat black anti-glare on the top side of the nose cone . Also a little silver and steel on the rear end of the fuselage . The finish model looks okay , maybe someday I’ll try a NMF finish .

HTH ; Kind regards John

I just went an check my F-104A model , the underside of the wings were also ADC Gray , only the top of the wings were white . I’m not 100% sure if this was accurate , I do remember looking at a 1/48 Hasegawa F-104C Starfighter in my unbuilt stash and the instructions show the wing color , white on top and gray underneath .

John

At some point in the early 60s, the Air Force began to cover NMF aircraft, especially Century series ones, in Aluminum Lacquer. This was for corrosion control purposes. So if you choose to try a NMF bird, you wont be off target to do painted aluminum finish depending on the time period.

Caution. In the TNG photo posted earlier the angle of reflection is clearly (at least to this physicist) close the the angle that yields 100% reflection (the same effect causes mirages). In any case in the black and white photo this high level of reflectivity is making the NMF wings appear to be white. Lots of people make the same perception error when looking at the highly polished wings of the X-3 which often get depicted as blue because the blue sky color was reflecting off the wing surfaces at some angles.

They could be ADC grey (it’s difficult to tell in the photo) but I think you can be fairly certain that they are not white.

Again, do some searching and compare many different photos (I downloaded about 50+ using Google). As far as I can determine, these aircraft (when in NMF finish) either had white or NMF on top of the wing (and the only clear photos of NMF on top were the XF and YF-104s).

I can not find a clear shot or find any description of the bottom of the wing though.

The underside of the nose was apparently ADC gray.

Now some of these aircraft were painted entirely in ADC gray. However, that aircraft above clearly is not.

Here’s a nice walkaround on an NMF F-104

http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/bill_spidle2/f-104a_56-0733/

Three photos of the nose of this aircraft appears to demonstrate an example of that effect:

Is it gray?

Or is it white?

Or maybe it is NMF(on the right side)?

I spent some time looking into this a while back while building mine. Their wings were gloss white on top, Aircraft Grey (“ADC Grey”) on the undersides. Someone sent me a photo of one flying over, and you can clearly see the grey undersides. I don’t think operational F-104s ever had natural metal wings. They also had grey nose cones, and the fibreglass panel on the vertical stab was also grey. I’d guess the tip tanks were NMF. Even though the USAF began painting its fighters with silver lacquer during the late '50s, it doesn’t appear that the F-104s were ever painted. The Cs that went to Vietnam were NMF until they were camouflaged.

Cheers!

Ben

Look at this copy of the Air Force TO marking specs.Upper wing surfaces white (gloss) FS 17875.

http://www.cybermodeler.com/aircraft/f-104/f-104_to.shtml

The ADC Gray part is where you will have to research the particular aircraft/time/unit. As the TO states," all exterior areasexcept as specified". On NMF/Aluminum Lacquered A/C, the lower wing surfaces were usually the ADC gray. IIRC, ADC Gray Starfighters were those usally assigned to Aerospace Defence Command, the F-104A.

Looking at this photo gallery, on most USAF Silver/NMF A/C the radome appears ADC Gray.

http://www.cybermodeler.com/aircraft/f-104/f-104_gallery.shtml

Here’s one in camo, Italian.

Image:F104s.jpg

Here’s a pic of my finished Italeri 1/72 scale F-104A Starfighter . As I mentioned earlier it’s overall ADC Gray , Gunze H-57 , white on the wing tops and tanks , H-8 silver and H-18 steel around the rear fuselage . This was my first F-104 build , I have another 1/72 Italeri starfighter kit in my stash along with two Monogram F-104C’s with decals for a NMF and Vietnam camouflage scheme and a Hasegawa 1/48 starfighter . I also had started some work on the second Italeri kit by cutting the canopy into three seperate pieces to pose it in the open position but thats all I’ve done so far . I was thinking of painting here Day-glo orange , like the piloted remote controll aircraft , I bought some decals from Squadron.com , Insignia blue USAF , U.S.AIR FORCE to use as well.

Kind regards John

That looks good John!

I wonder why almost every Starfighter kit has the drag brakes open?

I left mine open cause I like things to be “exposed”. Even if I don’t detail the inside of whatever I am exposing, I list like things in different places than the Norm… I guess. I’ll post a pic tomorrow. It is done. After all of this discussion, I left the tanks white along with the wings. Just don’t have the canopy on or the interior done.

your qestion was in 2008 too late for my reply to your question.