Does anyone know if the old Revell 1/48 F-89 us still available? I’d be willing to scribe the lines if I could find one. Always liked that big old clumsy interceptor. I used to climb around on a hulk of one that lay behind the hanars at Confederate Air Force, next to the F-94 and the Deuce. I think it was a J model, but the wings were missing and data stencil faded away. All I remember is it was painted in ADC gray, either flat or oxidized, and the interior and seats were FS 36231 with red headrests. I know the colors, on account of I took some flakes of paint that weren’t exposed to sun and rain and matched them to fs595a chips. Did the same for interior green on B-47, whose wheel wells and bombay were same as MM Interior Green and cockpit was combination of mostly black with lower parts in that shade of green. You had to really climb up and over a bunch of sheet metal to get to your seat in that old bomber. I’d sure like to find photos of that rotating copilot’s ejection seat. I don’t have the old Detail and Scale Book anymore, and I don’t know who made that unique seat. But I sat in it, partly in tribute to my late dad, who spent many,many uncomfortable hours in that same seat.
Yes it’s still out there just got back from MLHS an they are in stock, if you mean the C/D model.
Is that the version with a zillion FFARs in the tip pods? I know the late models relied on that monstrous Genie and some AIM-4s. And I forget, did any 89s carry guns? I know they tried an outrageous turret scheme while the thing was in prototype, but I forget if this was the first plane to be degunned by the notorious Missile Mafia of the 1950s, the ones that kept guns off the 102, 106, 101B, F-111 and, most egregiously, early F-4s. Which, if I may digress, reminds me of a ride with a reserve squadron out of Carswell in Ft. Worth in the mid-80s flying Phantom D’s. We took off in a four-ship to a bombing range in Okla. somewhere. I had never been in an F-4 with the pod. MERCY! It sounded like Satan’s own chain saw when the driver hit the red button. Then we dropped a bunch of 25lb. blue screamers. I’m glad I got to do that before dive bombing becomes a totally lost art. Coming over the top inverted, rolling upright and heading straight for the giant bullseye on the ground is the best theme park ride invented, especially if you’re a civilian and not being shot at. Which, as is my habit, has nothing to do with F-89s. Sorry. I got carried away. Shame nobody ever (at least in my experience) ever made a decent model of that Vulcan pod. It was enormous and a good one would make a boring Phantom model really shine. Once, at Oshkosh, I saw a Happy Hooligans Phantom with THREE Vulcan pods, four AIM-7 Sparrows and EIGHT Sidewinders. It was all for show, but the effect was awsome. If you put all that ordnance on a model at show they would disqualify you.
Revell released two versions of the F-89. The first release was in the late 80’s and was of the F-89D/J version. The D having the wing tip rocket pods carrying 104 2.75 FFAR’s. The J model had pylons carrying 4 AIM-4’s and two Genie nuclear rockets.
In the late 90’s they released the F-89C which had the six 20 MM cannons. Provisions were removed from the C model to carry up to sixteen five inch rockets or bombs. Revell included the rockets with the F-89C but it would not be accurate to mount them on the model. Only the A and B models carried the five inch rockets and bombs. The C was cannon armed only.
The SUU 16/23 gun pods used on the Phantom was a stop gap measure and wasn’t worth the effort to hang them. They produced a lot of drag, was “G” restricted and caused a lot of vibration. They were very inaccurate and was hard to keep boresited. I don’t know of any pilot that liked them. One pilot said the only way to knock down an enemy aircraft with one was to drop the pod on them.
A Marine pilot attatched to the USAF in Vietnam did get a EA kill with a gun pod while flying the F-4D but he had to empty all 1185 rounds at the MIG-17.
We flew a lot of truck buster missions with the SUU-23 pods as they would throw a lot of lead all over the area. They were only good for about two passes and then the jets would drop CBU’s or nape to finish the job.
Yeah, you noticed I didn’t meantion its worth as a weapon. Only its mean looks and awesome sound. However, Boots Blesse was on one of those documentaries they run so endlessly on Discovery Wings and he apparently was behind the development of this stopgap. He quoted his own AAR in which – now don’t quote ME on this – he wrote that his flight had made two kills with it on one mission. He also said they were good for sawing boats in half in mid-river. I mean, we’re talking about a weapon developed in a war in which the finest minds in our own Air Force hung bombs on the F-104 and sent it over for close air support duty.
Oh, and I was over on the Dyess AFB site and saw their F-89J. They have a Genie standing in front of it. It’s in a nice scheme. I want to find that kit, regardless of the varient. I once had it, and it was pretty good for Revell. And huge for a fighter.
One more thing: You spoke of dropping a gun pod to get a kill? Well, not long after I flew with that AF reserve squadron, some pilot with that unit accidentally hit the Big Red Button and dropped the pod in a small lake from a few thousand feet. Never heard if they fished it out. Thanks for the input, Berny.
sharkskin;
the best place to get the D/H/J version of the Scorpion would be on EvilBay, I’ve seen them there plenty of time and they go for about $30.00, the C version I’ve seen at Hobby Lobby a few times within the past 6 months I don’t know if they are re-released or some one corn holed them and now is selling them, also you could find them on EvilBay too and they go for about the same as the D/H/J’s
Thanks. Right now, I’ll take any varient and some AM decals. Like all those cold war interceptor units, the F-89s were often very colorful. But, unless I convert it to a an all black prototype I’ll have to do a major NMF, which isn’t something I look forward too.
By the by, has anybody ever seen an awful John Wayne movie called “Jet Pilot”? It’s mostly red scare propoganda mixed with a love story, but it has some fine flying footage and they use that black Scorpion as a stand-in for the Russian “secret weapon”. Like in “The Hunters”, one of the finest of the airplane movies, in which they used F-84Fs as stand-ins for MiG-15s. Of course, the worst stand-in is in Top Gun, a movie I really dislike (I know, I’m in the minority), where a civilian T-38 (same plane as in Dragnet movie with Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd) was painted Evil Commie Black and called a MiG. That gives me an idea for a new string. Oh, and just remembered, some later Scorpions were in ADC gray. Huzzah.
Tom