I have a question for those of you who have built this kit. The instructions have you puching various holes in the fuselage and filling them with clear plastic parts. The painting has them painted various colors. What are these? I tend to think some are lights, but they are a in strange places. A few are orange and even silver.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
I’ve been anxious awaiting for someone to answer this question cause I too have built this kit and wondered what the heck those little holes, lights, or whatever they are. Anyway, I wussed out and just left them off. Mine is a F-104G with Norwegian markings. I’m sure somebody out there, like Darwin or Rick would know.
cheers,
dragonfly
I got response from John Chung on the Hyperscale forum. This is what he said;
“yea, they’re formation lights . . .the placements of formation lights on F-104 are interesting indeed. However, note that the colour call-outs are in the transparent colour ranges, so yea, they’re lights, but it’s really up to you whether you see it justified to swap for clear parts. i did, and they worked out nice.”
Sounds good to me!
To add to the above; You will find the following lights on most aircraft.
on the end of the port or left wing a red light
on the starbord or right wing a green light
on the rear of the aircraft a clear or white light
under the aircraft a rotating red light (this tells anyone on the ground that the aircraft is running)
on each side of the aircraft you may find amber colored strip lights. some will be toward the front of the aircraft and some in the back of the aircraft. These are aids for night time formations
Under the left wing of some aircraft you may find a series of three light oriented front to back colored green, amber, red. These are also night time formation aids.
The clear spotlights usually located on the landing gear or in the leading edge of the wing(s) are landing lights. They assist in night time taxiing and landing. They also may be used to signal the tower that the aircraft intends to land.
A friend of mine who served on the USS Kittyhawk in the 1960s told me that occassionally the LSO (Landing Systems Officer) would see a red light on his left and a green light on his right while recovering aircraft at night. This tells the LSO that the aircraft is approaching upside down! (Spacial Displasia can cause a pilot to become disoriented in instument flight conditions) The lights are a visual referrence that help keep pilots oriented when they are in formation with each other.