Hi
Got the 1/72 Flight decs Sabre decal sheet and the 2 Sabre mk 6s for the Luftwaffe and RCAf have taken my fancy. Which kit can I use to make a mk6 Sabre? Any modern kits with recessed panel lines?
The Academy 1/72 F-86F has recessed panel lines, and is well up to the accepted standards of modern kits:
http://www.internetmodeler.com/2000/december/first-looks/aca_72sabre.htm
I’m pretty sure that the kit has the same fixed leading edges and ‘6-3’ wing as the Sabre MK.6, so would do very well for your Bundesluftwaffe machines.
Cheers,
Chris.
The Academy kit is a rebox of the older Hobbycraft kit. Not a bad kit, but pretty basic. If you can find one, the Fujimi 1/72 F-86F is better detailed IMHO.
Regards, Rick
The Academy F-86E kit may be the easiest place to start, as it actually has the slatted 6-3 wing but is short the tip extensions, as all but the first 160 Mk 6’s were. Early Sabre Mk 6’s had the 6-3 wing without the slats. You’d have to change some fuselage scoops for the Orenda engine. The E kit should not have the 6-3 wing, but there you have it. Sabre wings can be very confusing.
Although the Academy kit is closely influenced by the Hobbycraft kit (which in turn bears more than a passing resemblance to the Fujimi kit), I don’t think that it’s a direct re-box. To me , the Academy mouldings seem a lot crisper than the Hobbycraft ones. And all three kits include as much cockpit detail as you need, except for things like seat belts and bang handles. BTW, there are versions of the Academy kit available with and without slatted wings. Both have ‘6-3’ wingtips, which IIRC, is inaccurate for the slatted wings. Be sure to buy the right version.
The Academy kit contains some 62 parts. How many more do you need for an adequately -detailed 1/72 single-seat fighter, exactly?
In terms of overall outline accuracy, there’s quite a lot to be said for the Heller/ Airfix kit, if you can live with fairly basic cockpit detail, and rescribe raised panel lines. Aftermarket decals for this kit are a must, though.
A more relevant consideration may be what can you actually find in your LHS? At the moment, the only mainstream 1/72 F-86Fs available are the Academy kit with the ‘6-3’ wing and the new-ish Hobbyboss. Although, in the UK, the Hobbyvboss kit (which is available in both -30 and -40 versions) is only half the price of the Academy kit, I’d be surprised if it was better, especially in terms of detail.
Cheers,
Chris.
Chris, just to keep the subject clear, the 6-3 leading edge came in four flavors, with and without slats, and with and without span extension at the tips. The extension to the wing tips was not physically part of the chord extension of the Korean War period, so most 6-3 wings that did not have slats were of 37’ 1" span. After the Korean War many Sabres were modified a second time, when the tip extensions were added and slats were re-installed, keeping the 6-3 leading edge dimension. The Sabre F-86F-40’s had this wing from the factory. The Canadair Sabre 6 had the 6-3 leading edge extension but not the 2 foot extension in span, so it was unlike most 6-3 slatted Sabres you will see. My Academy F-86E has the wing you would need for the Sabre 6 and is too long in chord to be proper for the E, though in 1/72 it is not a big deal. I have been mapping the wings on a 6-3 hard wing F-86F-20 and an F-86L at the McClellan Museum so I am on pretty firm ground with my opinion on this subject.
Thanks for clearing that up, John. As you say, Sabre wings can be a source of great confusion. So, for further clarification, which of the 1/72 injection-moulded F-86s currently available in LHSs (and that would be the Academy kit with the hard wing, and the block-30 and block-40 Hobbyboss F-86Fs) have the correct wing for the Sabre Mk.6?
Cheers,
Chris.
Chris:
I can only speak to what I have, and it is mostly 1/48 and 1/32 for Sabres, but the 1/72 Academy F-86E I have, kit no. 1681, looks right in the wing department to me. Or at least mostly right. As I remember my Hobbycraft kits are all hard or molded closed slat types. As per usual, the more detailed a look you get the more wrong any models start looking to you, but that Academy model has the slats and the short wing but does represent the 6-3 extended chord. I have yet to find a Sabre model that gets the panel detail correct and most are not really too close as to sweepback. As I remember, the Monogram and Revell 1/48 F-86D kits are very close for the original slatted wing, and the Hasegawa 1/32 kit is pretty close for a long span 6-3 chord slatted wing. (F-40 wing)
An F-40 wing is not hard to make into a Mk 6 wing, you just whack a scale foot off at each wing tip and make the ailerons part of the wing tip. If the panel lines are correct for the extension the lines are there for you to cut, just at the end of the aileron and on the inside edge of the wing tip. If you are building one of the first 160 or so Mk 6’s, then there are no slats, just the 6-3 hard wing with the fence like a modified Korean War vintage F-86E or F.
If you like to take the easy way with the slats, you can maintain that the crew locked them in the up position, there is a lever in the cockpit for that, but they were not usually locked except for long term parking, and besides where’s the fun in that?
In 1/72 Hobbycraft issues 2 Sabres 1 with a 6/3 hard leading edge and one with a 6/3 slated wing,the same goes for the Academy kits. Fujimi issued either a hard 6/3 wing or a 6/3 F-40 with slats molded shut. In 1/48 the two best are the Hasegawa and the Academy,both 6/3 hard wing.Hasagawa also produces a F-40 again with slats molded in.canadair produced 370 Mk5 Sabres 23001-23370,and they had the 6/3 hard wing.They produced 240 Mk6s 23371-23610with the same hard wing.These aircraft were fitted with the 6/3 slatted wing while in service.They produced an additional 415 Mk6s with the 6/3 slatted wing.There was no lever in the cockpit to lock the slats up.They were controlled by air pressure.On the ground if they were down they stayed down.If for some maintenance reason they were pushed up they stayed up.