Little Tanks & Tiny People

Here is my fourth and final (for now) Dutch jet, the awesome F-104 Starfighter! The Starfighter could achieve speeds of Mach 2, which made it great at intercepting Russian bombers. Its tiny wings, however, meant that it wasn’t particularly manoeuvrable and needed to land at exceptionally high speeds so it wouldn’t drop out of the sky. The F-104 is a bit of an infamous aircraft. There was a rather large scandal when it was found out that Lockheed had bribed several foreign military and political figures to secure purchase contracts. Among these was the Dutch Prince-Consort Bernhard, who as a result was forced to resign as Inspector-General of the Dutch Armed Forces and was not allowed to wear his military uniform in public anymore. Additionally, high accident rates earned the jet the unfortunate nicknames of Widowmaker and Flying Coffin. That said, though, it’s a really pretty aircraft... The Dutch Air Force operated the F-104 from 1962 to 1984, alongside the NF-5 Freedomfighter that ...

And another Dutch jet is finished! This time it’s an F-84F Thunderstreak from 315 Sqn stationed at Eindhoven AB. The F-84F was a fighter-bomber that could carry nuclear weapons and for that reason several NATO countries were supplied with the jet under the Mutual Defense Assistance Act. The RNLAF operated the F-84F from 1955 to 1970. The Thunderstreak has received fairly little love from model kit manufacturers but the Czech company Sword has set things right. Sword produces not one, but several Thunderstreak kits, one of which includes the parts and decals to build a   Dutch version. Overall, I really liked the kit. The details such as the many panels on the fuselage are very crisp and there is very little flash. The kit even comes with painting masks for the canopy and a very detailed, resin ejection seat. There are a few minor things, however, that show you that the kit is not from one of the bigger companies. The first isn’t a major issue, but it’s just a little odd. While ...

I couldn’t resist. After finishing my F-16 , I pretty much immediately picked up this Italeri F-5 kit. The RNLAF operated the F-5 from 1969 to 1991 and used it as a light fighter-bomber alongside the F-104, which served as an interceptor. The Italeri kit gives you several options, one being a Dutch NF-5A from the 316 Sqn Demo Team operating out of Gilze-Rijen (1978). The kit went together very smoothly. No flash or gaps whatsoever. One annoying thing, however, is that the rear fuselage consists of a left and a right half, which means that there is a very prominent seam running along the centre of the aircraft. Also, the font fuselage is constructed as a separate piece, which again leaves a noticeable seam. An expert modeller with more patience than me could probably have - after multiple passes of filling and sanding - gotten rid of those seams. After one pass of filling and sanding I simply hoped that my paint job would hide the worst most of it. One of the jets of the NF-5 Demo Team ...

You may remember that I built some 1/144 scale jets last year. Well, it’s time for another jet now, only in 1/72 scale this time. This is one of two Dutch F-16’s of 313 squadron sent to the 1991 NATO Tigermeet at RAF Fairford. The two jets were given a special paint job for the occasion. Back then, 313 squadron was stationed at Twenthe Airbase at Enschede. The red banner with rampant horses on the tail is derived from the flag of Twenthe. The model is a rather old kit by Revell, which I picked up second-hand. The kit must have been made somewhere in the mid 90’s, but I remember reading somewhere that it was basically a reissue of a kit from 1976 with a small upgrade sprue and new decals to turn it into a Dutch F-16. Two big identifiers of the Dutch F-16’s made under licence by Fokker are the drogue parachute in the tail and the tinted glass of the canopy. The other of the two planes sent to the 1991 Tigermeet.   Given that it is such an old kit, it went together pretty well. T...

I had so much fun painting my little MIG’s and Sabres that I wanted to do a couple more. I thought it would be a neat idea to recreate the famous ‘Because I was inverted’ scene from Top Gun, which meant that I would need an F-14 Tomcat and an F-5 Tiger, which was used in the movie to represent a non-existent MIG-28. After a bit of searching online I found a nice lot of second-hand kits, all by Revell. The lot consisted of two F-5 Tigers, an F-14 Tomcat and an F-16 Viper. Of course, I knew that the decals of the F-14 wouldn’t match the markings on Maverick’s jet. I hadn’t expected, though, that they would match those of the Tomcats featured in 1980’s The Final Countdown. I’ve never seen the movie, apart from some clips on Youtube, but apparently it’s about an aircraft carrier travelling back in time to World War II. Sounds rather silly, but the Tomcats in it look pretty cool. I didn’t paint my F-14 to be exactly like the one from the movie. I didn’t have the correct grey and only rea...