Italeri 1/32 F-104A

By Luc Janssen

Introduction

A friend of mine, who is an architect and airplane lover, asked me to build him an aluminium Starfighter for his office. As he knows that I always make my models on scale 1/32nd, I decided to make him an early US Air Force F-104 A built almost straight from the box. As my friend is not too demanding, I used an older ejection seat of a F-104 G.

The Italeri kit is of average quality, and I would prefer less options and building variants, but better detailing of the cockpit, canopy and landing gear. The panel lines are on the heavy side, and the air brakes do not fit flush with the fuselage. However, with a little care and attention, the kit can be finished as a nice Starfighter model.

When consulting documentation on the US Air Force unpainted Starfighters, I noticed that the weathering on these fighters was very limited. Although I like to see serious weathering, I kept it deliberately to a minimum.