1/48 Monogram Chance Vought XF8U-1 Crusader

Gallery Article by Gene A. "Gene-o" DiGennaro Jr. on Feb 24 2015

 

      

The First of the Last of the Gunfighters

In 1952, the US Navy issued a requirement for a 1000 mph day fighter aircraft with a 100 mph landing speed. The Chance Vought aircraft company answered the call and on March 25, 1955, the XF8U-1 Crusader made its first flight. Test pilot John Konrad took the Crusader supersonic on that very same flight. The F-8 was nicknamed "The Last of the Gunfighters" during the Vietnam war. The last operational Crusader was retired by the French Navy in 2000.

I chose to model the first Crusader, the XF8U prototype. To start, I thought about using a vintage Lindberg F8U, so I bought one off the 'net. While the shape was correct, the Lindberg offering was just too crude to work with. Next choice, the Monogram F-8E. This nice old model had raised panel lines. To bring it to the current state of the art, I rescribed new ones. This was my first attempt at scribing panel lines. Adhesive backed Dymo tape served as a flexible straight edge to keep my broken dental pick on the straight and narrow.

 

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While most of the kit was built right from the box, a few modifications had to be made to backdate the Crusader to the prototype. First off, the dorsal avionics hump of the F-8E was removed from the top of the wing and faired in with putty. Next, the refueling bump was omitted from the port side of the fuselage and the attachment holes filled in. In addition, the IR sensor on the F-8E windscreen was left off. The iconic Crusader ventral fins and afterburner cooling vents were also omitted. After studying pictures of the actual XF8U, the molded in vents on the starboard side nose will filled with putty. Early F-8's had nose vents only on the port side. Also, the prototype had its gun ports faired over so I filled those in and faired them over on my model as well. Early F-8 nose cones had a different shape than those of the F-8E, so the kit's nose cone was filed to a more oval cross section. Provision was made on the nose cone for attachment of the Lindberg nose probe, the one part used from the kit! Lastly, after becoming familiar with 1950s USN flight gear, I backdated the pilot by painting his APH-5 helmet gold with white and orange stripes. His MK II Mae West is painted yellow.

The prototype F8U was left in a bare metal finish with an attractive red arrow painted on the fuselage sides and matching red trim around the intakes. My model was finished in polished aluminum Alclad over polished gloss black Krylon on the forward fuselage. The aft fuselage and portions of the tail received Alclad dark aluminum. The wings and stabilizers were painted with Testors chrome silver right out of the spray can. Using photos as a guide, selected panels were covered with Bare Metal Foil where appropriate. The tip of the tail was painted in light gull grey. The canopy was framed in Pactra Hot Rod pinstripe tape. The nose probe and parts of the nose cone were painted with MM Chevy engine red.

No aftermarket decals are available for the XF8U. Using Inkscape, a free but very powerful drawing program I made all of the artwork for my model. The red arrow is outlined in white, so is the intake trim and the tail stripes. My printer doesn't print white, so the red shapes were printed on white decal paper and carefully cut out to retain their white outline. The black trim around the nose was also a home made decal.  The Chance Vought logo on the fuselage started as a scanned vintage advertisement. It was converted to vector art and scaled to fit the model. It was printed on a clear decal sheet. The "NAVY" script on the fuselage, BurAer number on the tail and lower fuselage were printed in a free font called Bombardier. The Stars 'n' Bars came from the scrap box. 

Overall, I'm pleased with how this turned out. Many lessons were learned in this one. The effort earned me a Third Place in the Modified, Vacuform, and Scratchbuilt category at the IPMS Baltimore's MarauderCon 2014. 

Gene A. "Gene-o" DiGennaro Jr.

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Photos and text © by Gene A. "Gene-o" DiGennaro Jr.