1/48 Hasegawa F-8E VX-4

Gallery Article by Richard S. Hayward on Sept 17 2003

 

The Hasegawa F-8E is one of the sweetest F-8 kits around. I used the Cutting Edge super detailed cockpit and seat (which was very nice and seemed to be more accurate then the models) and speedbrake.  I used Tamiya and Testers acrylic paint through out.  I custom made the decals with blank decal paper and my HP deskjet along with different sizes of stars. I got the data from the kit decals. 

 

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Some of the problems with the kit which were few.  I was able to avoid them because I saw great reviews on ARC. The only three I found were the flaps with the wing up would not line up without hitting the side of the plane and the afterburner sticks out too far and the kit ejection seat is all wrong.  

VX-4 was the test and evaluation squadron for the Navy and was stationed at NAS Point Mugu down the road from where I live until they were joined with VX-5 to make a new squadren VX-9.  VX-4 flew and tested all the major fighters the navy had.  

Richard S. Hayward

      

Photos and text © by Richard S. Hayward