Wolfpack 1/48 - Northrop T-38A Talon FAP (Portuguese Air Force)

[rodrant]

Hi ,

this will be my first entry in this Homeland GB , for the first build I choose to build the Wolfpack 1/48 Northrop T-38A Talon :



It will be a build using also this two aftermarket items , an early type set for the seats , in resin , and decals from caracal models for the FAP (Portuguese Air Force) decals :



This will be the Plane that I will try my best effort to depict here :



and my first Jetfighter build ...and a Big Challenge in painting white ... and try to make it no monotonous

This plane was operated in Portuguese Air Force between 1977 and 1993 ...but will try to put here the operational history when the build really start tomorow !

[rm6239]

Antonio

This looks good, the white will be fun to paint , looking forward to seeing it progress.

cheers
Rossco

[Pacheco]

Nice choose. Looking forward.

[chief5437]

Cool! Good luck with the White paint job, not the easiest colour to work with.

[Aliktren]

these are lovely looking aircraft, looking forward to seeing it come together

[rodrant]

Starting with this build ,

for some history on this plane check the wikipedia link :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_T-38_Talon

some History of the T38 in Portuguese service , this is a translated text from http://www.falcoes.net/t38.htm , written by José Matos , the photos and images are also from that site:

In the mid-70s, the Portuguese Air Force (FAP) had not operating any aircraft with supersonic characteristics. The North American F-86F Sabre was the fastest plane that had in its inventory, but the weight of age imposed it's replacement. Several NATO countries had replaced their Sabres for the Lockheed F-104 or by the Northrop F-5, a small tactical plane that seemed like the best option to replace the old Sabre. The F-5 was not a very sophisticated aircraft, but had supersonic capability and excellent overall qualities, and low operating and maintenance costs and versatile weapons. The FAP was seriously interested in receiving this aircraft and in order to begin to prepare their pilots and technicians they received on loan 6 supersonic Northrop T-38A Talon training. The aircraft arrived in 1976, dismantled aboard a C-5 Galaxy with American license plates and were integrated into the 201 Squadron Hawks (Falcões in portuguese ) that operated the last Sabres.

The T-38 was one of the most successful projects of Northrop with more than 1,100 copies produced for advanced training of pilots of the USAF (US Air Force). When entered service in 1961, the Air Training Command (ATC) USAF, was a device out of the ordinary, for he had supersonic capacity, which was a novelty in training models, which caused some initial unease. But the T-38 proved to be an excellent trainer aircraft with a very low accident rate thanks to its versatility and safety. However, despite the success of T-38 in ATC and other out of the USAF agencies such as NASA, the device was not destined to succeed in the export market. Germany was the first country to buy it for training of its pilots, but the 46 German machines were in the United States, Sheppard base, Texas, using the insignia of the USAF, although intended exclusively for training pilots of the Luftwaffe. F-5 operators, only Turkey, Taiwan and South Korea received the aircraft for advanced training of its pilots, but already after Portugal.

Portuguese appliances kept the white paint of origin as well as the enrollment of the USAF, although bearing the Portuguese flag on the tail and the Cross of Christ in the fuselage and wings. Since the process of acquiring the F-5 continued in order to achieve, the FAP received more 6 T-38A in January 1980 for the Monte Real and the squadron 201. But at that time already equated the purchase of Vought A -7P Corsair, for anti-ship operations, leaving forever postponed the option of the F-5. The T-38 was losing so their reason for being, but the plane would be in the same in use by FAP because North American give the plane the same . The planes then received FAP enrollment numbers from 2601 to 2612, but soon no longer be in use by the Squadron 201 Hawks , which would at the end of July 1980 with the retirement of the last Sabres in service. At that time, 12 planes are transferred to Squadron 103 base together with Lockheed T-33A, continuing to operate in Monte Real. As these were planes with different characteristics, 103 is divided into two independent squadrons each with an appliance type. In January 1987, all 103 Squadron was transferred to the Air Base # 11 in Beja, where the T-38 was first used in 1990 in the course of Operation Introduction (CIO), aimed at advanced training for combat squads and then replacing the T-33 in Supplementary Instruction Course Steering Combat Aircraft (CICPAC).
The T-38 would end its operational life in Beja in June 1993 and was replaced the following month by the Alpha Jet Luftwaffe assigned to FAP in exchange for the use of this base.

During the 17 years of activity in the FAP, would be the only supersonic devices operating in Portugal, status that would keep until the end of his days in Beja and no record of any accident.


T38 FAP color scheme , the tail numbers still are the ones of origin , they were later renumbered from 26001 till 26012


In Flight


Taxi in Runaway

so now to see what's in the box :

A one bag sprues ...that isn't good ...still does think that the manufacturers should have 1 bag for each sprue ...



the bag sealed



Cockpit Masks (that is good ... ) , Instruction for the masks placing , and a correction paper ...





Instruction MAnual :











4 color schemes (all USAF ) , those All Black seems nice to try some other time ...the manual is very simple , seems to me too way simple , some nice detail photos of the real bird , that i always nice ...

The sprues :



Looks very nice detailed , and it is a good quality of plastic ...not soft





The cockpit bay :



Nice detail on the bottom of the fuselage



wings detail ,



Instrument panels



Clear parts



First steps in build cockpit :







Well I buy this resin set ...but I will not use them , because the Portuguese T38's have the late seat version , not hte earliear , so another ftermarket to the box of spares ... , also the kit seats doesn't have any seatbelts , and I'm not going to make any by scratch or something ...and such a nice kit will be a good idea , at least to have some decal ones ( not that i like but it was the minimum )



even it bring a set of wheels that I will not use afterall











ok , just to show you the resin not to be used seats ...

So the kit seats are ready now , see the differences ...:



Cockpit already done :





Instruments panels done and decals applied (they are quite good )





with some Flash



The colors used were the XF-53 Tamiya Neutral grey and Black's X-1 , X-18 and XF-1 for matt black (seats and so )

No to join fuselages to the cockpit :





Nest steps :





Done , with no big issues ...



Big gap on the panel underside of the cockpit bay ...



Some filler to be used here and there , it is a nice kit , even with some filling to be done .





Now on this part , see those littel air intakes B26 parts in the tail section ...ok in the instructions ...



so they have this little holles so maybe we can place them n place ..right ?



Wrong !!! In the tail section , no pins to place them :



so guess where to place them

now time to see the correction , and no step on it so anytime could be good to do the correction :



Done !



Time to mask the cockpits









Easy job ..please give that all the time and in all builds , after the Betty Bomber , I now will have this always and all the time that I can !



Prime it and nice looking silhouette , very elegant jet plane ...





Still something to work in this panel underside ...



One last remark , in step 7 , the part b21 is really part b12 , so another correction that the manufacturer should do ...I was looking for B21 , but no way could be that part , than I remember to see part b12 and Bingo !!!
hope you liked so far , today will start the paint job , wish me luck !

[Nige201980]

Looks a lovely detailed kit mate and you've done a cracking job so far good luck with the rest.

[chief5437]

Wow! That happened fast! looks great so far though, shame about the resin seats and wheels

Enjoy the rest of it buddy

[rwsmith14]

Cockpit looks awesome !!!!!

[rodrant]

Thank you for your kind comments ...

new update ....

Paint all White (use AS 20 USAF Insignia White Spray from Tamiya ...) and Black to the nose of the Airplane , masked the cockpit and 'closed' it , will depict it open ...





After painted , some Gloss Varnish (use TAmiya Spray again ..) and use some Tamiya Panel line Paint ...

Not all panels were well covered ...must get confident on using the scribing tools , i'm not at all confident ...





Then decals , and adding all the small details , pitot tube and placing the canopies ...not much to do ...

and here it is done one more ...and my first Jet Plane ...









And will do some base to it with sand paper that will paint to depict an airstrip ...

Nice kit , with some gaps ...take care in fixing the front instrument panel , it will need to be a little shorter as if not the anti glare panel will not fix properly , some filling to be done on the bottom fuselage , but in my opinion I consider it a nice kit with crap instructions .

On my build ,still learning a lot ,always learning ...lately my builds aren't turning that good ...I must not hurry things ,in the end it is nice to see my first jet and with my country marks ...now more to come and do !

To see in the Reveal show !

Thank you all ,

[Nige201980]

Cracking build mate love the White.

[patrickroos]

Wow that was fast!

Really nice build mate, the all white looks awesome and I loved the cockpit!