What if

The North American F-107 was a further development of the F-100 Super Saber that was considered for adoption by the US Air Force in the 1950s. It eventually lost out to the Republic F-105 Thunderchief largely because Republic needed orders to stay afloat, rather than because the F-105 was a clearly better aircraft. So what if the F-107 had been picked instead, and seen service in the Vietnam War?

I began this model last year with the 1:72 scale Trumpeter F-107 kit (https://www.scalemates.com/kits/trumpeter-01605-north-american-f-107a-ultra-sabre--1393929) and made only minor changes to it. The cockpit was built per the instructions:

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After that, the fuselage was also easy enough to put together:

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Followed by the wings, tail, etc:

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All this is completely per the instructions, except you can see in the photo above that I filled the openings for the gun muzzles and associated ports with putty. The F-107 had four 20 mm cannon, but I figure an in-service version would have been armed with a single M61 Vulcan cannon instead, so I left one port on the left-hand side and filled in the other three.

I then masked the canopy (with regular masking tape, cut to follow the canopy frame after sticking it on — no fancy pre-cut masks here :)) and added it as well, plus underwing pylons from my aircraft spares box:

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The inboard ones came from a ancient kit I don't remember, the outboard two are from a Fujimi A-4 Skyhawk kit I built 30 years or more ago. The TERs (triple ejector racks) on the inboard pylons are also from such a Skyhawk. The positions of the pylons were taken from photos of prototype F-107s fitted with them: I just measured the wing's leading edge in the photo and the kit, so I could convert their position in the photo to a measurement for the kit.

Stores are the centreline drop tank from the F-107 kit and bombs from a Trumpeter F-105 kit:

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Also, I had removed the three pitot tubes from the kit's wings and nose, because those were only installed for testing purposes. Instead, I built a new nose pitot tube from a few thicknesses of brass tubing:

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An AWESOME looking machine!  :thumbsup:

I've always liked the 107 and you are certainly doing it justice  :thumbsup:

 :thumbsup:

Very nice!  I wish they made an F-107 kit in 1:48, that's mostly what I build in.  Maybe if I can get my hands on an F-100 I could whiff an F-107 or something similar out of it, always liked the F-107.  Some claim that it would have fared better over Vietnam, particularly in air combat against MiGs than the F-105, but I'm not sure about that.  The 107 was basically an F-100 with a J-75 engine and a completely redone nose, and I'm not sure that the F-100 was known for being able to dogfight.

Somewhere I have a vacform F-107 too..............

Sweet looking piece of machinery.  :thumbsup:

Thanks :)

With the construction complete, I sprayed the model with light grey primer:

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Actually Games Workshop's "Corax White" which is not white ... I bought it some years ago because I needed to paint a model white, only to find it wasn't. But it works well as a more generic basecoat.

I had decided on the USAF's four-colour South-East Asia camouflage even before I bought the kit, so I had also ordered a set of Hatakatakakatataka ... whatever ... acrylic airbrush paints for that:

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After drawing the shapes for the blotches, basing those on the F-100 scheme (https://www.f-100.org/hun003.shtml), I began by spraying the underside with the light grey from the set. The next day, I sprayed the tan, intending to follow it with the green, and, well ... judge for yourself:

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The tan didn't want to spray well through my airbrush, which eventually (after twenty minutes' struggle in which I managed to paint one patch) turned out to be because it hadn't been cleaned well enough. After ten minutes in the ultrasound cleaner, it did spray well enough again — though that Hatachachacha paint doesn't want to cover worth one single damn. All those brown patches have at least five coats on them in order to cover the pencilled letters, but not even the pencilled outlines, figuring I would go over them and then get rid of the lines with the other colours. Then I started on the green, with the result the photo already hints at, but here it is up close:

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That was an hour and a half after I started spraying the model, and by then I had thoroughly had enough of this paint. It seems to be designed for the pre-shading, mist-coats brigade that most definitely doesn't include me — I want paint to cover everything underneath it with as few coats as possible. While alternating between cleaning my airbrush and cursing out loud, the radio in my hobby room played probably the most appropriate song possible:


A few days later, I returned to the model and did this:

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The medium green is forest green from AMMO "by Mig", the dark is Vallejo olive drab both airbrush-ready paints. All I did was throw some into the airbrush cup and started spraying — nothing changed from last time: same airbrush, same pressure — and they both covered in one go. I shall not be buying any more Hataka, I know that.

Hataka's Blue Line paint, the one they make for brush painting, DOES cover in one coat.

I wonder how that would work for spraying? I'll never find out as I've NO idea where my airbrush is, last time I saw it was maybe 10 yrs ago..........

Quote from: PR19_Kit on April 14, 2023, 11:24:46 AMHataka's Blue Line paint, the one they make for brush painting, DOES cover in one coat.

Agreed, my go-to brand now.

I've also brush painted with their Red Line (airbrush ready) and found a couple of coats cover pretty well for the dark colours and 3 sometimes for the light ones. Mind you I didn't thin it, brushed straight from the pot.

Quote from: PR19_Kit on April 14, 2023, 11:24:46 AMHataka's Blue Line paint, the one they make for brush painting, DOES cover in one coat.

I wonder how that would work for spraying?

Might be worth a try, but I don't have any, and no particular need to buy any either — there are enough brands of paint that I do get along with that I don't have to use Hataka.

Quote from: NARSES2 on April 15, 2023, 12:19:01 AMI've also brush painted with their Red Line (airbrush ready) and found a couple of coats cover pretty well for the dark colours and 3 sometimes for the light ones. Mind you I didn't thin it, brushed straight from the pot.

This was the red line paint, and you can see how well it covers in the photos when you airbrush it. I had much the same experience with the couple of other colours of theirs I used for other models, but I never tried hand-brushing them. Might also be worth a try, though needing a couple of coats to cover speaks against it already, IMHO.

On with the model!

Once the paint was dry, I applied markings:

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Most of these are from the F-105 kit that donated the bombs, because if the F-107 was adopted instead of the F-105, I figure it would have had its serial numbers, squadron markings, etc:

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The cockpit warning markings are mostly from the F-107 kit, though:

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After those, I accented the panel lines:

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For this, I use a home-made concoction of a clear varnish for general household painting, which comes in a 250 ml tin into which I mixed a tube of black pigment. This gives a very nice, if thick, translucent medium–dark grey paint that works well for quick-shading small-scale figures and gear as well as to fairly laboriously paint into aircraft panel lines with a fine brush. I paint it into a few centimetres of panel line, then wipe it away towards the rear with a damp finger, which also creates some stains and dirt effects at the same time.

 :thumbsup:

congratulations! :thumbsup:

Very nice!

Thanks :)

After the decals and panel lines, it was just a matter of painting and attaching the wheels and stores, and removing the masking tape of course, to get the model finished:

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The bomb load seems to be around the maximum an F-107 would probably have been able to handle, which is less than an F-105, so maybe the USAF did pick the better plane mission-wise — though certainly not in terms of looks :)

Lucky they didn't put it up against the Phantom..think they'd have had trouble then  ;D 
But for looks this wickedly cooler 😎  :thumbsup:

That does look nice  :thumbsup:

Quote from: Spino on April 14, 2023, 06:34:01 AMVery nice!  I wish they made an F-107 kit in 1:48, that's mostly what I build in. 

There is/was one (https://www.scalemates.com/kits/collect-aire-models-4831-north-american-f-107a--167555)

Gondor

A cracking looking model there.  :thumbsup:

The 107 looked mean even in the NMF test schemes, but in SEA camo it REALLY looks the business.

 :thumbsup:

Wow very cool looking build  :tornado:  :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:

Thanks, all :) This is one of those models I wanted to do for a number of years, and I'm glad it came out as well as I had it in mind.

Very well done!
 :thumbsup:

A great piece of work - it really looks convincing!  :thumbsup:

That looks very good!

Thanks :)

very nicely build! I've been fascinated about YF-107. Great to see it in this scheme  :thumbsup:  :wub:

Louder than bombs :thumbsup:

Unknown to me and a lovely job.

Quote from: Firefox on April 17, 2023, 03:20:16 AMvery nicely build! I've been fascinated about YF-107. Great to see it in this scheme  :thumbsup:  :wub:

Thanks. I like it a lot more than the bare aluminium with red of the prototypes.

Quote from: stevehed on April 17, 2023, 08:54:34 AMUnknown to me and a lovely job.

I don't think I had heard of it before I came across it on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-107) some years ago, either. I immediately liked the odd shape with the air intake above the fuselage, and then it turned out Trumpeter has a kit of it ... Well, actually it's a kit by someone else that Trumpeter seems to have purchased the moulds of, but still :)

Quote from: Jakko on April 17, 2023, 10:34:10 AM... Well, actually it's a kit by someone else that Trumpeter seems to have purchased the moulds of, but still :)

Ooooh, there's a good chance it's accurate then.  ;)

Not that that matters in the slightest here of course........

Scalemates says it's a rebox of this kit (https://www.scalemates.com/kits/monochrome-mct001-north-american-f-107a--146888):

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I don't think I've ever seen a kit by this brand, MonoChrome, but according to Scalemates it's Japanese, and their cooperation with Trumpeter seems to be going both ways, as they've released plenty of Trumpeter kits in MonoChrome boxes too. More than the other way around, by the looks of it.

Coooer, I've never heard of Monochrome either, but they sure seem to make a good kit of the 107 is anything to go by.  :thumbsup:

It was a decent kit, needed some filler especially around the joint between the air intake and the upper fuselage but no real problems. Moulding and fit in general could have been better, but weren't actually bad. I wouldn't not recommend it :)

Really good build, Jakko! :thumbsup:

But here:

Quote from: Jakko on April 16, 2023, 01:42:27 AMThe bomb load seems to be around the maximum an F-107 would probably have been able to handle, which is less than an F-105, so maybe the USAF did pick the better plane mission-wise — though certainly not in terms of looks :)

I think we'll have to agree to disagree. ;)

Probably :) I can't find the F-105 pretty to look at ...

That looks great - nice one!  :thumbsup:

Quote from: Spino on April 14, 2023, 06:34:01 AMVery nice!  I wish they made an F-107 kit in 1:48, that's mostly what I build in.  Maybe if I can get my hands on an F-100 I could whiff an F-107 or something similar out of it, always liked the F-107.  Some claim that it would have fared better over Vietnam, particularly in air combat against MiGs than the F-105, but I'm not sure about that.  The 107 was basically an F-100 with a J-75 engine and a completely redone nose, and I'm not sure that the F-100 was known for being able to dogfight.

Couple of things:

1. The F-105 did surprisingly well in air-to-air combat over Vietnam, with a positive kill-to-loss ratio despite being a 'bomber'. Yes it weighed a ton and had a sky-high wing loading, but it also had a gun that worked and low-mounted tailplanes that kept working at high AoAs.

2. The big problem with the F-107 in air-to-air combat would have been intake flow distortions at high AoAs: that dorsal intake would have bene sucking in some seriously turbulent air flowing around the front fuselage. You might image the engine flaming out depressinlgy often.


The original F-107 design had a ventral intake, but then they found that shockwaves from the lip caused separation problems with the semi-recessed tac nuke, so they went to the dorsal one instead. I've got a Trumpy F-107 and I've always fancied hacking it around to make the ventral intake version. It looks doable, but it's not straight-forward.