1/72 Italeri RF-104G-1 Starfighter

Gallery Article by Thomas Brückelt on Nov 21 2017

 

      

This model shows the RF-104G-1, made out of the Italeri kit No. 1296.

This Starfighter was modified for allweather and long range reconnaissance missions for the German Forces.  Only two Starfighters of this type were built (KG+300, EB+121).  It never went into serial production because the RF-4E was bought and used for those missions.

You can find some pictures of the real one on Rolf Ferchs great site about the F-104. The site is in German but you can use an online translator: 
http://www.rolfferch.de/F104G/html/projekte.html

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Pictures are very rare of this plane, of the KG+300 I found only one, a few are available of the EB+121, so this one should be shown with my model.  There are some simple drawings, but they are not very accurate, so I measured the dimensions of the special parts out of the pictures.

The pod below the fuselage was filed out of a polysterene block. The nose was built from scratch with two ribs, four deepdrawn segments and some filler. The pitot tube comes from the kit.

Unfortunately I destroyed the canopy with glue, so I took a single-seater canopy from the old Heller kit (which can also be built as twoseater) and adapted it.

I painted the model with brush (Revell, enamels). The decals were from the Italeri kit, other kits and the registrations I printed by myself. Flat clear varnish from Tamiya seals this special Starfighter.

Greetings from Germany

Thomas Brückelt

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Photos and text © by Thomas Brückelt