This is the new
1/48 F-104 G/J cockpit set with masters created by
Jef Verswijvel
himself. Jef has clearly demonstrated with this cockpit set that he
knows how to create detail in resin sets, but of course....Jef is not new to
resin sets.
This 32 piece resin set has many firsts for Black
Box........including underwing fuel tanks, 2 different versions of ejection
seats and a seated pilot figure. These parts are a decent
improvement over the Hasegawa parts, which is saying something, because the Hasegawa
kit is new tooling and of very high quality. The Hasegawa F-104J parts
like the ejection seat just can't hope to compare to the detail intensive
ejection seats in the Black Box set. And this set includes 2 different
versions of ejection seats to cover German F-104G's and Italian F-104S's and
these seats.
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Go
ahead....try and make detail like this yourself. :-) |
The cockpit tub has more detail than the kit parts and
the detail on the tub back wall behind the seat is much improved on this
set. As nice as the kit instrument panel is...the instrument panel in this
set is much more 3 dimensional in nature and detail rich....you have to see the
detail to believe it (as can be seen from the photo below). Both seats fit
well in the cockpit tub and the instrument panel is identical in size to the kit
part, so fit should be perfect. The seated pilot figure is an excellent
figure, but it would just be too nice of a figure to use over the lovely Black
Box ejection seats, but I'm sure these pilot figures will find a home in other
projects where regular kit seats are used. The tub is a nice fit in the
kit, but you will be required to sand the bottom of the cockpit tub to get the
proper fit....but all this is detailed in the instruction sheet. The large
instruction sheet covers the complete assembly including basic painting
instructions for the seat. All in all a very well done set with good fit
qualities. Further detail photos of the F-104 cockpit and seat can be
found in the ARC walkaround section.
Steve Bamford
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MB
I-Q 7 Ejection seat as used by German F-104G's and Italian F-104S's |
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C-2
Ejection seat |
(click on
photo below to bring up large photos, use your browsers back button to return to
this page)
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Pilot
figure |
cockpit
tub |
control
stick |
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Fuel
tank fins |
side
walls |
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