Rando Author
Been cooking up this idea since I got the 1/72 RF-8. My original plan was to build the plane in the cover of the Osprey RF-8 book, flown by Lt Andre Coltrin over Vietnam. With a little help from a 1/72 version of the Furball MiG Master sheet, I will rearrange the nose and tail numbers to make BuNo 146871 as it flew in Vietnam during its 1966 cruise off the USS Oriskany.

I also found an Academy F-8E, which has decals for a VF-111 jet that flew on the same cruise, so decided I will build it as the RF-8's escort, which they often had during their photo runs. I also figured, why not build them together? They will be displayed in flight.

Oleg Bogolei
Nice idea and intersiting projeact. Also have two of them in a stash)

Freak
Great idea for a double build. Following!

Rando Author
Good to have you gents, looking to start this one soon! I like researching and adding reference photos, so I just added some in the meantime.

Urban Gardini
Now this seems like a build that I've to follow!

Rando Author
Welcome Urban, happy to have you! "It's only a model!"

Sergej I
Following 🙂 👍

Rando Author
Hi Sergej! I'm very very excited to get started on this one

Casey Beckett
Following - got 3 of those nice new Sword RF's in the stash.

Jos Jansen
Normally I don't follow 1:72 scale models...for this one I'll make an exception...😅😉, grab myself a seat here! Love those Crusaders...

Patrick Hagelstein
Got intrigued by Rando's comment on Jos' build, so I popped over here. Looks like a very interesting build as well!

Rando Author
Happy to have you gents here, I'll be getting to this one just as soon as my elaborate P-51 build is done...

Rando Author
Here we go, double Crusader build. Gonna be comparing the short-run Sword RF-8 with Academy's F-8, which has been the go-to in 1/72. I have extra Academy kits so I'm swapping out the RF-8 kit's nice resin seat, I'll use it for a future open canopy build. The pilots will be obscuring seat detail in a closed canopy anyway.

David Fuller
Following

Rando Author
Welcome David!

I assembled the PJ pilots and started nipping off parts to assemble the fuselage. Getting the pilots to fit in their seats is tricky so far. Fit on the Academy kit parts is pretty nice. Sword kit is not as easy since there's no locator pins but they align well

Rando Author
Pilots are fully painted now. The F-8E pilot is based on Dick Schaffert, who was a pilot on this 1966 cruise. While I don't know of any specific plane he flew, F-8 pilots often flew jets that were assigned to others, so he's flying 149180 on this escort mission. In order to accommodate them, I had to remove the rudder pedals and front of the cockpit tub on the F-8E. It won't really be visible when the cockpit is buttoned up anyway.

Rando Author
I didn't like how the Sundowner helmet turned out so I stripped the paint and airbrushed it this time with tiny wedges of tape, then shaped and touched up everything. Just need to add a black stripe for the visor groove.

J35J
Great attention to details Rando! Following👍🏻

Rando Author
Thanks and glad to have you J35J! Pilots, seats, ejection handles, and joysticks are all in place. Time soon to start putting the jets together.

Rando Author
All the interior parts are in, soon time to put the fuselages together 👍

Guy Rump
Looking good, following. 👍

Rando Author
Hello Guy, welcome 😊

Fuselages are together. Now getting all the panels and gear bay doors to sit flush.

Calvin Gifford
Very nice! How is the Sword kit so far??

Rando Author
Thanks Calvin! It's quite nice if you remember it's a short run kit and you prep and test fit parts a lot before gluing anything. Has been a far from perfect first effort by me but I like how it goes together. It's shape is pretty accurate too. The Academy kit is very plug-n-play in comparison

Calvin Gifford
👍

S M
Double build! Following!

Rando Author
Welcome S M! I have been painstakingly installing the gear doors closed. Stuffing blutack in the wheel wells helps with frustration. Both F-8s have tiny aft gear doors on the main bays that took a lot of time to line up. The RF-8's nose doors were also very tricky. Happy to say I'm done getting the gear doors on.

Casey Beckett
Backup RF-8 inbound Rando ! Shipped Friday!

Rando Author
You the man Casey! Did some scratchbuilding tonight

Casey Beckett
Me too - Bonanza gear struts. God bless Albion Alloys. Great stuff if you've not used any of their items.

Rando Author
I have not but am always looking to add new things in this hobby, I'll check them out! I actually have an old Minicraft 1/48 Bonanza that I might do something with one of these days.

Rando Author
Took a big long tour on the clear parts struggle bus this past week. Got glue smudges on a camera window, the windscreen, and canopy on the RF-8, which all had to be buffed out. Hopefully I get the canopies attached snug without issues tomorrow night. Finding that carefully lining the attachment point with Revell Contacta on a toothpick is less risky than TET.

Calvin Gifford
👍

S M
Clear parts look good 👍

Michael Kohl
Like the planes. Like to see them in flighr. Like the effort you put in.
Feel you when putting pilots properly in and closing wheel well doors.
Anxious for the paint job.

Rando Author
Thanks all, getting closer to painting. A ton of work has gone into smooth out and scribe the lines around the gear bays on both jets, not to mention persistent seams. Also turned my attention to sanding down and rescribing the fictitious bumps on the folding joints, which the RF-8 has as well. The RF-8 also has wedge-shaped plates on the droops, which were only present much later, so those were sanded down as well. There's still a few things I want to try to perfect before I begin painting. I also have to decide if I want to paint the wings separately, in all likelihood I'm going to glue them on first because I want the fuselage section to be flush.

Rando Author
Alright, wings are on. I feel like this will make masking more complicated, but better for making sure they conform to the fuselage. I am so ready to paint these jets

Calvin Gifford
Whoot!

Nicolas
I missed this one, following. I love these side by side builds.
Great progress so far. 👍

Rando Author
Hi friends three months later I'm finally painting the damn things. Here's my current take on preshading, blackbasing, what have you. Gave the white areas a white base that I preshaded with dark gull grey. Then mottled the black with white for some variation with the light gull grey. Elsewhere I built the missiles, launch rails, and painting the horizontal stabs.

Thomas Kolb
Coming along nicely! Your blackbasing tedhnique looks very effective, I am curious how they will turn out!

Rando Author
I've painted the undersides of the CVW-16 birds. Unfortunately I did something stupid, something I even decided against at first--I tried doing a "pour" into the intakes to get them painted. This was a bad idea for the RF-8 in particular. I thought that since they were glued together I could get away with no leaks, but I saw the paint level draining, and I knew the paint would appear inside the camera windows. Lo and behold I saw paint when I peeked under the masks.

Feels horrible that I did this, even if I have some ways I could fix them. I can pop the side windows out and clean the bottom side windows, but putting them back in will be a pain since the side windows are meant to be attached from the inside. UGH. Any clever ideas to fix this mess are welcome, this is definitely one of those "mojo killers."

Rando Author
Think I fixed the windows. The bottom windows will still be a little smudgy. But I was able to get the sides back in by gluing a toothpick to the mask and rotating it from the inside, then seating it on the frame.

Calvin Gifford
Glad you figured it out!

Rando Author
After fussing with the white for what seemed like forever, I finally masked to paint the gull grey. Unfortunately this revealed a ghost seam on the spine, so on the plastic putty goes. Hopefully it goes away.

S M
Those ghost seams are so annoying 🙁

Calvin Gifford
^^Yeah, hate those ghost seams!

Rando Author
Fortunately I was able to defeat them with putty and paint! It's just crazy they'd show up after working on all the seams and surfaces for the past few months. I also removed the ECM blister from the VF-111 jet's tail, since reference photos and instructions showed they didn't have them at the time.

Rando Author
Fussing a lot with the color of the nose tip. Also very difficult to mask off. Lots of touching up needed. The tip seems either a tan or greyish hue, but I have no photos to base it on.

Guy Rump
Looking great, following. 👍

Freak
Looking good, can't wait for the masks to come off!

Rando Author
Thanks guys! Cleaned up the paint edges on the nose and feel a lot better about how it looks now. Also painted an anti-glare area in front of the camera fairing. Just gotta paint the tailpipes and it's on to clear coat and decals!

Thomas Kolb
They look really great! I have to say, the F-8 is one fine looking aircraft and your models definitely do them justice. I cannot wait to see them with decals! About ghost seams, I have seen them appearing on my models weeks after they are finished. I guess it's the cement seam cracking a little bit because of tensions in the plastic, but I have long since stopped worrying about it.

Rando Author
Thanks Thomas! I appreciate that, I'm super anxious to start the decals myself, going to be the most rewarding part of the whole project. Still had some touchups and wanted to paint the leading edges of the flight surfaces with flat aluminum to represent Coroguard. Clear coats go on *I hope* tonight.

Gotta say, building two planes at once sure is a different kind of challenge and test of your patience. It's fortunate that they are mostly the same, but it's still time consuming to do everything twice. I spent at least an hour masking off the leading edges and it took all of five minutes to paint! Probably won't be doing a double build again for quite awhile.

Calvin Gifford
👍

Rando Author
One side of the decals mostly done. Buncha stencils to do also. I'm super paranoid about breaking the ventral fins so I stood them up on wads of blutack which works pretty well.

Rando Author
Finished these two last minute so I could enter them at Patcon 2024 in Hudson, MA. Was my first ever model show and it was a blast. I'll be uploading better photography of these soon, but figured it would be cool to share some pics of them at the contest. Really like how they've come together, they look so cool in formation like this

Casey Beckett
I can hear those J57s shrieking! VERY nice work, Sir!

Calvin Gifford
Fantastic job!!

J35J
Looking great! 👍🏻

S M
Well done!👍

Nicolas
Good result. 👍

Patrick Hagelstein
Very cool! And so cool you got introduced into the wonders of model shows. 🙂

Guy Rump
Great result! 👍

Rando Author
Thanks for following and all the nice comments friends! Beauty shots are up now. I really like how some of them turned out. These two were a challenge, not exactly my best work but I'm happy that I saw this really specific idea through to the end, and they look really cool. I especially like the underside detail of the RF-8. Cheers and happy modelling!

Rando Author
Also, special mention for Martin von Schreckenstein for the simple but elegant idea for the display. See his great set of VF-211 F-14s!