Kangnam 1/72 Vought F-8E Crusader

KANGNAM 1:72 VOUGHT F-8E CRUSADER

Reviewer: Carlos Giani (carlos_giani2002@yahoo.de)
Kit Review submitted: 1 August 2009

Kit Details:

Kangnam 1/72^nd scale Vought F-8E Crusader (Kit N° 4000 ). Produced in Korea.

Aircraft History:

In 1952 the U.S. Navy emitted a requirement for a supersonic, carrier-borne, air superiority fighter, which resulted in eight different proposals from several companies. On May 1953, the design presented by Vought was chosen to be realized into a couple of prototypes, and was designated XF8U-01. The shoulder-mounted wing had foldable outer sections and, as an interesting innovation, a mechanism which allowed the whole wing to till some degrees relative to a transversal axe on its rear, so that the incidence could be changed while keeping the fuselage horizontal during flights at low speed. This was specially useful while landing on carriers. The first prototype flew on March 25^th 1955, and the first deliveries (to VF-32) took place two years later, as F8U-1.

The production run along eight years, and the last 48 F-8E (FN) were delivered to the Aeronavale Francaise on January 1965. The Crusader was a very useful and well accepted weapon on service with the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps when the USA entered in the Vietnam conflict, the plane sometimes being called “The MiG killer” Some RF-8 Reconnaissance Crusaders were still flying in the 80´s.

The Kit:

Inside a top-opening box you get a cellophane bag containing 3 sprues with aprox. 60 parts in light grey styrene, a small bagged clear sprue with two parts and a bagged decals sheet. The parts are cleanly molded, no flash (just mold seam lines), good surface quality, finely engraved panel lines, no ejector pin stubs / marks on major parts, etc. Everything seems to be state-of-art, and promising an easy build, but… You’ll soon know what I mean.

Instructions:

Here’s where the surprises begin. Studying the longish, twice-folded sheet and comparing it with the parts on the sprues reveals some noticeable discrepancies to the kit. It seems as if the instructions would be for another version. The printing itself is a bit vague, looking like a bad imitation of the Hasegawa / Academy style of instructions. Some parts are drawn out of proportion, creating more confusion. The 4-view decaling / painting diagram is not the best I’ve seen, and the upper color (stated as “H315”) is not shown in the paints list. In fact, no brand is specified, although the experienced modeler will know it’s Gunze.

Construction:

O.K., now I was really getting suspicious (a feeling reinforced by a review of Kangnam´s Vigilante I’ve found on the Web). I did some dry fit tests and…Well, I went really angry, something that very, very seldom happens to me while building models. If I build an old kit (Airfix, Heller, Matchbox and so on) and I find big gaps to fill and other similar shortcomings, I accept them and think “that is 70´s technique”. If I have to put much elbow grease on a Czech model, I also accept this and think “it’s short run and it’s a great subject”. But finding a kit which pretends to be state-of-art and thus having some really terrible fits, bad instructions and an all-round feeling of amateur engineering, well, this makes me angry, because I really feel like being pissed-off. I’m sure this is a copy of the older Hasegawa kit with engraved panel lines and modified wings (4 parts instead of 2).

I won’t bore you repeating what Mark wrote in his review of Hasegawa´s F-8E. Let’s instead point out the differences:

The two main wing halves are shortened up to the hinges, with each outer section being one-piece. A dry fit test revealed that the outer section chord is about 1mm (!) bigger than the thickness of the main wing. Not enough with that, the fit is very poor, leaving a wide gap at the hinges. I aligned the parts flush on the upper side, keeping the 1mm-step on the lower side, were it is less noticeable.
The fit of the whole wing to the fuselage is very bad, again showing a big step on the front join ( I wanted my model with wings not tilted) and leaving wide gaps at the rear wing roots area. Even the Motor-tool with a grind disk came to work here (!)
The panel for the refueling receptacle is molded integrally with the left fuselage half and is denoted by engraved lines.
There’s no indication that the rear fin tip fairing has to be removed (?).
I used an Aeroclub EJ004 seat (MB Mk-7).
I painted the outer exhaust cone with Humbrol 27003 Burnt steel metalizer.
For the upper surfaces I used Humbrol H40 light grey gloss, and for the lower ones H22 white gloss (two layers).
The framing of the canopy is a bit too heavy (IMHO).
With the main wheels sitting very off-center to the rear, no nose weight is needed.

I’m aware that I made many mistakes (e.g. I forgot to paint the upper side of the ailerons white), but I just wanted to finish the damn thing as soon as possible. Although the result looks acceptable, I didn’t enjoy with this project.

Colour Schemes:

Only one, no details given. Upper light grey, lower white.

Decals:

The usual paradox: a bad kit having great decals. They’re acceptable thin, not too shinny, rich in color and with absolutely transparent carrier film. Some stencils included. They performed superbly.

Conclusions:

There are either easier-to-build oldies (Hasegawa, Esci) or real state-of-art versions (Academy, Italeri) out there. Forgett about these pretender. Definitely not recomended!

References:

“Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aviation”, Aerospace Publishing Ltd London, (Spanish version), Volume 12.

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