1:48 F-84G

A straight wing in the time of swept fighters

Republic's Thunderjet stayed with a straight wing at the moment when its rivals were already moving to swept surfaces, and paid for it with weaker performance in air combat. It could do something else, though: it carried a load that in destructive power matched the heavy machines of the previous war. The letter G brought two fundamental novelties, namely a standard receptacle for refueling in flight and the ability to carry special munitions. Over 3000 were built and in the 1950s it formed the backbone of a number of European air forces.

Glazing above a pointed nose

The cockpit lies right behind the circular air intake, so the pilot sits practically on the tip of the fuselage. The windscreen is made of several flat panes with heavy frames and the sliding section is smooth by contrast. The combination of the two makes masking by hand an unpleasant job, because the transition between the framed and the smooth part has no guiding edge.

The scope of the covering supplied

The package holds shapes for the outside and matching pieces for the inner surfaces. The frame can therefore be colored before the clear part makes its way onto the fuselage. The outlines follow a particular molding, so there is no point tracing anything or trimming it with scissors.

How to lift the film off

Raise a corner with the tip of a scalpel and pull slowly at a slant across the surface, not straight up. A vertical pull takes the paint on the edge with it. On large pieces it helps to divide the pull into two stages and to take hold of the material again closer to the glass between them.