1:72 F-8 E Crusader - Undercarriage Bays Masks (for Academy kits)

The F-8E Crusader: covering the bays for the model from Academy

This variant of the covering set is prepared for the seventy-second scale kit of the Academy brand. It is stated because several otherwise identically named items differ precisely in the target model, and otherwise you would not tell them apart. The aircraft is obtained separately; this item is an aid for spraying alone.

Over Vietnam with cannon and missiles

It was with the Crusader precisely that it showed how valuable gun armament remained even at a time when air combat was expected to be handled entirely by guided missiles. Carrier squadrons flew it from ships in the Gulf of Tonkin from the middle of the 1960s and credited themselves with a high number of kills in relation to their own losses. The pilots praised the type for its brisk agility, while at the same time it had a reputation as a machine that does not forgive mistakes when landing on a deck. Besides the fighter sub-versions, an unarmed photo-reconnaissance series served too, with cameras in the forward fuselage, which brought back photographs of areas no other machine reached. In French naval aviation, modified Crusaders stayed in service until the turn of the millennium.

The sequence of steps when spraying

First finish the inside of the landing gear space including the shading, then lay the covering on and turn to the outside. Hold the airbrush further from the edge and lower the pressure; the sharp transition gains further by it. If you are building a model with a different color on the underside and the spine, leave a longer pause between the individual shades.

Who to recommend it to

• Builders who have the kit from Academy mentioned at home
• Fans of naval aviation from the period of the fighting in Southeast Asia
• Modelers who want the underside of a model free of blurred boundaries
• Those who would rather fit a ready-made shape than cut tape