Model Art

Profile: F-104 Starfighter of JASDF, F-104J/F-104DJ

Reviewed By  Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP: 2500 Japanese yen (approximately $25.95 USD) 136 pages, softcover with 1/48 scale line drawings Imported by Dragon Models USA: www.dragonmodelsusa.com The Japanese Air Self Defense Air Force (JASDF) had the F-86 as their first jet fighter. The Sabres went into Japanese service in 1955. They began their search for a replacement in 1956. The candidates the JASDF committee looked at were the North American F-100, Convair F-102, Lockheed F-104, Northrop N156 (F-5A) and Grumman F11F-1. The original choice was the Grumman F11F-1 Tiger, but there was a huge uproar about the selection process, and an inquiry which reached up into the Diet (Japanese parliament) and the Prime Minister’s office. The entire process was repeated and this time the Lockheed F-104 was the choice. Lockheed delivered the first three F-104Js as finished aircraft. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries assembled the first 17 from Lockheed-built components and built 190 complete F-104Js. There were 20 F-104DJs, which were built by Lockheed, as the JASDF wanted the trainers delivered first. Adding on my fingers, there were 210 F-104Js in service. The J79 engines were license-built in Japan by Ishikawajima Harina Heavy Industries. The last Japanese F-104s in service were UF-104s, which were radio-controlled targets. The last of which was destroyed in March of 1997. AN OPINION The F-104 seems like a perfect aircraft for the JASDF. Even when equipped for air-to-ground, it wasn’t a very good tactical aircraft. It was designed as an interceptor, a defensive weapon, and adding bombs or other tactical weapons were just wrong. In the James Bond movie Goldfinger, Bond drove an Aston Martin that had an ejection seat, machine guns, a road oiler, and added armor. In a review in Car & Driver magazine, the lucky guy who got to drive it on the set said they had taken a zippy, clean handling sports car and made it into a vehicle which drove like a 4-cylinder pickup truck with a bed full of scrap metal. So Lockheed and Mitsubishi got it right for the F-104J and DJ. The DJ was the "family model", with 2 seats. Sidewinders and the gun were all the 104 needed. Anything else just weighed it down.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS If you’re planning on doing a large-scale F-104 in the near future, you would do well to buy this book. On page 34 the photographs start with a detailed look at the nose probe. On page 69, the photos are of the afterburner interior and variable thrust nozzle. On page 70, the DJ detail photos begin, and on 82 and 83 they cover a UF-104J. Of interest is that the F-104J is located at "Old Car Center Kudan". The first few pages have photos of operational aircraft. The photos are crisp, clear, and give you most of the information you need to do markings for the aircraft. I include this portion of one of the photographs because I think it will be of great interest to anyone who wants to build this particular aircraft for a contest. You will need this photo to prove that the aircraft you’re modeling actually did have decal silvering on the tail serial number. PROFILES Toward the end of its career, the F-104J/DJ had some interesting color schemes. There is a section of color profile drawings, most are 2-view, left and right sides, but some have 3-views, left, right and top. There are 17 different aircraft featured, running the gamut from the original 60s natural metal to the gray/gray schemes from the 1980s. Where there is only a 2-view, most have a color photo to help with markings. Also a very helpful feature is that any special markings and unit patches which appear in the profile are provided as separate drawings, allowing the manufacture of "home made" decals. In the page scan, note the insert in pale yellow which shows the correct spacing for the serial number. MODELER'S SECTION This is in two parts. The first part is a series of photos of F-104Js and DJs under construction. There’s a 1/32 J probably the Hasegawa kit, a 1/48 Hasegawa J (I know this because they show the boxart), a 1/48 DJ, a 1/72 Hasegawa J and a pair of 1/144 Js (one from Revell, the other by Platz/FToys). Aircraft 698 is the one featured in the photo coverage of the UF-104J. It’s nice to see that someone else does "Braille scale" too. I will not go into how much I suffered with the Crown kit, a 1977 issue in 1/144. The second part is a history of the F-104J kits available over the last 4 decades or so. They show boxtops, scales and dates, so you get an idea of when kits were released and in what scale. The 1963 Marusan kit was in the not-too-popular 1/80 scale and is the earliest they show. I remember building a Comet F-104 back in the late 50s, but that was an F-104A, not a J. Since this book was printed, Hasegawa has released a 1/72 double kit with a J and DJ. OVERALL EVALUATION Recommended. It’s a Japanese profile on a Japanese subject which overwhelms the reader with information. The photographs are excellent in both quality and general interest to the modeler. I wonder how that junkyard got their hands on a plane. If you’re going to spend big bucks on a state-of-the-art kit, the detail photos are well worth the price. Plus, if you’re looking for some color schemes that aren’t the same old OD/neutral gray, these will do nicely. Many thanks to Dragon USA for providing this useful book, and IPMS USA for letting me review it. The model pictured here is the Hasegawa F-104DJ kit I reviewed recently. The markings for this aircraft appear in the profile section of this book, as well as on the Hasegawa decal sheet.

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