1/48 Sword T-38 Talon 

by Andreas "Goggo" Gordes

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This is not a good kit. If you belong to those lucky guys that spend their time exclusively with Tamiya or Hasegawa kits, then watch the photos but don't read on. If you seek for food in trash cans like me, now here is what I found:

The Sword T-38 is based on the Classic Airframes F-5B twin seater. The only difference is the intakes, the speedbrakes and the wings. They did a smart job combining all those kits. This should be a kick for the big manufacturers, because there is still space for a good F-5/T-38 series.

I talked to Willy Peeters (thank you for signing my book, Willy) and he shared my opinion that the Sword T-38 has a wrong shape and wrong engravings.

The biggest joke of this kit is the undercarriage. Mine had parts in different sizes. I searched my other F-5 kits whether I took parts from there, but I didn't. The main gear just fits different. The nose gear door for example is plain and straight, although - be honest - the forward fuselage of a T-38 is somewhat rounded or curved? Parts do not fit often in this kit. This goes especially for the canopy. I would say there is no relation between the clear parts and the fuselage parts. I would almost judge this as the worst kit in my life - but wait - there is also a Classic Airframes F-5 in the rig.

The kit contains the new style ejection seats, so you need to go for a newer T-38.

Click on images below to see larger images

I love the Talon! If there was a good kit from Tamiya or Hasegawa I for sure would build a NASA White Beauty, a SR-71 chaser in black, an aggressor and a NATO trainer. But with the Sword kit this plan settled with just one German AF T-38A with decals from SuperScale (48-905).

If you ever build a BMF or all white aircraft model, you need to add some rivet detail and weather them down. Otherwise your finished model would look like those massive mahagonyi wood models you find in aviation stores. Add the rivet detail with a small needle wheel. You can follow the engravings left and right, I don't even use a ruler for this. Riveting your kit would take an hour or so and looks great. After painting and decaling I washed the model with black aquarells and wiped it all off with a wet paper cloth. Sealing with Future. I like the result, although: This is not a good kit.

Andreas

Photos and text © by Andreas "Goggo" Gordes