1:48 F-105 Thunderchief exhaust nozzle for Revell/Monogram kit

The largest single-engine strike machine

The Republic F-105 Thunderchief was designed as a fast carrier of a nuclear bomb with an internal bomb bay, but history gave it a different role: over North Vietnam it flew the greater part of the conventional strike missions and its crews invented the craft of hunting radars. Among the airmen it earned the nickname Thud, and it remains the largest single-seat single-engine combat aircraft the US Air Force ever took into service.

Why replace the tail

The nozzle of the J75 engine was made up of a ring of movable petals ending in a wide hoop. Older molds dealt with this assembly as two halves glued together, so a visible seam remained in the middle and the wall came out unnaturally thick. A casting delivers it as a single unit with a thin edge and with a worked-out interior you can see into without the eye running up against a flat bulkhead.

Procedure

A dry test will show how much material has to be taken out of the opening in the fuselage. The inner surfaces are painted before the part is fitted, because afterwards neither a brush nor the nozzle of a spray gun will reach them. Metallic shades hold better on smooth resin when a thin undercoat precedes them. Leave the fitting itself as the last step of the build, so that the edge does not get scratched while the model is handled.

The detail that closes the view from behind

The Thunderchief tends to be displayed with its tail toward the room and a viewer looks into it almost every time. It is therefore worth doing without filler on the edge and relying on an exact fit, because every layer of material on the edge is visible from that angle. Anyone building the version intended for suppressing air defenses will appreciate that the tail can be finished separately and attached after the stores have been glued on.