My F-104 Took a near fatal tumble the other day......

JoeS · Post by **JoeS** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 7:27 am

Just wanted to share my pain of my USAF F-104 diving off the ironing table and landing on its gear to shatter in several pieces. My fault as I was clearing my place and balanced the bird precariously, anyway my butt nudged the table and the F-104 ...sniff...sob.....had a flame out and fell.

Well after the shock of seeing the thing lying in pieces I gathered my senses and tentatively examined the rudely disassembled bird. It wasn't as bad as I thought, the wings had pulled out, one drop tank had also been released, all flaps and slats had popped out, but no damage to the paintwork! So then I espied the landing gear- my heart sank the main molded hinge of one leg had broken off! So the main leg just dangled uselessly, being limply held by the spring support arm. Briefly contemplated just having this as a 'wheels-up' display bird but then thought it needed a repair.

Reason I'm posting is to say that this thing is tough! It had fallen close to 4 feet to impact upon a hard uncarpeted floor. Anyway I managed to prise out the springed support arm from the damaged leg, This allowed me to remove the leg completely. Made sure that the spring support didn't disappear into the depths of the fuselage by inserting a brass tube into the mounting hole. I have found that model aircraft cement is best, mixed with some thick superglue you get a very strong bond indeed. This is because the mating surfaces will melt and fuse together. I used the mixture and fixed the hinge, thinking ahead that if this did not work I'd fashion a brass hinge. Anyway it did so I snapped the repaired leg on its hinged and re-attached the spring support and now it's sitting pretty and the landing gear cycles as it did before. Phew! That was a close one and a lesson of only placing clothes upon ironing tables as opposed to your beloved 1/18 scale models!

Regards and Happy New Year to all

JoeS

tmanthegreat · Post by **tmanthegreat** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:09 pm

I agree that the F-104 is tough. I had a similar experience last August, when my F-104 fell from my bedroom ceiling. The nose cone came off and the tip of the stiff pitot tube broke off, but there was not other serious damage! I guess the fact that it landed on the foot of my bed helped a little.

Website · Post by **Teamski** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 5:37 pm

Amazing. The 1:18 version of the F-104 has just as high of an accident rate as the real thing!! As mentioned in another thread, I grabbed mine by the nose, stupidly I might add, and the plane fell to the floor snapping the nose landing gear strut into 3 pieces. I haven't gone out to get glue for it, but man was I ticked!!!!

-Ski

Post by **p51** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 12:20 am

tmanthegreat wrote:I agree that the F-104 is tough. I had a similar experience last August, when my F-104 fell from my bedroom ceiling. The nose cone came off and the tip of the stiff pitot tube broke off, but there was not other serious damage! I guess the fact that it landed on the foot of my bed helped a little.

Be glad you were not in the bed either

He he

tmanthegreat · Post by **tmanthegreat** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 9:49 am

p51 wrote: Be glad you were not in the bed either He he

Yeah, I know! That's what scares me about my BBI F-16 - its hanging right over my head when I sleep! Luckily it has a huge hook and has not fallen once in the year or so its been hanging on my ceiling.

Website · Post by **Teamski** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 5:57 pm

I finally glued my nose gear together and all is well with the world.

I didn't realize that the pilot ejected downward instead of up.... Interesting!

-Ski

tmanthegreat · Post by **tmanthegreat** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:34 pm

That was true for the F-104 variants up through the C series. However, if I recall correctly, that feature was changed in some C variants up through the later models to an upward firing ejection seat.

The seat on the XD F-104 doesn't actually come out downward does it?

yappy · Post by **yappy** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 9:13 pm

Your right the XD F-104 is a tough one. Believe the box my F-104 came in either had a bird strike or ground taxi accident. I found it in the discount section of WMT probably because the clear display window was missing from the box. I think the pilot must have ejected sometime during his journey in WMT because his helmet and parachute was missing. He even took the pitot tube with him. Must have returned for duty later because he was still strapped in to the box when I bought it? Anyways fixed the pitot tube problem. Took a ball point pen refill, cut it to size and and used it for a pitot tube. Looks great. WMT discount price $29.

Website · Post by **Teamski** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 4:17 am

That's a great idea yappy! I wouldn't of thought of that. Welcome to the board!!

Tman, yes, there is a (non-opening) hatch on the bottom of the fuselage for the ejection seat.......

-Ski

LeChat · Post by **LeChat** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 3:40 pm

In response to Yappy's post, I believe the helmet, parachute, and pitot tubes came in a little bag, floating about freely in the box, so little wonder it got "lost" when the clear plastic window was removed. In fact, the two boxes I have seen both had loose windows. I looked the one I bought over very carefully, but what a great plane!

yappy · Post by **yappy** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:04 pm

Check out the 1/12 scale Esci F-104 Ejection seat model at the Aircraft Resource Center website (Monday Jan 9 2006 archive). Don't think 21st will ever reach this level of detail but possible aftermarket opportunity for someone to produce thin plastic insert(s) painted or unpainted that slide right into the XD F-104 cockpit and capture the same detail as the Esci kit.

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/