A Scratchbuilt 1/24 F-105F |  |
Introduction
The F-105 Thunderchief always interested me, a former Navy pilot who wondered why - after I was off active duty - why the Air Force's Century Series fighters of the late 1950's - early 1960's were so much more powerful and faster than ours. I like very big, single seat, very fast aircraft and wanted to fly them but never really got close, and when the Century Series prototype fighters flew, I was amazed that the Navy was seemingly slow to match them in performance.
The Century Series came out after I left the Navy and it wasn't until the F-8 Crusader came out and then the outstanding F-4 Phantom II came out that I was proud that the Navy matched the Air Force in types of fighters. With the F-4, it beat the Air Force. (If you'll recall, the Navy loaned a couple of F-4's to the Air Force which called them F-110's. That's how the Air Force got started with the F-4.)
Of course an airframe the Navy needs for carrier work needs to be heavier and stronger than otherwise. The Navy's jet fighters of the early-to-mid 1950's were subsonic and rather small. I flew the Douglas F3D Skynight for less than a month's time in 1956 and its two engines put out 3,400 lbs. of thrust each and I was thrilled, humble and lucky to have had that much time in it because my job was single-engine prop stuff, namely the Douglas AD-6. So when the statistics of the F-105 showed that its engine put out 26,500 lbs. of thrust and that it flew at over 900 mph at sea level and its intakes and wing were beautiful works of art, well I was envious of all F-105 pilots.
The J-75 engine was used only in the F-105 and in the Navy's F8U-3 at that time, as I recall, and for Republic to build an airframe around the J-75 and sweep the wings and have the belly of the thing stand taller than a man, was to me an amazing development. Everyone has heard the old joke that if someone laid a runway around the equator, Republic would build a plane to use all of it on takeoff and landing.
Whatever may be said in criticism about the F-105, it has to be said that it was faster than anything else on the deck and it was no slouch high up.
Before I retired from my life's work, I asked Ron Lowry of Brampton, Ontario - a suburb of Toronto - to build a 105F. I liked to read about Leo Thorsness' Medal of Honor mission in Vietnam and wanted a model of the bird he flew on that mission. Most admirers of Leo Thorsness think he was flying an F-105G at the time of his Wild Weasel special mission but no, it was an F. And like my colleague Wes Schierman who flew 105's in Vietnam, Leo spent years in the Hanoi Hilton after being shot down. Like I told Wes, no man should have to go through what he and Leo went through. My view is that civilization is a thin surface of flotsam resting upon a sea of the darkness of the human soul. People in many countries do not regard human life the way Americans do. Life in the Hanoi Hilton is nearly indescribeable.
.
.
Ron did build the model for me. He had to vacu-form the fuselage because the model is in 1:24th scale and it is BIG ! I wanted it big. My eyes adjust better to 1:24th than they do to 1:72nd. Call me biased, call me prejudiced but understand that I like to see what I'm looking at, without using a microscope. Ron Lowry is one of the world's acknowledged masters of scratchbuilding and he had built other models for my collection, and the 105F was to be my final commission - for more reasons than age or retirement. I don't know all of the complications which arose in Ron's scratchbuilding such a large model other than the vacu-forming.
Obviously the landing gear have to be strong. But he got it right ! It is extremely well done, it is big and I can see every part of it and most impressive of all, it looks just like the F-105F Thorsness flew.
The last part of the story has to be: getting it home from Ron. He got the model to my sister's house in Detroit, Michigan and I flew there to spend time with her and her husband before I took the train home with the 105F. There was no other way. The box was too big for the overhead rack in an airliner and it wouldn't fit under the seat in front of me. I don't like buses and I wasn't going to drive that far and back to Seattle. Thus, AMTRAK. I enjoyed my first train trip in a deluxe compartment offered to me by Amtrak to drum up my interest in future travel.
.
.
In a house full of both my and my wife's belongings, the 105F has to be given what little spare space there is, and to be housed in a display case. Ron also agreed to my request to make a two-sided revetment and a couple pieces of ground equipment to make a diorama of sorts of all of it.
There you have the story behind what a crazy man like myself will do to rekindle his interest in big, fast, beautiful aircraft. I also like the Curtiss BF2C Goshawk which was big and fast for its time. One model at a time.
