AIRFIX 1:72 F-86D SABRE "DOG"

Reviewer: Myself  (braithy@bigpond.com)

The F-86D Sabre variant (or Sabre Dog as it was popularly known) was the all weather Sabre variant, the most numerically built and also the first major redesign of the basic Sabre.  In fact only 25% of the original remained untouched (mainly being wings and undercarriage).  At the time of it's first flight the USAF regarded it as a new fighter plane altogether and issued it the designation of F-95A but politics played the part in it being redesignated to F-86D as it was far more easier to get funds for an existing aircraft than for new ones.  When it was introduced to the USAF it became an aircraft with the achievement of a number of "firsts" - two examples being that it was the first single seat all weather (or night) fighter and the first fighter to dispense with guns, carrying rocket armament only.  The Sabre Dog was designed to shoot down bombers and thus the gun was replaced with the folding fin aircraft rockets below the cockpit.  The nose radome which extended our over the nose air-intake was the most distinguishable feature of this aircraft and this is where all the wizardry was kept to enable the airplane to take on all weather capabilities.  The F-86D set new world speed air records, replacing the F-86A marks, with the best being 1151.8 km/h in mid 1953 (this didn't last long as the Hawker Hunter broke this attempt a few months later).

The Kit I have managed to pick up is a very old OOP Airfix F-86D kit (some 1976 circa) but I have been told that the same parts that are used in this kit are on the shelves now.  I'm also lead to believe that the kit is no longer being produced but a visit to the local hobby shop recently told me otherwise with a couple of examples sitting on the shelves.  Didn't have a real close look at them but one guesses that they must be absolutely caked in dust (and cobwebs!).

This kit is typical of Airfix mid 70's quality:  finely raised panel lines, very soft medium grey (almost metallic looking) parts in a small airfix box.  You have to be careful when removing parts from the sprue as they can gouge pretty easily - a precaution I have always taken with Airfix. The parts also just come on their sprues in the box - ie: no packaging bag for them. Cockpit detail is sparse but you are provided a floor to attach a seat (pilot figure provided) and joystick to.  A small instrument panel is also included with dials raised on the panel itself, including a large round Central Display screen that is a bit out of proportion but nonetheless adds an extra dimension to the cockpit detail.

The front air intake internal trunk sits against the front wall of the cockpit and the instructions were a bit unclear to which side the intake and conversely cockpit unit are attached to.  Since the wall is attached to the cockpit base and the intake trunk stretches down to the nose, I did a dry fit first to work out which way the wall faces (highly recommended).  Both sides of the wall look identical and it is not possible to explain the correct placement in writing (without pictures), but when you attach these components you will see that doing it the wrong way round is going to cause you problems.   Inside the fuselage are alignment rails to set the cockpit unit, air intake subassembly and exhaust wall onto which made it easy to ensure everything sits correctly.   The first problem to be struck is when you join the fuselage halves together.   Even though all the components fit correctly onto the alignment rails on the other fuselage half, I found that no matter what I did, there was going to be a small gap in the aircraft's belly (aside from where the plastic stand goes).  I didn't do any sanding down of the cockpit unit or intake to make a better fit because I could see that there was no way to overcome this gap.  With enough pressure and the simple use of rubber bands to act as clamps, the gap is very small and will only require a tiny bit of putty to fix.   Fitting the wings and rear stabilisers to the assembly was pretty straight forward but will need the right care to ensure all are positioned carefully while it dries - it's easy to slip up (or down).

The kit comes with a few optional parts apart from raised/lowered undercarriage and open/closed cockpit  :) .  The speed brakes can be positioned opened or shut - if you do the latter the brakes fit very nicely into their panel.   The rocket armament which is the unique part of this aircraft and replaces the cannon, can also be positioned in the firing position.  Basically this sits in an extended pod underneath the aircraft right below the cockpit and is captured quite nicely in this kit.   If you decide to close it off and hide the rocket panel be sure to do a dry fit because it is slightly angled and needs to fit in a particular way around.  Both options provide no problems when fitting to the Airfix kit.

The whole assembly was a fairly painless exercise and makes into a mock up of the Sabredog relatively well.  It does seem a bit too bulky for my liking but other than that the lines are captured quite reasonably.  Two examples are produced by the kit, both silver/natural metal finish overall, one being and F-86D-60, 520th Fighter Interceptor Sqn, Geiger Field, Washington 1955 - complete with blue decalling including a blue tail with stars, a triple stripe on the fuselage and the all important sharks mouth.   The second example is an F-86D-50 of 512th Fighter Interceptor Sqn, 406th FIW, Manston 1956 and is a more blander looking plane as far as decalling is concerned.

Overall this was a pretty easy kit to slap together and can easily be a weekend project.  Problem lies with accuracy of the overall shape, it is bulky and doesn't look right - I have seen other modellers label this kit as 'awful' but personally I would not go quite that far.  If you are in the market for a Sabredog of any real decency then forget the Airfix offering and go straight to the recent Hasegawa release.  However, if you feel like a bit of a kit bash and aren't concerned about exactness for detail then this cheap and easy kit is a recommended build, an easy one for the novice.

Related Reviews:  Heller-Humbrol 1/72 F-86F Sabre   :  Academy 1/48 F-86F-30 Sabre

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Photo Credit: Unknown

This is an F-86D sabredog picture but the two examples the kit produces don't replicate this exact plane. 
In one example you have the exact same colour scheme with FU-845 appearing on the nose and subtract the red
decals and replace with blue fin containing stars, triple blue stripe on fuselage and the effervescent sharks mouth!