Design of what would become the F-80 began in 1943. But it was in Korea that the Shooting Star became a combat veteran as a ground-attacker.
HobbyBoss’ first release of the Shooting Star is the F-80A. Six sprues of gray plastic feature incredibly petite engraved panel lines for 1/48 scale. However, the plastic’s grainy texture requires extra work for a natural-metal finish.
The kit is actually an F-80C in a box marked “F-80A.” The A model had the landing light in the nose, a World War II-style seat, and no hard points under the wings. The kit has a radome nose, a C-model seat, and wing pylons and ordnance. Instructions show the correct pitot in the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer, but they also show an F-80C’s pitot under the nose.
I started with the ordnance. You’re given a choice of bombs or drop tanks for the wing pylons, and either P-38-style or Misawa tanks for the wingtips. The tank halves met nicely at their centers but had gaps at both ends. Clamping the ends tight pushed the center seams out of alignment, making the Misawa tanks useless.
Moving back to Step 1, the cockpit, I found the pilot’s seat was overcomplicated (though it looks good when finished). Be careful with the three-piece gunsight — those tiny parts are easy to lose. The decals for the instrument panel fought me all the way but eventually were subdued with Solvaset.
In Step 2, the instructions show the front gear-well and the finished cockpit as a single unit. But there are no locators to connect the pieces as shown. I placed the cockpit in its fuselage locators without glue, glued the gear well in the right fuselage half, then removed the cockpit and closed but did not glue the fuselage. I held the wheel well in place until the glue set, ensuring proper alignment before gluing the fuselage. I saved the landing gear until final assembly.
At first I thought I would depict the aircraft undergoing engine maintenance. But there is no provision for mounting the engine and full tailpipe to the forward fuselage; the tailpipe is secured in the rear fuselage.
I built the wings as directed but left off the ordnance and gear until after painting. However, when I tried to join the wings to the fuselage, either the tops of the wings matched the roots or the bottom matched the fuselage. I went for the wing roots and used layers of Mr. Surfacer to smooth out the 1⁄16" step on the underside. Next time, I would glue the lower wing to the fuselage first, then mate the upper wings to the roots and trailing edge. This would leave a gap at the leading edge that would be much easier to shim and fill.
I was able to press-fit the horizontal stabilizers, allowing me to attach them without glue after painting. I primed with Mr. Surfacer 1200. After dealing with four sink marks in the nose and polishing the primer smooth, I airbrushed Tamiya gloss black as a base for a natural-metal finish of Alclad II airframe aluminum.
The Alclad II paint’s smoothness made gloss before decals uneccessary. The insignia are oversized compared to the markings instructions. Confused, I refloated and lifted them several times. Finally I applied the fuselage stripes, trimming and shaping them to match the instructions, and placed the insignia as the markings guide originally showed. The decals held up incredibly well. The tail stripes required trimming but settled down with multiple applications of Solvaset.
Install parts C3 and C6 (main gear doors) before the landing gear. (I learned this the hard way.) The main landing gear, doors, and well have locators for proper alignment and firm attachment. Not so the front gear doors, which makes assembly tricky. Be careful removing Part A7 from the sprue; I accidentally cut off the locator pins.
The plane’s stance is too level — the nose should be up a little — but this could be easily corrected by slightly shortening the main gear.
To weight the nose, I coated small fishing sinkers in super glue and dropped them in the nose before adding the radome cover (Part G2).
The engine intakes look too round, there are some confusing construction options, the grainy plastic requires extra prep, and the stance needs correcting. Still, this is a good kit. The surface detail and fit is light-years ahead of the old Monogram model. I hope when HobbyBoss releases this as an F-80C they include a pair of Fletcher-style tip tanks.
Note: A version of this review appeared in the February 2014 FineScale Modeler.