These are the old Esci F86E and relatively new Hasegawa F86F Sabres. The long out of production Esci kit was obtained quite cheaply from a local hobby shop. The Hasegawa kit was not!

Esci had moulded the kit in a lurid blue colour which apparently befitted the kit decals which were for an Italian Air Force "Frecce Tricolori" F86 display bird.  

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The kit was assembled out of the box with the addition of a resin cockpit from "True Details", which was carved to fit the Esci internal contours. Once assembled the airframe received several coats of Halfords grey spray primer to eliminate the blue plastic colour, followed by sprayed coats of "Nissan Silver". Wing and fuselage panels were picked out with Humbrol metalcote before the whole thing was polished with SNJ powder. The FOD covers are from the Hasegawa kit.

I used aftermarket decals by "Check Six" to represent an F86 of the 25th FIS/51st FIW flying in Korea during 1951.

The Hasegawa F86F is a more sophisticated kit than the Esci one and was built straight out of the box.  The same painting method was applied and I used Aeromaster decals to represent an F86F flying in Korea circa 1952.

Darius Aibara

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