1/48 Revell/ Monogram F-89C Scorpion finished

Great job on the NMF Eric it looks awesome,very nicely done Sir!

That is one beautiful Scorpion! I really like the markings, & great job on the N/M finish.

Yeah, that is what I remember too.  At first it looked like the tip tank was pulling away, but then the whole wing followed!  And, it suddenly rolled so quickly that the fuselage broke off right behind wing and the  three pieces fell into parking lot. I'm sure it didn't really take long to hit the ground- it was only a couple hundred feet u[ when it came apart.  But it is one of those things- it seemed to be happening in slow motion.  My buddy and I just stood there in the stands transfixed.  The major portion of fuselage and right wing fell into a National Guard ammunition dump, started a big fire, with ammo popping off.  The authorities had a major crowd control problem!

Wow, Don!  Were you there when it actually happened?  That's got to be surreal to see something like that happen right before your eyes.  I can't even begin to imagine what that would be like.  It's one of those things that I think I could happily live the rest of my life without ever seeing.  Seeing the picture of that particular F-89 at the instant the wings came off is tragic enough.

From what I understand, the issue with the early F-89s was due to their wing tip tanks.  The tanks caused an oscillation which caused undue twisting stress on the wing.  When that F-89 crashed at the airshow, as you had noted, the wings just came right off.  Fins were later added to the end of the tanks, the wings were reinforced and that seems to have solved the issue.

Eric

Looks great!  I used to really love that aircraft until I saw one crash at an air show, killing  the two people in the plane and destroying several spectators cars in the parking lot.  The wing just came off while it was flying straight and level- turns out there was a flaw in the design of the wing.  It was corrected eventually, but the shock to this teenager-at-the-time kind of turned me off to the airplane.

Nice looking bird!

Mike

Thanks Gary!  I'm so very jealous that you have one in your stash!  I'd love to have yet another one in mine.  It's a ton of fun to build.

I know mine has some details on it that I should have omitted in order to make it a true "C" variant.  The "C" didn't have those two small dorsal scoops between the canopy and the tail.  On a previous "C" that I built a couple of years ago, I filled the hole and sanded it down but I just didn't feel like dealing with it on this build.  While I know I should strive for accuracy, sometimes I jus want to build for the fun of the build.

Also, I'm not 100% sure about the rocket stubs.  For the longest time, I was under the impression that the "C" version did not have rocket stubs.  I had read that they were only present on the "A" and "B" versions.  But then I read another source not long ago that said the stubs were present on the "C".  So maybe they were on early version of the "C" but not on later??  Not totally sure.  I've seen builds where people have shaved them off but, again, I just wasn't in the mood to shave off the eight pairs of rocket stubs so I left them on.

I love the Scorpion and I hope to see yours posted on here real soon!

Eric

That looks great Eric!  Very nice finish, and I(same as your daughters) like the markings too.  I have this kit in the stash and your build is an inspiration for sure.  Thanks for sharing!

Gary