Miniwing 1/144 Republic F-84G Thunderjet
By Matt Bittner
Introduction
The Republic F-84 was actually a World War II proposal for a "day fighter" but didn't fly until 1946 and unfortunately it was plagued by a number of problems. The F-84 only recovered favor starting with the 'D' model and the definitive straight-wing version was the F-84G. It flew over 86,000 missions over Korea during the Korean War and wasn't limited to just ground attack; the type also shot down a number of MiGs. The F-84G was also the first aircraft the USAF Thunderbirds flew.
The Kit
The Miniwing 1/144 Republic F-84G Thunderjet consists of 16 pieces of cream-colored resin, one clear-resin canopy and one vacuum-formed canopy. Since I'm covering both Minwing releases the first kit, "mini080", has decals for both a USAF aircraft that served in Korea as well as a Greek aircraft. The second kit, "mini082" comes only with Thunderbird markings.
Since the fuselage is one-piece construction should go quickly. Paint and install the one-piece cockpit (remembering to add the decal instrument panel and seat belts/seat cushion) and once you glue the wings and horizontal tail surfaces to the fuselage you have a complete airframe. You may want to leave the under-wing external tanks off until after painting but adding the wing-tip tanks might be best to glue on prior to painting.
Thankfully all new Miniwing kits now come with their own canopy masks. So once you decide on which canopy you want to use (clear-resin vs. vacuum-formed) and since they're both molded "closed" you could also glue the canopy on prior to painting and mask it, that way you can paint the frames the same time as the rest of the airframe.
You'll definitely want to leave off the landing gear until last, though, just to be sure you don't knock them off prior to painting.
Conclusion
I'm glad for this release from Minwing as we finally have a decent F-84G in 1/144. All you'll need to decide is which boxing to buy: "operational" or Thunderbird markings.
Huge thanks to Miniwing for sending these Thunderjets in for review. Note you can purchase these – post free – through Kits-Shop.