One aircraft that was well used during its active career is the F-105 Thunderchief. Over half of the production run was lost during the Vietnam war leaving darn few of them to carry on post-war with ANG or Reserve units. They soldiered on until the early 1980s when it was just too expensive to keep them maintained and they were retired to the boneyard and museums.

Probably the first really effective Wild Weasel, the EF-105F and F-105G wrote the book on SAM suppression in the USAF, replacing the F-100Fs that had originally been modified to take care of the mission. They were replaced by the even more effective F-4G that, unfortunately, arrived too late to see action in Vietnam, but proved itself to be quite capable in Desert Storm. The F-4G was retired without any really effective replacement.

This is a pretty old Microscale sheet that may be very difficult to find. However, if you are into two seat F-105s in 1/72 scale, this is a sheet you should seek out. There are four aircraft on this sheet. The drawings should just be used for general decal placement as they obviously don't show the variant named under the image.

The first is an F-105G of the 562nd TFS at George AFB in the types last years of active USAF service. Like all the others on this sheet, it is in standard SEA camouflage.

Next an F-105F of the 561st TFS when the weasels were at McConnell AFB in Kansas. This could be a G so it is important to check your references before building the model.

The 149 TFS Virginia ANG bird is undoubtedly an F-105F as they never flew the wild weasel mission.

Finally at 44 TFS F-105F, probably an EF-105F without the fuselage mounted antennas from Korat in Thailand during the Vietnam war.

Any of these schemes would make for a very nice model. Your only real choice in 1/72 is the long out of production Monogram kit, but these can usually be found at swap meets for 10-15 dollars.

Review copy courtesy of me and my wallet. 

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