Deployed to Yankee Station off the USS Oriskany, Carrier Air Wing 16 (CVW-16) began its second tour over the skies of North Vietnam in May 1966. CVW-16 equipped two notable fighter squadrons, the VF-162 “Hunters” and the VF-111 “Sundowners.” Both flew the F-8 Crusader, the Navy’s premiere air superiority fighter. Famously known for being armed primarily with cannons in the age of guided missiles, Crusaders saw much of the early air-to-air engagement over Vietnam.

The jets and pilots of these squadrons were some of the most iconic to fly the Crusader. VF-162 livery honored their namesake, Orion the Hunter, with the yellow stars over black motif. VF-111 famously wore the aggressive “sharkmouth” around the intake, and later the “sunset” tail. Among their ranks were CDR Richard Bellinger and LCDR Richard Schaffert, who fought in some of the most storied air engagements of the war.

The fighters were joined by A-4 Skyhawks and A-1 Skyraiders from Attack Squadrons 163, 164, and 152, who delivered ordnance during Operation Rolling Thunder. There was also Detachment G, a composite of fixed and rotary wing aircraft from various squadrons that handled missions such as reconnaissance, search and rescue, and electronic warfare. The navy recce mission was firmly the job of the RF-8, which had a fuselage modified to accommodate many camera ports. RF-8Gs from Light Photographic Squadron 63 (VFP-63) provided critical imagery for CVW-16’s missions.

VFP-63, a.k.a. the “Eyes of the Fleet,” was as busy as any aircraft unit over Vietnam, and exposed to hazards more often than anyone else. Attack squadrons needed knowledge of their targets, before and after their missions were complete. Reconnaissance aircraft had the unenviable duty of photographing battle damage assessments in addition to their prior photo runs to locate the enemy, exposing them to enemy territory twice over. They also continued launching for missions even if bombing was suspended, such was the constant importance of intelligence.

The longstanding motto of recce pilots across the armed services was “alone, unarmed, and unafraid,” although many pilots would dispute the “unafraid” aspect or mean it sardonically. RF-8s also often had F-8 fighter escorts by their side, mainly to keep the threat of marauding VPAF MiGs at bay. This did little however to mitigate the more prescient threat of anti-aircraft artillery that the North Vietnamese had in ever growing numbers and distribution. Nonetheless, F-8s from CVW-16 would often join RF-8s on their photo runs, chasing them over unimaginably hostile territory.

RF-8 pilot Lt. Andre Coltrin flew many such missions on this 1966 cruise. One particular photo run on August 17, 1966, was particularly dangerous, flown through hills and valleys littered with enemy antiaircraft guns. His RF-8, BuNo. 146871, was rocked constantly by flak. To simply survive, Coltrin took his aircraft as low as he possibly could. Cannons were firing at him from hills above, and his cameras snapped closeup photos of objects like clothelines. Coltrin pulled off from his photo run, his RF-8 battered but still flying, and returned safely to his carrier with his escort, Air Force exchange officer Capt. Will Abbot. Protecting these hazardous photo runs were routine missions for F-8 pilots, with LCDR Schaffert saying he had “chased Andre across the Thanh Hoa Bridge and uptown Haiphong more times than I care to remember.”  

Many other RF-8 drivers would not be so lucky, as losses for recon jets would mount over the next few years. Abbot himself was shot down by a MiG and captured, imprisoned for the rest of the war. The USS Oriskany’s 1966 cruise was also beset by a deadly fire that claimed the lives of 44 crew. This would be one of several deployments of great hardship for the Oriskany crews and CVW-16 during the Vietnam War.

Following their 1968 cruise with heavy losses, CVW-16 was disestablished in 1971, with some of its constituent squadrons such as VF-162 disestablished as well, although VF-111 and VFP-63 continued to serve for several more decades. The Oriskany would see scaled back operations in WESTPAC until she was decommissioned in 1976. She currently rests at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef.

With Sword releasing the first injection molded RF-8 in any scale, I decided to expand my modeling interest into 1/72 and give the kit a try. Sword released two kits, and you can read my preview for them here:.

The RF-8 will need some company on the shelf, so Academy’s F-8E was a natural choice. Still generally considered the best F-8E in this scale, I happened to nab a VF-111 “special edition.” This kit was previewed by M2 Editor Scott and can be read here. 

After reading about the dangerous exploits of Coltrin and his escorts in Osprey’s RF-8 Crusader Units Over Vietnam and Cuba, I was inspired to build a particular jet that flew over both countries, depicted on the cover of the book: BuNo 146871. This aircraft happens to be one of the decal options in the RF-8 over Cuba boxing, albeit with different livery, numbers and fonts from its time as an RF-8A. However, with a little help from decals in the Vietnam boxing and a 1/72 scale version of Furball’s MiG Masters sheet, I would have everything needed make an accurate representation of 146871 as an RF-8G in 1966.

Inspiration continued to guide me to attempt my first ever double build: an RF-8 with an F-8E escort. The Academy jet would be a VF-111 F-8E flown off the Oriskany in 1966. For the F-8E, you would think the VF-111 decals from the limited-edition box would be perfect, but there are inaccuracies such as wingtip decal shape and color of the markings. The blended “AH” tail codex font was too “thin” and would look inconsistent. Fortunately, I managed to get my hands on a second Furball sheet which has the appropriate VF-111 markings, meaning this idea can be fully realized.

These jets would look great in flight together, so I found some resin Navy pilots from PJ Productions. Other aftermarket included Master pitot probes, Eduard ejection seat handles, and New Ware kabuki masks. Time to double build!

Modelers do double builds, or “batch build” for many reasons, such as comparing kits from different companies, making multiple planes with similar schemes at once, or for the challenge. For this build, it’s all the above and more. Right away, there’s some differences to account for between the Sword and Academy kits, but being variants of the same aircraft, they conveniently follow similar construction steps and are painted the same colors. Although 20 years older, the Academy kit generally has more refined details than the short-run Sword, with finer panel lines and rivet details. The RF-8 kit lacks any rivet details; in spite of this difference, I chose not to take on riveting for this project.

In starting on the cockpits, the tub and instrument panels between the two have different dimensions and levels of detail. The Sword kit includes a nice resin ejection seat that I opted not to use, instead replacing it with the seat from another Academy F-8. Seat detail would be mostly obscured by the pilot, and the Academy seats would be easier to fit the pilots in. I’ll save the Sword seat for a future F-8 build.

The resin pilots were trimmed and assembled. They further needed shaving around their legs and butts to fit them into the seats. I also made the choice of cutting out the forward section of the cockpit tubs—it was that or their feet to make things fit (either way, not a visible area). Painting the cockpits was typical Gunze 317 (Dark Gull Grey, FS36231) and Tamiya Flat Black for instrument panels, with details like switches and dials picked with white, red, and yellow.

The real effort went into painting the pilots. Drawing inspiration from the Osprey F-8 and RF-8 books, I went with a couple different looks so there would be both variety and historical interest. I painted both pilot uniforms Tamiya Buff tan, and their flight suits Gunze OD. Using a fine detail brush, I added spots of brown and OD to the F-8 pilot’s uniform to represent the Army uniforms some wore (see Dick Schaffert’s uniform in the Osprey F-8 book). The front of Schaffert’s helmet was also painted with a “sunset” design. I probably spent more time repainting and fussing with the pilot helmets than anything else in this stage of the build. For the RF-8 pilot, I chose to make his uniform and helmet plain tan and white respectively. I found this to be fitting based on pictures from the Osprey RF-8 book, and the completely nondescript appearance of Det G aircraft at the time—you get the sense things were a little “no-frills” for these recce guys.

After I was satisfied with painting the pilots, the cockpits were assembled and given a wash of brown and black. The seats were also dry brushed with silver and given some Eduard ejection seat handles. My attention turned to assembling the internal parts of the fuselage. The parts for the main gear bay and air intake are similar between RF-8 and F-8, although Sword’s kit has no locator pins anywhere. Fit nonetheless is quite good if care is taken to remove things like the large ejector pin marks—dry fitting is your friend.

At this point, the RF-8’s added complexity of camera systems and windows paced construction of the two planes. There are interior bulkheads that form an assembly with the air intake, which also connect to parts that double as nose gear bay walls and walls for the camera bays. Clear plastic windows were also installed on the sides of the forward fuselage. (These windows were a constant nag throughout the build, as they easily popped out if I gripped the plane in the wrong place. Inserting them from the outside of the aircraft is a painful exercise, as is avoiding paint and glue smudges.) In gluing the two halves together, the F-8E was an easier job, although its gear bay was a very snug fit. The RF-8 fit nicely despite lacking locator pins, as the internal parts mostly helped guide the halves together. Trickier is the large clear part that contains many camera windows and the gear bay. I also drilled out the holes in both planes for the ventral strakes, cooling scoops, and missile rails. The RF-8 also needed some filling and sanding of gaps around the intake.

Since these jets are in flight, I put a great deal of work into trimming and sanding the gear bay doors. They are not meant to be displayed closed, so there’s quite a bit of large gaps to be filled and scribed. I stuffed the bays with wads of Blutak, which does a nice job of keeping the doors in place for gluing. A great deal of time building them went into just making sure they were flush and scribed.

The canopies were masked and attached. I struggled particularly with fitting the rear bulkhead into the RF-8’s canopy (Sword was kind enough to mail a replacement after I cracked one). The RF-8’s canopy also isn’t meant to fit closed, so I had the added challenge of carefully shaping and shaving it into place. The wings assembled easily, with the one modification removing the fictional raised area along the folding wing joints.

The typical F-8 Light Gull Grey over Insignia White (both Gunze Aqueous) went on these two, with some slight differences in markings on the canopy frames and noses. The RF-8 had a black taper down the nose, with light tan on the very tip. I also painted an anti-glare flat black section ahead of the bottom camera fairing. The decals were from a combination of Furball’s 1/72 version of their MiG Master sheet, the Academy sheet, and decals from both of Sword’s RF-8 kits. I trimmed certain numbers out of the sheets to make all the correct markings for 146871, including flipping a “9” to make a “6” for the nose numbers. Sword’s decal sheet doesn’t have a complete set of stencils, so they were taken from other sheets. As I mentioned previously, the inaccurate Academy VF-111 decals were omitted in favor of Furball’s. I moderately weathered the planes with some Tamiya pastels. I also used Tamiya Grey Panel Line Accent Color, more heavily on the RF-8, since I found its panel lines stood out less than the Academy kit. They were both hit with some semigloss to seal everything up.

I removed the paint masks to reveal some struggles. Paint flecks found their way into the canopies, despite my best efforts to seal them. Paint smudges also found their way into the RF-8’s camera windows. Quite a bit of time went into trying to fix them, and in the end, I had to replace a couple with Krystal Klear. Not the pristine appearance I was hoping for, but better than glue and paint scuffs.

The canopies of both planes were popped off and cleaned, and in hindsight it might have been preferable to just attach these at the end. The F-8E got its missiles attached. I drilled holes in the bottom of each plane and attached them to blocks of particle board painted to resemble the ocean below.

This was quite a modeling adventure and challenge to take on. Although it was fun to compare them side by side, I’d recommend taking on the Sword RF-8 without the added complexity of building another plane alongside it. That said it really looks the part when complete. Just take your time putting it together and be especially careful with the clear parts for the camera windows. The Academy kit is not without its accuracy warts and has a few foibles, but it was mostly pleasant to put together. It was especially fun to put on the decals and give them historical character. Overall, I’m happy I got to portray these CVW-16 planes the way I envisioned. It also was very cool to get to build an RF-8, and in a unique scheme. I highly recommend both kits for anyone who likes Naval Aviation.

1. F-8 Crusader Units of the Vietnam War (Osprey Combat Aircraft 7). Peter Mersky (1998).

2. RF-8 Crusader Units over Cuba and Vietnam (Osprey Combat Aircraft 12). Peter Mersky (1999).

3. F-8 Crusader – Walk Around No. 38. Squadron/Signal. Ed Barthalmes (2005).

4. F-8 & RF-8 Crusader in Detail & Scale. Bert Kinzey & Rock Roszack (2019).

5. F-8 Crusader vs. MiG-17: Vietnam 1965-72 (Duel). Peter Merskey (2014).

Hans Gertje

27 February 2025