New F-84 project

[Matt Olieman]

Nice update pics of your cockpit. Thanks Brad!!!!!

Matt O.

[Michael Carter]

Yeah, that really looks good. Lot's of cleanup, but that doesn't cost anything but your time.

Hard to find fighters this old that are as complete as yours. Nice find.

[BHawthorne]

Yeah, that really looks good. Lot's of cleanup, but that doesn't cost anything but your time.

Hard to find fighters this old that are as complete as yours. Nice find.

Yep, was the main reason for me picking this one. Very little is missing. Given a bit of work this thing should look pretty nice. It's definitely been in the elements though. It's got dirt in some of the craziest places. I got a few new instruments and panels via UPS on Friday. Picked up a much better shape cabin pressure altitude gague and an an/arc-33 for the right panel. Also have a few other goodies coming next week. I like the fact I can find NOS gagues and panels for this aircraft pretty easily so far.

[Michael Carter]

Near as I can tell, it was used as a training aircraft for at least a little while. Both Luke and Sheppard AFB's are flight training bases, and it looks as though it was assigned twice to a training class.

Possibly assigned to the 3750th Tactical Training Wing. Or just 50th Tactical Training Wing.

That's my best guess.

[AndyT]

With all the '51' on those cards it might have been used to chase bogeys over the desert....

[Michael Carter]

That's the bird's tail number, preceded by type or model #

[Deadman]

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[BHawthorne]

Small update on the project. I'm still in the process of pulling out the cockpit interior to be rebuilt. My goal is initially to get the throttle, stick and rudder pedals working. If anyone has insight into wiring real controls to something like USB send me a PM. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I've also managed to get most of the missing instrument panels. I've yet to find a replacement gunsight though. A 24" LCD looks like would do faking the intrument panel gagues if I went the glass cockpit route. I have most of the real gagues but they're in pretty bad shape. I think it might be more affordable to simulate them with a 24" Samsung behind the instrument panel. I need to track down a few model airplane buiders to help with the paint scheme for the fuselage and markings. I'm wondering if it's possable to find out what the Sheppard and Luke AFB paint schemes were for the F-84F and pick the more interesting of the 2.

[BHawthorne]

Today I finished stripping down the MIP down to the faceplate. Man that thing was dirty. It was interesting to see how the instruments were mounted, and the panel lighting and the instrument eyebrow lighting was done. I never thought about those parts of the main instrument panel before. I ziplock bagged all the mounting and lighting hardware and cleaned up the panel itself. It looks to be made of .195" Al sheet green primered and flat black top coat. I'm going to whip up a CAD drawing of the panel so I can reference it later in the build. It has a production stamp on the back of it that reads 37FS1115-7?? (I can't make out the last 2 numbers).

MIP Pics:

[BHawthorne]

Yesterday I got a packet from the National Air and Space Museum archive division outlining the F-84F information they have in archives. They have 54 rolls of microfilm technical drawings and 6034 pages of technical manual resources available. I also have someone emailing me a PDF of the -25-RE parts breakdown manual for the aircraft. Looks like I'll have access to a lot of information soon.

What a typical packet from NASM archives division looks like: