One of the few detail glitches on Monogram’s F-100D kit (we won’t go into the fit issues!) is the ejection seat.  The kit seat has the parachute pack molded in place, which isn’t wrong, but it is unusual.  I’ve been told by former F-100 pilots that the only time the chute was left in the jet was when the plane was on alert. 

 Over the years, Aeroclub, Black Box, and Legend Productions have released seats without the parachute.  Aeroclub’s is white metal, and was nice for its time, but is really showing its age.  Black Box’s came with their cockpit set and was almost 4 millimeters too short, and Legend appears to have used this seat as a reference for their own.

 AMS resin has now released a well-detailed, and nicely-cast seat for the old Monogram Hun.  The seat is cast with seatbelts and hoses, and has crisp detail throughout.  It can be painted and dropped into the kit cockpit without any modification.  I also test-fitted the seat in the Black Box and Legend cockpits. Both cockpit tubs needed a little detail on the right side of the tub to be sanded down or moved forward a little, and lower aft sides of the seat will also need some sanding in order to fit the Black Box tub.  I found my Black Box seat to be too wide to fit the tub without sanding, too. My two pre-production samples had a couple of small bubbles that proprietor Harold Offield says will be eliminated on the production versions. 

 Highly recommended! 

References: F-100.org http://www.f-100.org/hun.shtml

Thanks to Harold Offield for the samples.

Ben Brown

September 2007