Few people realize that the Starfighter has been a favorite plane for fancy schemes. Though it has been the Italians who have gotten most of the press for this, the Canadians have also done at least a half dozen very fetching schemes for the CF-104.

Undoubtedly the all black and white checkered 441 Sq aircraft, or the overall Red Indian of 421 Sq, or even the yellow and black tiger striped 439 Sq Starfighter have been the ones most remembered. But there have been others as well.

One of them is the very fetching red, white and blue painted CF-104 from 417 Sq just prior to its being stood down. Leading edge provides all of the tricky bits and requires the builder to paint the large areas of red and blue on a white aircraft. As with all Leading Edge sheets, rectangles of the main colors are provided to allow the builder to match the paint colors. A very nice touch that is not often considered with other companies. In addition, there is a full set of stencils in all three scale provided on the instruction sheet so that proper masking can be done.

 For models, there are several available in 1/48. ESCI, Monogram, and Hasegawa all make the F-104G on which the CF-104 is based. Unless funding is critical, the best choice in this scale would be the Hasegawa kit. The Monogram kit is well done, but of an older generation of molding and may be somewhat difficult to find. I've not built the ESCI kit, but if it is like the 1/72 version, should be a pretty nice kit. In all it is a very colorful set of markings and one that should not be too difficult to apply.

Review sheet courtesy Leading Edge Decals. Thanks for your support

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that has well over 150,000 visitors a month, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.