Ultimate Sabre
Limited Edition

Eduard, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Brett Green

Eduard's 1/48 scale Ultimate Sabre Limited Edition is available online from Squadron.com

The North American F-86 Sabre was a transonic jet fighter aircraft.

Produced by North American Aviation, the Sabre is best known as the United States' first swept wing fighter that could counter the similarly-winged Soviet MiG-15 in high-speed dogfights over the skies of the Korean War (1950–1953).

Considered one of the best and most important fighter aircraft in that war, the F-86 is also rated highly in comparison with fighters of other eras. Although it was developed in the late 1940s and was outdated by the end of the '50s, the Sabre proved versatile and adaptable, and continued as a front-line fighter in numerous air forces until the last active operational examples were retired by the Bolivian Air Force in 1994.

Its success led to an extended production run of more than 7,800 aircraft between 1949 and 1956 in the United States, Japan and Italy.

Variants were built in Canada and Australia. The Canadair Sabre added another 1,815 airframes, and the significantly redesigned CAC Sabre (sometimes known as the Avon Sabre or CAC CA-27), had a production run of 112. The Sabre was by far the most-produced Western jet fighter, with total production of all variants at 9,860 units.*

Hasegawa released their 1/48 scale F-86F-30 Sabre in 1996. The kit featured very fine and crisp recessed panel lines, full instake and exhaust ducting with engine fans, and nicely detailed wheel wells and speed brake bays. Just about the only criticism was a very basic ejection seat.

Academy released their own new-tool 1/48 scale F-86 Sabre in 2000. This added full enegine detail and open gun bays, but cockpit detail was no better than Hasegawa's earlier release. In my opinion, having laid out the sprues side-by-side, the Hasegawa kit narrowly wins in terms of surface textures and general finesse.

Eduard has now woven its magic on Hasegawa's plastic parts with a new "Ultimate Sabre" package.

The sprues contain 87 of Hasegawa's plastic parts in light grey and seven parts in clear. Eight grey plastic parts are not used.

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Eduard has added two photo-etched frets, nine resin parts, self-adhesive die cut masks and a big new decal sheet to the Hasegawa sprues.

The most obvious enhancement is Eduard's multi-media seat. This comprises nine parts in crisp grey resin plus photo-etched harness straps and detail parts. The photo-eched parts also enhance the interor with a replacement pre-coloured instrument panel, throttle quadrant, handles, placards and more. The photo-etched parts also add detail to the gun sight, the canopy brace and base.

Ailerons, rudder and elevators are all fixed in neutral positions, but the speed brakes on the fuselage sides are separate and may be posed to taste.

The canopy comprises two clear parts. The sliding section may be posed open or closed. The clear parts are thin and free from distortion, although there is a very faint raised seam line on the top forward area of the main canopy section that you may wish to polish off.

The instructions are supplied as a glossy A4 16 page booklet with colour-keyed assembly illustrations, a masking guide, full-colour four-view diagrams of the five marking options and a stencil marking guide.

Markings

Decals for five varied options are supplied on a single Cartograf-printed decal sheet.

The base finish for all five aircraft is natural metal:

• F-86F-30, Maj John Glenn, 25th FIS/51st FW, Suwon Air Base (K-13), Korea 1953.

• F-86F-30, 390th FBS, Alexandria AFB,Louisiana USA, 1955.

• F-86F-30, Maj James P. Harrington, 67th FBS, 18th FBG, Osan-ni Air Base (K-55), Korea 1953.

• F-86F-25, 435th FBS, Detroit AFB, Michigan USA 1952

• F-86F-30, Lt. K. Ewing, 336th FIS, 4th FIG, Kimpo AB, Korea 1954.

The particularly colourful decals are well printed and appear to be in perfect registration.

Hasegawa's 1/48 scale F-86 is still a very good kit today, and remains the best 1/48 scale plastic Sabre kit on the market in 2016.

The addition of Eduard’s resin and photo-etched parts are a welcome upgrade that really will deliver the Ultimate Sabre.

Highly Recommended.

* Historical summary courtesy of Wikipedia

Thanks to Eduard for the sample.

Review Text and Images Copyright © 2016 by Brett Green
Page Created 15 March, 2016
Last updated 16 March, 2016

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