AMS Resin 1/48 F-84F/RF-84F Airframe Backdate Set First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

If you've been keeping up with recent events, you've seen the nice array of AMS Resin detailed resin cockpits for the Revell/Monogram, Kinetic, and FM/Heller F-84F kits as well as for the FM/Heller RF-84F kits. Well AMS Resin didn't stop there. They've been working on a variety of new subjects, but before they leave the Republic fighter, they've provided one more detail set.

This new offering is elegant in its simplicity. Early F-84Fs and RF-84Fs had a simple ventral fin under the tail before the braking parachute housing was put in its place. The ventral fin in this set simply replaces the molded-on parabrake housing.

In addition, the early F-84Fs had smaller blow in doors to feed supplemental air to the engine at low (or no) airspeeds. As Republic would learn through operational experience, larger blow-in doors were required to provide sufficient air to the engine to avoid a compressor stall at certain power settings and low/no speed. This detail set provides a set of replacement blow-in doors to backdate your kit to the early block F-84F. Blow-in doors were not used on the RF-84F.

Check your references, as AMS Resin advises, some early aircraft had the small blow-in doors and the parabrake housing, others had the larger doors and the ventral fin. Of course some of them had both whilst the later blocks (as depicted by Revell/Monogram, Kinetic, and FM/Heller) had the parabrake housing and larger doors.

If you have one of the Revell/Monogram 1/48 F-84Fs, the Heller or Fonderie Miniature (FM) F-84Fs, or even one of Heller's classic RF-84Fs, this detail set can get you to an accurate rendition of an early-block aircraft. If you haven't seen the cockpit detail sets for these kits, look here for more information.

Recommended for experienced modelers!

My sincere thanks to AMS Resin for this review sample!