1/72 F-106 Delta Dart: Hasegawa vs Meng

Comparison of the Hasegawa 1/72 F-106 Delta Dart with Meng's kit in the same scale released in 2016, illustrating what differences could be seen by the 46 years separating the two kits

[@agdgdgwngo]

The Meng 106 looks like a stunning kit, I've built 2 of their G91s amd they are lovely kits, practically built themselves. I did them at the same time and both were completely identical, I guess that shows the consistency of Meng's moulding. Also got the F 102 and F106 in my stash, I'm impressed with the extra details like the avionics and weapons bays.

[@keunghoa]

Thank you for your comment. Meng F-106 made me look back at 1/72 modeling as rewarding as large scale models, in fact their 1/72 F-106 is more detailed than some of their 1/48 kits!

[@Chilly_Billy]

One should also factor-in cost and availability, both of which favor the old Hasegawa kit. As a personal side note, I'm not a fan of the simulated avionics bays found in the Meng kit. Not having built one I can't say with certainty but to my eyes they look like two more areas that will need filler, sanding, and rescribing of panel lines surrounding the bays when not built in the item position.

[@keunghoa]

Thank you for your feedback. I agree with your comment about the avionics bays. Personally I am not a fan of display of openings in a finished model. However the Meng kit makes up for this with its superior general detail of external surfaces compared to the Hasegawa kit.

[@oldbaldfatman2766]

Feb. 15, 2022----Thanks for the video but everyone should know the reason for the difference of both kits boils down to one word: technology. WAY back in the day, when a mold was going to be made, a wooden model was made of the plane, car, etc., but at being 50% larger. So a 1/72 plane would have its wooden master made at 1/36 scale. Then a pantograph would be used to copy the wooden form while cutting into a blank, steel die. I started building models back in '74 once I came back from Panama while in the Air Force and yeah, still got a lot of these kits and others, in my unbuilt stash. For those interested, check out Military Aircraft Slides, a website where you can buy/sell aircraft slides, military or civilian. Don't have to join and you can download photos of the slides being offered. And there's a wide variety of aircraft slides being offered. VERY rarely, have I gotten stuff from WW 2, rarely from the Korean War and sometimes, from the Vietnam war. As to the F-106, pretty much got every squadron that ever used the 6 and now collecting photos of them as drones being flown out of Tyndal, where they'll be used to either test new missiles or during William Tell weapons meet. Before actual aircraft were turned into drones, they'd used Firebee's for this. Drove truck for 15 years and pulled over to check out a air museum in Kansas as I had time on my hand. Don't remember the name of the place, but they had A LOT of different restored aircraft inside its building, plus others outside. They not only had an Aim-4 missile on display, but also the metal box it was stored in! And talked with one of the volunteers, who gave me a tour of the cockpit of their B-29?! Man, that was one SMALL cockpit. Also, there's the Castle AFB museum in Merced, Calif. which has a 106 and once a year they have what's called open cockpit day where most, if not ALL the planes have their cockpits open for photographers.

[@keunghoa]

Thank you so much for your very informative feedback. Being also an enthusiast of airplanes myself I have always considered US fighters of the 50’s and 60’s were the products of great creative minds who had access to unlimited resources, not less spurred on by the Cold War atmosphere of the times. The century series f-104, f-105, f-106, were ahead of their time, and they looked good! Their creators used technology as well as style and aesthetics to come up with products that were technically advanced as well as tastefully designed. I have no idea what went wrong with the f-35… Thank you again for sharing your thoughts and interest on the f-106.