The threat of a horde of Soviet bombers racing over the North Pole to rain destruction on US (and Canadian… c’mon, we count, right?) cities was a major concern for the USAF (and RCAF) back in the ’50s and ’60s. The need to find and destroy these bombers was the major “raisons d’etre” of the North American Air Defence (NORAD) partnership between Canada and the US in those days. To do this, however required long-ranging, high speed interceptors. One of the longer serving of these, despite it’s early ’50s origin, was the McDonnel F-101B Voodoo. This tricky-to-fly, heavyweight hot rod of a plane served both NORAD forces for quite a while. Due to this, there are a lot of kits of the Voodoo from which the modeller may chose.
Of course, it’s no surprise that I gravitated to the Matchbox 1/72 F-101F Voodoo kit, with interesting subvariants and odd marking choices! Check out this unapologetically un-nuanced kit on the Out of Box Page. Oh, and bring your own cushion; the seating’s terrible.
The Sprue Lagoon 
Looks like a nice kit Adam and looking forward to seeing your build.
Yes one has to appreciate these older kits for what they are, both when building them and in the final product. I see a lot of builders on youtube that when tackling these older kits start sanding them down, rescribing/riveting them etc etc. Hey whatever rocks ones boat but my approach to them is to build them for what they are and not go too crazy in modifying the structure of the model and enjoy a bit of history/technology when done. If one wants super detail/realism then there’s tons of new kits already out there that will give you that. I recently built Revell’s 1/72 old diamond back Phantom II, probably the first kit I ever built as a kid when I was about 6 years old. There was plenty of work in sanding ill fitting parts and filling gaps to keep me busy but I built it basically out of the box. It turned out into a very lovely model that turns quite a few heads not withstanding the age of the kit.
Anyway I’m off to building Tamiya’s Electric Handy Drill that just arrived (woohoo!). This will fill the gap that I have between a pin vice and a rechargeable Dremmel which is still way to cumbersome and fast to fill that slot.
Hey Allan!
I agree, with you in appreciating them for what they are. I actually won a show with my old Heller Lansen (also on the site) because the judges were impressed that such an old kit could be made to look so good. To me, there’s more satisfaction in building an iffy kit well, than a superb kit a bit better.
I am a rescriber, though, so I’ll definitely do the panel lines. However, I’m not going to be superdetailing the seats or anything like that! Just fun and frolic with a good old Mbox!
That drill sounds very handy… I’ll have to look into one of those! Let me know what you think of it!
I think you make a very good point there. I have a vintage late 50s Revell B-29 still in its original box. It was given to me by a friend when I built a model of his uncle’s Mosquito.
Oh, man! That B-29 sounds awesome! The oldest kit I have is that Strombecker Pinto on the site. I also have one of the plated Hawk T-33s. That’s pretty neat.
I had built Hawk plated P-51 D in early 60s.
The Voodoos proved troublesome in the RCAF. They bought older American F-101s.
I think they were a bit troublesome everywhere, actually! So, you’re saying that our “new” Australian F-18’s aren’t the first “fire sale” items the Armed Forces have gotten stuck with? Well, other than those British subs… 🙂 I guess we never learn!
The British submarines were quite a bad deal. About the Australian F-18s I will reserve judgment although I am not trusting politicians anymore… well I would say since the early 70s.