Here are my two Starfighters in 1:144 from Airfix and
Minicraft.
The kit from both companies is the same and very old, I remember I built it three times as a child, more than 30 years ago, from
Revell.
I wanted to have the Navy Starfighter in my collection. The US Navy had three Starfighters (one YF-104 and two F-104A) to test Sidewinder-missiles.
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Minicraft allows to make one of this Navy-Starfighters. Another A-version of the USAF can also be made from the included decals. On the box you read "F-104A" But the kit is a G-version, with the longer tailplane, so I wonder why the second offered version is also a "A" and not a "G"... . In the instructions is shown that the vertical stabilizer has to be shorted, but the shown shape is not correct, it must be even shorter. So I sized down and printed a side view to get the correct contour.
I like the Ferrari paint scheme of the Italian F-104G, as Airfix offers this old kit. The Airfix kit came from the same mould but fitting of the parts is horrible, on the Minicraft kit it´s OK. Seems that Minicraft has reworked the mould successfully, because this kit is newer. The upper side of the fuselage
halves in the Airfix kit is flat(!). I corrected this with some putty and made a new, thin rack between the canopy and the vertical stabilizer out of stretched sprue.
I wanted to show the red Starfighter in the air, so I made a display for it. Inside the fuselage I placed a block made out of polysterene, to put it on the steel wire (Ø1 mm) of the display. A pilot figure from Heroes Models (
https://heroesmodels.it/
) took a seat inside the cockpit. For both models I made covers for the instrument panels (it´s also just flat there) and added the gun sights (it´s not really a HUD, the 104s had).