Eduard / Brassin 632 047 C-2 ejection seat for Italeri F-104 Starfighter

[One-Oh-Four]

Brassin 632 047

Lockheed / Stanley C-2 ejection seat

For Italeri's 1/32 F-104A/C and CF-104/F-104G Starfighter kits.

Available at quite a few online stores as well as Eduard itself.

http://www.eduard.com/store/Eduard/Brassin/Aircraft/1-32/F-104-C2-ejection-seat-1-32.html for €14,95.

 

 

 

 

 

This Brassin set contains a very good looking Lockheed / Stanley C-2 ejection seat. It blows the kit seat out of the water, so if you would want to do only one very visible update on your One-Oh-Four, choose this one!

 

Even if it looks really good, you can see that Eduard does have some difficulties in identifying specific seat characteristics, even when present in this set!

 

First some pictures around the basic seat part

 

 

 

 

 

 

The seat conforms to the photos and drawings I know of the real deal. What is interesting are the two "handles" on the side of the seat bucket. In actual use they are no handles at all, they are exactly the wrong way around if they were to be used to initiate ejection as was common on earlier ejection seats. These handles (for lack of a better word) were attached to a piece of webbing that was stowed behind the seat back. If ejection was initiated by the pull-ring between the pilot's legs, the handles moved forward, taking the webbing with them, preventing that the pilot's arms would be blown backwards during ejection.

 

This C-2 that was refurbished as a hipster's chair by Avion-Art shows it rather well:

 

Avion-Art

 

This refurbished seat shows some kind of "oxygen bottle" clamped between the parts that in actual life stored the webbing. The model seat represents it faithfully, even if the built and painted example on the Eduard website doesn't show the webbing painted for the most part!

 

comptoir-aviation.com

 

The set gives you two options for survival packs. One with a "bevelled" front, in any case correct for a Dutch or Belgian Starfighter and a "square" fronted survival pack. I've noticed that these were used by the Canadians on their CF-104's.

 

 

 

 

As you can see, there is a “notch” missing in the cushion that supports the back parachute of the pilot. That is the place where the oxygen hose and the green ball of the emergency oxygen emerge from the seat pan. Although a small oxygen bottle on the side of the C-2 as in the photo above looks cool, the emergency oxygen was located in the aft compartment of the seat pan survival pack.

 

On this photo you can see the seat cushion, the seat pan survival pack, the two initiators under the D-ring but also the spurs that normally the pilot would wear. The pilot would "hook up" his spurs to the seat and in case of an ejection his feet would be drawn back onto the foot plates so his legs wouldn't be torn off by the instrument panel...

 

Mark Verbeek, ejectionsite.com

 

This photo from the Pakistani Air Force shows the spurs and the back parachute to good effect:

 

PAFwallpapers.com

 

 

This is the photo-etch set that is included. Keep in mind that part 13; the Y-shaped belt is NOT part of the seat belts. It's a strap that runs from the back rest UNDER the survival pack. After ejection this strap is pulled in at the headrest and in doing so pops the pilot out of the seat. Before that, the seat belts have opened of course, otherwise it would be a rather painful exercise... This strap is called the man-seat separator. Don't follow Eduard's instructions concerning this strap.

 

 

The backside is colored too:

 

 

The man-seat separator can be seen to good effect on this  photo of a Dutch C-2 seat:

 

Mark Verbeek; ejectionsite.com

 

 

The package is topped off with a new part for the ejection rails that also improves greatly on the detail of the kit part. Be careful with removing the casting attachment as it sits on the front of the part. Also don't forget to drill the holes in the rails and the seat itself asthey are through and through on the real thing.

 

 

 

 

All in all a great addition to your Starfighter. Highly Recommended

Thanks to Eduard for providing the review sample.

 

 

NB: Keep in mind that very many F-104G's hadthis seat installed throughout their careers. Only the Danish, German and Italian F-104G's were (retro)fitted with the Martin-Baker MB-7Q seat. That also goes for the CF-104's that the danes acquired later on and of course the F-104S's from the factory. So by no means were it only "early" F-104's that were fitted with the C-2.

[JeroenPeters]

Nice!!

[Fran]

Great review with looots of info!! Thanks!