Hobby Master USAF F-86F Sabre "MiG Mad Marine", Major John Glenn, 1953

[ACpilot]

Hobby Master 1/72 Air Power Series
HA4312
F-86F Sabre
52-4584, "MIG MAD MARINE" Major John Glenn,
25th FS, Suwon AB, Korea, 1953

March 2016 Release

As announced on Hawkone's website.

Hobby Master 1/72 Air Power Series HA4312 F-86F Sabre 52-4584, MIG MAD MARINE Major John Glenn, 25th FS, Suwon AB, 1953

[ACpilot]

Full Review to come!

Dan

[ACpilot]

Hobby Master 1/72 Air Power Series
HA4312
F-86F Sabre
52-4584, "MIG MAD MARINE" Major John Glenn,
25th FS, Suwon AB, Korea, 1953
Production Limited 600 Units

March 2016 Release



John Glenn

There are very few true Heroes. However if anyone ever deserved the tile it would have to be John Glenn.

John Glenn's accomplishments are legendary and almost too extensive to list. Fighter Pilot, Mercury Astronaut, U.S. Senator, U.S. Presidential Candidate, and even a Space Shuttle Payload Specialist.

John Glenn has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on six occasions, and holds the Air Medal with 18 Clusters for his service during World War II and Korea. Glenn also holds the Navy Unit Commendation for service in Korea, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, the China Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, the Korean Presidential Unit Citation, the Navy's Astronaut Wings, the Marine Corps' Astronaut Medal, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

He entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in March 1942 and was graduated from this program and commissioned in the Marine Corps in 1943. After advanced training, he joined Marine Fighter Squadron 155 and spent a year flying F-4U Corsair fighters in the Marshall Islands.

During his World War II service, he flew 59 combat missions. After the war, he was a member of Marine Fighter Squadron 218 on the North China patrol and served on Guam. From June 1948 to December 1950 Glenn was an instructor in advanced flight training at Corpus Christi, Texas. In Korea he flew 63 missions with VMF 311 flying the F9F Panther. As an exchange pilot with the Air Force Glenn flew 27 missions in the F-86F Sabre. In the last nine days of fighting in Korea Glenn downed three MiG's in combat along the Yalu River.

In July 1957, while project officer of the F8U Crusader, he set a transcontinental speed record from Los Angeles to New York, spanning the country in 3 hours and 23 minutes. This was the first transcontinental flight to average supersonic speed.

On February 20, 1962, Glenn piloted the Mercury-Atlas 6 "Friendship 7" spacecraft on the first manned orbital mission of the United States. Launched from Cape Canaveral (Florida) Launch Complex 14, he completed a successful three-orbit mission around the earth.

On October 29, 1998, while still a sitting U.S. Senator, he became the oldest person to fly in space, and the only one to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs, when at age 77, he flew as a Payload Specialist on Discovery mission STS-95. Glenn's flight offered valuable research on weightlessness and other aspects of space flight on the same person at two points in life 36 years apart—by far the longest interval between space flights by the same person—providing information on the effects of spaceflight and weightlessness on the elderly, with an ideal control subject

THE MODEL

This is the thirteenth F-86 Release by Hobby Master and the fourth USAF Korean War example. The model represents John Glenn’s “MiG MAD MARINE” F-86F which he flew during an exchange tour with the USAF during the latter part of the Korean War.

Hobby Master’s F-86 tooling is still one of the best available. My example had no paint issues to speak of and all the parts fit together very well. A pilot figure and display stand is included and the canopy slides to display open or closed. Overall another fine example of a Sabre by Hobby Master. Highly recommended.

Dan


















Below: Seen with the previously released HA4306 Joseph McConnell’s F-86F “Beauteous Butch II”




Below: John Glenn’s F-86F next to the Mercury Atlas Rocket that propelled him to be the first U.S. Astronaut to orbit the earth in 1962 (Both models 1/72 Scale).