Marcel111

Thx Rom! Here is how things stand right now: Fit has not always been the best, I had to insert some shims here and there--I'm a little anxious about seams cracking down the line because there is so much residual stress in the model, I had to really force the fuselarge halves together under heavy force. Since I'm showing these nose... these vents need to be filled up on the Growler... I sunk untold hours into the kit-supplied intakes but to no avail... eventually it was a case of going for resin intakes or stopping the project. This is the Rhino intake, the only game in town. They

Nice to see it all together! Marcel

Wow, that looks incredible, well done! Marcel

Simply wow!! How and where can I order a set? Cheers and big thanks for making this. Marcel

Thx Vincenzo, Crackerjazz, Joel! No pics to show but I can tell you guys that the top and bottom fuselarge halves are glued together. That's no mean feat since the fit is pretty bad, I hope to show some pics of all the filling required once I get back home. The other big news is that I received the custom VAQ-132 decals from Red Pegasus, they came out very nicely, can't wait for the decaling phase of this project! Marcel

Beautiful work, Chuck! Just love all the little odds and ends, very cleanly executed. Glad to hear your foot is healing. Marcel

The ALQ-99 is ready to be sent to Harold for casting. Harold will add those ribbed panels. I am also sending Harold the wingtip pods, he may choose to make these commercially available also. These may not be perfect but I think they are a substantial improvement on the kit renditions. The Trumpeter AGM-88's don't look right to my eye. I will therefore be using the Tamiya HARM bodies (from the F-16CJ kit) in conjunction with the Revell HARM wings (from the Tornado ECR kit); the Revell wings are nice and thin, the Tamiya wings have horribly thick leading and trailing edges. :cheers:/

Looking good, Terry! Marcel

Hello Stephan, I was really only aware of the Flightpath offering, my bad. I don't like the Flightpath set much, the bomb body looks too big and the seeker head looks just wrong. I took a look at the CMK GBU-12's, they generally look nice but it seems they got confused with the Enhanced Paveway (as used by the RAF), their GBU-12 has GPS receivers and braces on the bomb body (but is kissing other components of the Enhanced Paveway). Marcel

Thx guys! Anthony, I didn't take pics of the relevant WIP and it is hard to explain in words. Make sure you dry fit the wings before glueing, if you do you'll see pretty easily what has to be done. Marcel

Here is where I am with the ALQ-99. Reminder: Harold sent me his ALQ-99 work-in-progress, he built the shape of the pod from scratch i.e. he didn't use the Trumpeter pod at all since the Trumpeter pod is so wrong. I think Harold really nailed the overall shape. It's up to me to add the turbine as well as all the detail. Here is how far I have come with the turbine: The idea is that the blades will be molded individually, so hopefully Harold will have no probs making copies of that blade. Blades should then be glued into the spinner, which then fits into the front of the pod. This is how t

Nice start! I will be following this thread. USAF Skyraiders rule! Marcel

Chuck, love the close-ups... it's wow, wow, WOW all over again! Marcel

Steve, my sincere condolences to you and your family. Marcel

Fantastic work all round. The result is awesome, one of the best builds I have seen! Marcel

Thx guys! Jari, love that pic, especially the backseater's call sign "Frau"... had a good laugh about that with my wife. And yea, I will need to remember that handle. Thx Joel. If anybody had good top-view pics of those, that would be much appreciated. Speaking of ECM pods, I have received Harold's ALQ-99 work-in-progress and it is really nice, Harold did the ALQ-99 from scratch i.e. not based on the Trumpeter rendition. As such, they look spot-on in shape. I have started work on those already, will try to post pics asap. The plan with these will be the same as with the CBU's on my Chic

Here's some progress on the cockpit. The only game in town for updating the kit cockpit (and it does need updating) is the Eduard color photo etch. Ordinarily I wouldn't go this way because the effort to get it to look good is huge. I have made little switches from stretched sprue and glued onto the photo etch to give the whole thing a more realistic 3-D look. Also, I painted the plain light gray and dark gray/black panels on the photo etch with the colors I am using to paint the rest of the cockpit to make everything blend together. Trumpeter doesn't supply a throttle (oops) so I used a

Chris, Here are some thoughts from my side. I am only interested in 1/32 jets, so that is the scope of my suggestions: External stores: 1. GBU-12. As has been said before, these are the most-used AG load of the last 20 years but are not available to any degree of satisfaction in 1/32. 2. MER and to a lesser extent TER. The Tamiya MERs are off (they are also slightly too short). Corrections/Updates The Trumpeter Harrier really needs your input. I would think a correction set (covering pylons and gun, maybe more) should sell well, considering the Harrier is used by the U.S. and UK which m

Wow, beautifully done! Marcel

Harold, looking forward to receiving your start in the mail... hopefully I can start where you left off. Boy, the scope of this build keeps expanding :o Marcel

Huge work on this Frog! Hope you figure out the sharkmouth, that is quite a challenge. But with this kit, you must be used to that. Marcel

Err well ahem ... Keith, you are absolutely right! Can't believe I hadn't noticed that before, that should simplify things a lot. Now here is something that has worked out quite nicely. Background: I followed Chuck's sound advice and bought a UMM punch and die set... and was able to put it to instant use There are some circular vents behind the ECS stacks. Trumpeter has placed the vent too far back, plus it should also be covered by mesh. I was able to punch out two nice circular pieces of mesh (2.5mm diameter). I drilled a hole at a slightly smaller diameter (2mm), then drilled a seat at

Thx Joel! Thx Jari! As far as staggering thin sheets, that would be really challenging since the depth of that panel is so small. Even stacking to thicker depth and then sanding would be really tough I think. Jake, I now REALLY know what you mean! Reality Trumpeter's version: I have a plan for addressing this, I'll let you guys know how things work out. BTW, does anybody know what is up with the "squashed" version of the ALQ-99 that Trumpeter supplies as an alternative to the "standard" ALQ-99s? All the pics I have show Growler's with the "standard" ALQ-99s. Seems like the squash

Terry, great to see you at it again. Very interesting subject, Fitters are pretty huge beasts. Marcel

Something similar happened to me a few months ago, I ended up sanding and repainting. However, I heard later on about spraying the entire model with lacquer thinner, I would give that a go. I actually had some frosting occur the second time around on my Phantom build and used this trick with perfect results, although the frosting was only very mild in this case. Good luck, Marcel