Jay Chladek

Wow! I'm surprised I never saw this as a work in progress until now! I've had a dream of doing a Skystriker for a few years, mainly to make Darren Roberts cringe ;). But I am really in love with these results. I just embarked on a 1/72 build myself, utilizing an Esci/AMT kit. Not the greatest F-14 kit out there, but at least it has recessed panel lines. With luck I might have it done by next weekend, but that is a tall order. Do you have plans to take your build to the IPMS Nationals in Madison this year? I would love to potentially see it in the flesh.

Wow!!! Looks like I will be ordering something cool for Christmas!!!

I recently finished up a quickie "stress relief" build, although admittedly it had a few of its own challenges and took longer than anticipated. This is the Atlantis F11F Tiger, which is a reissue of the classic Revell kit offered circa 1958 to 1964(ish). It is box scale and scales out to about 1/54. Given nobody to date has done a decent F11F in 1/48 (not that I would considered the FM kit "decent) it is pretty much all that is out there since Lindberg's offering is really an XF9F-9 prototype which was smaller than the production Tigers. I pretty much did the model out of the box. But in

Adding to what others have said, beautiful job!!!

Resurrecting this thread. I again am blown away by the work done on this. I would love to somehow have the ability to have parts for this model printed in 1/32, which would result in a model 21" in length (the same as the smaller studio models. Is there any help I could enlist to help make my dream a potential reality? The reason I ask is I recently managed to acquire what might be considered a "son" of Firefox in a sense. I will explain when I get the pieces in my hot little hands. Thanks!

I think you have just fundamentally changed the balance of power amigo.

Scuse me while I have a Wayne's World "We're Not Worthy" moment. 😉 Pretty danged impressive and I'm glad those photos I shot all those years ago came in handy for something like this!

Concerning the subject of doing a 367-80, your best starting point is a Minicraft KC-135A kit. Jodie Peeler had a 1/72 AMT 135 conversion article printed in FSM back circa 1998-99 (USS Tennessee was on the cover) and the drawings were printed in 1/144 scale to fit the pages. The information presented in those pages will work fine for a 1/144 build and in some ways are a bit easier to do.

Looking for the "Celestial Eagle" decals for the F-15A ASAT as seen on the Wolfpak 72-067 decal sheet. Near as I can tell, this was the only source for those markings as the ESCI AMT kits only had intended operational squadron markings, nothing for the flown test.

The main advantage of the LANTIRN equipped F-14s for close air support was a system called ROVER III, which allowed for a properly equipped FAC on the ground with the proper equipment to see what the Tomcat RIO could see in his PTIDS display. That helped with pinpoint targeting during Iraqi Freedom and after. The Air Force fast jets didn't have that capability, so the ground would direct targets to the F-14s, who in turn would direct the Air Force jets with their strike package as to what targets to focus on. Ironically, the Air Force first utilized the system as ROVER I in Afghani

I discovered an error on the kit during construction of the tails. There is some excess plastic on the bottom of the right inner tail that should not be there. The problem isn't present on the left tail and if left there, you end up with a big gap visible on the right outer tail where it slots into the engine pod. These pictures illustrate the problem. First we have the left tail: And then we have the stock right tail (both viewed from the inside) I have accented the spot with a black wash after scribing in where I needed to scribe

Now we move to the nose. The Revell kit includes options to do the jet with a CAPRE nose or an ASARS one. They give you two nose tops, but only a common CAPRE nose bottom. Using a diagram I found in the Jim Goodall Aerofax book, I opted to modify the nose bottom to give my model a proper ASARS nose. It was used from about 1984 onwards and has a distinct shape difference on top from the earlier style noses. Since I was representing 979 at the end of its operational life, it likely carried the nose on at least some missions. To date, only the jet on display at Duxford in the UK has an ASARS nose

It has been awhile. The Blackbird has been "done" since IPMS Nationals, although I may do some tweaks to it. I did shoot some in progress pics though for a few steps, so here is the next update. Let's start with the cockpit: I modified the aft instrument panel slightly to move the MFD box further back into the cockpit. It took some precision work, but I was happy with the results. I applied the stock decals to both the front and rear panels and they worked as advertised, going on with minimum fuss and snuggling down with an application of Micro Sol. Because of my parts

I understand Hobby Lobby is close to doing a revamp of their modeling sections and clearing out older product to make way for new stuff. Will that include the Revell USA Blackbird? Unknown. But, they did get in a reboxing of the Monogram 1/48 F-84F with an excellent Cartograf printed decal sheet for the USAF Thunderbirds. While HL no longer does the 40% off coupon, they do seem to run a 40% off "boxed model kits" sale about once every other week. Will that continue once they get more new stock in, I have no idea. I'm finishing up a project for a car model contest this weekend

The Academy kit is... Okay. But it is a recessed panel line copy of the Hasegawa kit and as such, has some shape issues. Frankly though, what 1/72 doesn't have shape issues. Model Collect is doing a 1/72 A-12 as they announced it quite a while ago and I have seen the box artwork. But I have no idea when we will see it. I'll be adding another build update to my WIP thread soon. My gear bays are done and I have been concentrating on the cockpit this weekend. If all goes well, I hope to have the center fuselage together by tomorrow and on to assembly of the body pieces thi