Jay Chladek

Man that is looking very good!

Nice!

That depends on if the birds are used for demos. Airshow displays don't pay what they used to and usually if the US Government is footing the bill, the companies involved try not to rock the boat and do anything extra. So you might see a jet at an open house or two, but not a flying display.

Does the new kit include any other BA specific parts besides the Superfox intakes?

Nice! Any idea when it will be offered?

I was able to get a True Details F-4C pit to fit into an Esci kit fine, taking into account that crazy deep nose gear well. The pit was for the most part a Hasegawa F-4E pit with resin sidewalls anyway. I figure the True Details F-4J pit will probably fit in the Esci kit as well with some coaxing.

Not so much a Fujimi rebox as a copy of a Fujimi from Academy's early days. They did the same thing with the T-38/F-5B kit. At best, it would probably work as an experimental paint exercise or a quick slap together.

Yeah, those cruise ships are dangerous. 😉

ET coloring starts out off white when the foam is first applied. Then it rather quickly darkens to a pancake batter colored tan. Over time it goes more yellow, then burnt orange and finally more of a brown shade. No two ETs were quite the same shade as the color can vary depending on how long the stack was on the pad. Some flights looked more orange while a couple missions that had an abort requiring SSME replacements ended up with a tank that looked chocolate brown at the end of a couple months. Lighter colored areas are either later applications of foam or the surface rind was sanded, exposing fresh foam to UV light and the darkening process would start all over again. The ribbed intertank region was sanded, so it is usually a lighter shade than the rest of the tank. As for the colors I have used, they were typically railroad colors, usually Floquil brand. But Floquil is no more. Thankfully companies like Scalecoat have issued many of the same RR colors in their line. For yellow areas, UP (Union Pacific) Armor Yellow is a good shade. For the brown/orange shades I would typically mix freight car brown with either UP Orange or SP (Southern Pacific) Daylight orange. I hate what I call "witches brew" paint formulas that use three or more colors because they are hard to duplicate if you run out. So I would just mix the brown with an orange color until I got a shade I liked working from imagery of the specific mission I was making. Keep it simple.

The way Academy engineered the kit, I am pretty sure a early vintage beaver tail release will come out eventually. They just had to leave that piece off for this one I guess given they gave us practically everything else. I can't necessarily wait though so I am going to have a go at adding a dirt cheap Airfix/MPC beaver tail to one of my Academy builds for a little Wolfpack action. The Airfix kit will also give me an IFR probe, should I desire doing an Iranian bird in the not too distant future as well.

Nice!!!

I'm currently working on the Estes Saturn V. But I will probably be too far along for it to be an official GB. As for planned builds, I know I will do something else. Possible choices: 1/72 Dragon Saturn V (if the Estes kit doesn't burn me out) 1/72 LLRV from the IPMS USA Nationals kit 1/72 or 1/100 LM

They are just outside the outermost gun shell discharge holes in the wings. If you look inside the wing, you will see a pair of flashed over holes in each wing half. They are parts B9 and B10, called out in instruction section 21.

Thanks for that. I knew it was two speed, but I brain farted on which one. Yes, it was the prop that if you didn't position to coarse pitch on takeoff, you were going to overrun the runway, as Douglas Bader found out once. He broke and bent both his legs in the resulting prang. But he was fine the next day. 😉

Try back filling the fairing in two part epoxy putty. I did that with my S-IVB fairings as I wanted some structural support to them during building and in case I have to fix any issues with them. Fill it enough and you can sand and reprofile the fairing without as much fear of knocking into an open hole.