Jay Chladek

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.

1/72 new tool T-38 (would even take a scaledown of Trumpeter's 1/48 as even with the flaws it looked the part when built). 1/72 new tool F-5B (Esci kits are getting hard to find) 1/72 or 48 early model B-26. All we have that I can see is the Monogram Snap Tite, which is a good kit, but the subject deserves the love of the B-25B/C 1/72 recessed panel line Vulcan bomber. Airfix kit still great, but old. This one could do with a great replacement on the level of the Airfix Valiant and Victor kits. 1/48 Grumman X-29 (this is a "dream" list afterall.) 😉

Voted. Already warming up the VAB.

The Hobbyboss is a U-2R, not a U-2A/B. The U-2R is very much a different airframe with a passing resemblance to the earlier aircraft.

Italeri's Warthog has a fair amount going for it and can be built well. Only thing is you are practically required to get aftermarket cockpit etch for it and resin engine fans as those are the biggest shortcomings of the kit. Thankfully Eduard's etch does the job nicely in the front while Quickboost's resin engine fans are a drop fit and both can be obtained for very little cash outlay. The nose issues can be fixed with some clever sanding.

I believe the term is "tough love." 😉 Most impressive!

I'm thinking the 135R engine molds probably came from the E-3 AWACS kit that Minicraft did in their alteration of the core 707 tooling. Those engines were done before the DC-8 work began. Nice to see them offering the DC-8 motors as those are beautiful!

If you are going to do a T-38N there are a lot more to it than a core kit with the new intakes and decals: 1. Cockpit- NASA jets with the color weather radar nose have a rather different front panel and possibly back panel as well (haven't found any good picks of the back panel). It is not a glass cockpit C panel and looks closer to that of the A with the round steam gauges. Instead of the four across rows on the right side of the panel (engine gauges) the NASA Ns use three three across rows. Probably because they doubled up the engine RPM gauges and are using a needle for each engine in a single gauge. This helps make room for the radar screen in the center of the pit. The rest of the panel is a weird scramble of other relocated round gauges. 2. Ejection seats- the stock seats can be used with the radar nose, but by the time NASA's fleet began converting to what became the C style intakes, the Mk 16 seats had become common except for perhaps a couple jets very early on in the conversion process. Reason being is NASA's female astronauts and shorter male astronauts flying in jets with the older seats had to wear ballast weights on their body to help prevent the more powerful "one size fits all" ejection seat rocket didn't cause spinal damage in the event of an ejection. The Mk 16 seat is rated for a lot more different body types. 3. The radar nose. The Funderkal sheet instructions talk a bit about the radar nose. The trickiest shape to pull off are the two subtle bulges on top and bottom of the nose. Trumpeter to their credit with their NASA T-38 kit has rendered the shape of the nose beautifully. The nose is unique only to the NASA fleet as I have never seen a USAF jet with it. The new nose was first added to the fleet in the early to mid 1990s. Not all jets necessarily got it, but it looks like those NASA jets that didn't appear to have been reassigned from the Ellington field fleet (9XX numbered jets) to mainly Edwards/Dryden (8XX numbered jets). 4. Det cord on the canopy- It looks like the front canopy on Mk 16 seat equipped NASA N jets has a diamond of det cord on the front canopy. It doesn't appear the back seat does. Replicating this could be a little tricky. Not sure if the USAF went this route with the C fleet either. So it will take a fair amount of work to turn a Wolfpack C into a NASA N model. To date, the Trumpeter NASA "T-38C" gives you a better starting point with its radar nose, but even it still needs some work. Nobody yet has done a T-38N kit that can be built right from the box. Wolfpack's NASA T-38A kit only builds into a NASA A model as used from the 1960s up through the early to mid-1990s (unless doing an Edwards/Dryden jet).

It looks to be some sort of general aviation prop. Perhaps cobbling blades from a cheap civilian aircraft kit or two. As an alternative, perhaps a cut down Jablo Mk1 Spitfire prop might work given that is pretty skinny, like a GA prop.

Fascinating...

Estes just came out with a 50th anniversary version of the Apollo Saturn V in 1/100 scale and they tweaked it a fair amount to probably make it the easiest building Saturn V kit ever... and also more accurate than ever. The big improvement... the SLA is now a nicely detailed blow molded cone. No need to do a paper transition wrap anymore.

Thinking about it... a lot. I have at least two Saturn V models I want to do. One, the new Estes 1/100 kit and second the monster Dragon 1/72 offering. Although I may scale that down to a Revell 1/96 or a 1/144 offering depending on how much accurizing I feel comfortable with doing on the Dragon kit. If I do the Dragon kit out of the box it looks like a very straightforward build. But I just can't help to tweak things a bit if I can.