Jay Chladek

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.

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.

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 eng

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.

One I would love to add to the Det cord wish list would be for the front canopy of a NASA T-38N. The rear canopy doesn't have it, but the front canopy does and I imagine it might be present on Mk 16 seat equipped USAF T-38Cs as well. I've thought about trying to replicate that on a 1/48 model I have and this thread is nice and timely.

Hey there guys. I just picked up the new 1/48 scale Spit Mk 1 kit (#61119) today and it has some very nice features in it. My main focus was on the interwar years Spit birds. If you plan to do a 1938-39 model Spitfire, here are some features which I think will be a nice surprise for you.: Pre-war ring and bead gun sight- Using a combination of some styrene and included photoetch, this is the first 1/48 Spitfire I have seen which includes the ring and bead sight. When I did my Interwar 19 Squadron bird years ago for a Britmodeler build, I had to cobble something together.

Considering how the Testors kit kicked my posterior when I tried to build it (even when trying to overcome the wing warp issues) I'll probably bite when I know these are out. Builds of the test shot look good enough anyway. One thing that would go a ways towards me deciding whether to buy it sooner than later would be knowing if the decal sheet had markings for all 21 jets since aftermarket for the Testors kit was limited. Sure, I have the IPMS USA KC con sheet, but while Spirit of Kansas is appealing to build, it is also the B-2 that crashed on Guam a few years back.

I am going to have to get me a couple of these me thinks. I could wait for 1/48, but display space issues have me looking more towards these smaller kits. Plus one of these will be a great compliment to me Special Hobby 1/72 F-86H (another subject never done in 1/48 styrene). Thanks for the link.

It actually got bumped to the October "Spooktacular" issue. I was told it was November, but they did one issue right before and that is where it ended up. So look for the FSM issue with an orange strip on top and a small picture of Frankenstein's monster.

That is good to know. That seemed to be the only approach they could use from what I can see.

Doubtful due to the draft angles on the parts, UNLESS Italeri rendered them on a separate sprue tree to glue onto the core parts.

That indeed illustrates it rather nice. So the top of the nose around the probe door is flat, then the two 45 degree panels on either side (with an ever so slight curve on them), followed by the sides of the nose. In Flight Refueling pictures of an A-10 from the boom operator's station can also help to illustrate the transitions from above as well.

I've got one of the earlier A-10A kits about three quarters done. While I am not doing it as a C model, Eduard's cockpit etch is practically a requirement and looks great. The other requirement for this kit is resin intakes because the kit ones with their fan detail are so bad. In my case, I chose the Quickboost QB48-173 fans and they worked perfectly. Fit of the kit is pretty decent, which says a lot given some of the complicated assemblies, especially around the nose which can be even trickier when you smash some nose weight in there. Probably the trickiest areas to assemble are