82Whitey51

Thanks! Hey, the minute a 1/48 P-3 hits the shelves I'll buy a few!

A little progress... Got her all masked up and prepped for painting. Weather is still nice, cooling down some even, perfect day to take her out to the garage and shoot a coat of primer on her! I used Tamiya fine White primer, the majority of the wings and nacelles will be yellow, and the giant tail red/orange, so white makes a great base coat. Not to mention that the top of the fuselage will be gloss white also.

Like this? There were also the high viz SAC KC-135E with red and green:

...and this, kids, is why it's good to be a COD crewman! While the other 5,000+ Sailors pull into Portsmouth, you pack a weekend bag for a trip to the British countryside, and a more intimate visit with the pubs and local talent 😬 The more recent COD schemes have done away with the "wavy" demarcation line along the underside...looks kind of boring this way. Great stuff, Gary! Love your photos. Keep 'em coming.

Wow! What an awesome place! Everything looks in pretty decent shape for being outdoors. Tires still inflated, struts don't appear to be depleted of their pneumatic/hydraulic servicing, is there a group that keeps them looking so nice? The kids climbing around on the tanks is great! American parents would be freaking out.

A little update to this. I've been steadily working on this, just nothing exciting to post the last few weeks...filling seams, sanding seems, filling seems, sanding seems, filling...you get the idea. My approach on a big project like this is to build it in "sections". I first wanted the fuselage done, then the tail and stabs done, then the wings & nacelles done. On the nacelles, the fit of the Attack Squadron nacelles is fantastic! Pretty much removed the pour stubs, and they go together with minimal clean up. The joint to the kit wings was equally nice. I used the Flightpath flaps...that's a lot of p/e! With it being from the early era of p/e, the stuff is stiff and the "gates" were THICK! I had to use my Dremel and cutting wheel to remove many of the parts, as well as using it for cleaning up the parts. But once they are all together, they look pretty nice. Which leads me to the next step in the process, gluing the completed wing assemblies to the fuselage!! I attached the starboard side wing first and let it cure for 24 hours, then attached the port wing just last night (right before watching the Boston Bruins get their butts whooped in the season opener... 😞 ). Soon, it'll be on to painting. You'll notice I moved an extra folding table into my already tight work space to use for the remainder of the build.

At least one Syrian Su-22 pilot thinks so.

Culture. In the U.S. drinking is vilified...ask a certain judge.

Nor will it ever...nobody even drinks on base anymore. With good reason.

Agree. Also, a buddy of mine and I were discussing that Boeing may already have done engineering studies to build a carrier capable version for the Navy.

I think Facebook may be a reason for the decline too. There are several good model related FB pages (including ARCs!!!) out there, and being able to scroll through multiple along you're "newsfeed" is wicked convenient. That' what I find myself doing mostly anyway.

Rescribing is gay. *not that there's anything wrong with that...

Progressing along still. Finally got the fuselage closed up, wasn't without hassles. Some of the interior structures get in the way a bit and needed sanding. Nothing major but take your time and do a section at a time I also added some plastic tabs along the long stretches of seam to prevent them opening up during sanding. To slow my progress further, I decided to droop the elevators a bit. About every photo I see of a 130 on deck and shut down shows the elevators deflected down. Using thin razor saws I scored and cut them loose (Italeri plastic is pretty soft so it was relatively quick work), sanded the edges, thinned the upper horizontal stab trailing edge and attached a thin strip of "half round" Evergreen plastic along the leading edge of the elevators, and glued them into place. The way the kit is designed, I had to make a "half-moon" cut into the fuselage horizontal stab area to accommodate the elevator. Not difficult at all...I'm tempted to do the same with the rudder now 😮

Nothing to see here...just posting up some VAW-127 Seabats E-2C pics...

Yup, combined effort. Great location too. I was down there for the Alamo Squadron's "Model Fiesta" back in February and had a great time.