Quixote74

While certainly a less "busy" kit than Fine Molds' Phantom, the Revell diamond boxed set is nowhere near acceptable quality of detail or accuracy by modern standards - it is quite literally the vintage F-4B/J hybrid, with different nose parts to approximate (using even that term loosely) an E. The kit decals and the stand might be the only potentially salvageable parts, and given the age of the last reissues I would not count on the former. I'm lucky enough to have both the new tool Hasegawa 1:72 Thunderbird and Blue Angels kits in my stash, but the decal quality makes it hard to j

Revell is doing their part for this by reissuing their 1:32 F-16 with decals for an MLU (updated A-model) - their tooling was updated to a C-type vertical tail circa 1987 (originally for their F-16N release), so out of the box it needs an A tail as a correction.

Hasegawa's 1:32 "F-16A+/C" toolings haven't been reissued in about 15 years but can still be found secondhand, and they all include the A-model amd C-model vertical tails. If your goal is to build an accurate A based on Tamiya's C, this would have the added bonus of giving you some other parts to swap, and you would still have a decent early C-model left over (to build, or sell to offset the cost of your "conversion").

Using the Revell F-4F as a slat wing conversion donor (outer wings and slat actuators) wouldn't actually have to be that wasteful - since the F tooling was based on the earlier RF-4E, the redundant 'hard wing' outboard parts are still on the sprues for the F. Meaning after you robbed the aforementioned slat wing parts, you still have a complete hard wing kit - just need to source slotted stabilators to do an accurate EJ/early E (and who among us 1:72 builders doesn't have a stockpile of spare stabs?)

Happy to be corrected/learn something new, but my understanding was that the original F-4E Kurnass deliveries to Israel were in their specific color scheme, only wearing temporary US markings during early stateside testing and on their delivery flights. The first 50 Kurnass airframes were delivered starting in 1969 so pre-dated the slat mod (in fact I have read that one Israeli airframe, which later wore the giant sharkmouth, was fitted with a fixed set of slats as part of McDD's aerodynamic tests before adopting the definitive slat configuration for production & refits). The

Loading out a MiG-37? 🤔 About the only guided type I'm aware of that would fit those parameters is the KAB-250 series of LGB. This site has a pretty good rundown of the full variety of non-missile PGMs: https://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Rus-GBU.html The AS-7/Kh-66 is, as far as I know, the smallest ASM in the Soviet/Russian inventory at just over 11 feet long, so you're out of luck for missiles based on your bay size. If this actually is for a WHIF/fictional type, you might take a cue from the GBU-27 and mix a guidance section from one type with a warhead

Sorry but the pod in Hasegawa's 1:72 Weapons Set VIII is the later ALQ-188 - superficially similar but significantly smaller and with different shapes/proportions than the ALQ-167 @Sarathi S. was looking for. The ALQ-167 is the "Angry Kitten" now being used on USAF aircraft and drones, but the ALQ-188 is, to the best of my knowledge, only used by aggressor/adversary aircraft for training. Also worth noting, the ALQ-167 has been in service for 40 or more years so there have been detail changes and different sub-variants over that span of time (but it has always been noticeably diff

Somewhat ironically given how closely the ALQ-167 is associated with USN late-Cold War combat types, there are actually two different toolings of Learjet in 1:72 that include the only injection molded representations of this EW pod: Learjet 35 from Sova-M: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/sova-m-svm-72019-gates-learjet-35--1245901 Or the C-21/Learjet 35 from the (in)Famous Mach 2: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/mach-2-gp057-c-21-learjet--939741 In both cases these exist to allow building the various operators that use the pods on otherwise civilian

Fortunately footge of the last flight of "Glamorous Glennis" in 1950 was used in the 1957 John Wayne film "Jet Pilot" - in glorious technicolor 🙂 Screenshots on the Internet Movie Plane Database HERE show Eduard's instructions match the colors as flown. Presumably the orange horizontal tail and the nose art were added when being restored for display at the Smithsonian (I don't have access to my library to confirm, but I believe it would have been restored to the all-orange scheme correct for Yeager's October 1947 flight when moved to the Milestones In Flight gallery of the then-new

Great addition to a very nice build! Now you just need to set up a diorama with this bird parked next to a maintenance crew servicing an "invisible" squadron mate 😄

Very nice! Was the radiation hazard "trefoil" on the nose something you had already, or is it made from shapes/scraps?

All of your basic information seems correct, the only thing I might question is the era of your photo but it depends which operator is depicted (slatted F-4E/F is apparent from the image). Blue is the standard NATO color to denote training missiles, but you must understand there are different varieties of that training - some only for loading/unloading (but not cleared for flight), others for "captive carry" only, with or without the targeting devices of a live missile. What your photo depicts is what is known as an "acquisition round," which cannot be fired because it

Just to clarify my note above, the command badge would be TAC (if present) - I think A-7s were even gone from the ANG by time of the ACC changeover. My bet would be no badges were on the original. The wikipedia article on the 4450th in its section on Team Spirit 84 specifically refers to pods for each aircraft that deployed, and further states they featured a "radiation warning tag over an ominous-looking slot on which was printed: 'Reactor Cooling Fill Port.'" Unfortunately the source referenced (a 69 page unit history) doesn't seem to actually include such details, much less any

All but one of the badges on the museum display pod post-date the A-7D's retirement by the 4450th so I would be surprised if any were worn originally. The nose section has an ACC badge, which would have still been TAC during the 4450th's operations. The three badges at the rear are, left to right: 49th TFW - anachronistic on two levels, as the F-117s last official operating unit was the 49th FW (no "Tactical") and the 49th never flew A-7Ds at all. 37th TFW - the operating wing for the F-117, 1989-1992 - also never flew A-7Ds, since those were rep

Would love to see some WHIF options for the RS-70 (aka "SR-70") recon/strike variant with some bare titanium and "ironball" black in place of the usual white.