NAJ

Quite simply the singularly most IMPRESSIVE piece of scale engineering that I've seen.... NAJ

By comparison, the roundels were easy. Use a draughting compass and blade to cut concentric circles and spray....

Here's another example - the nose markings. The tiger's head is printed on clear decal paper. The rest is painted (and the magnification of the photo shows some glitches) - the only tricky bit is cutting a mask to precisely match the white background to the tiger. Look bottom right handside to the jaw - didn't quite nail it! I'll touch it up with a brush....

As I said, the vast majority of markings are painted, as the US versions don't necessarily match the UK painting scheme. An example here is the walkway marking. - First I used Mr Surfacer 500, brush stippled to create a slightly rough texture. - Light coats of black over it. - Mask the yellow stipe - spray. - Mask the lo-vis pink dashes - spray. - Use stencils for the WALKWAY text.

Hey Guys - thanks for all the kind comments. Here's a little more of the cockpit.

Another general view (in appaling focus - I'm so sorry!). The seats are wrong for this aircraft - I know that (I've used H7s, I think they should be 7A/2 and will replace them) so until then consider them as 'fillers' (the RAF a/c used the USN seat - these are USAF seats). Starps are lead foil, buckles are from the Eduard set (I think), cabling is good ole fuse wire....

A quick look at the cockpit. Note the replaced vents on the intake splitter plates, and a '3-D' look to the knobs on the RIO panel by using plastic rod.

Whilst on the underside, here are the AIM-9 rails. The only real detail here is inside the empty rails (connectors etc) and the wires from the rails to the pylones....

The main gear well is simple to detail, less the attachment point for the leg! Hours spent looking at it and thinking through how strong it would be led me to decide to just go with the kit fitting. Not accurate, and you can see the gap, but hey....

And this is where I may have messed up. I spent hours / days modifying the front LHS ECS vents to replicate a Block 39 aircraft (ZE364 was formerly BuNo 155894), but now I'm not sure that the RAF ever took delivery of modified aircraft! You can also see some of the nose-gear well plumbing. The Tamiya kit is sparse here....

A close-up of the belly. You can just make out the additional plumbing in the vents / on the underside of the engines.... Not sure it was worth the effort!

Here's a general shot of the underside... again, salt weathering throughout (mainly to replicate dirt etc)

While we're at it, same for the underside. Different shades of Alclad, a bit of salt weathering and then a rub down with a paper towel. No real science to the colors - just a couple of good photos and a bit of mix and match to meet what I was seeing. The exhaust / smoke effect looks overdone here - that may be a function of my photography, but in reality it gives a lovely dark matte hue to the shiney finish. Brake chute handle and vent were added afterwards.

The exhaust area is Alclad 2 - superb stuff, but keep the matt / Future off it. The red heat resistant putty is just Humbrol enamel sprayed on between very fine lines of masking tape, and the pitots are needles snaded to shape and polished back up....

Markings are pretty much completely hand-painted. I couldn't find the Yellowhammer decals, and so printed my own tiger's head and painted all the rest.... Same for the national markings - nothing available in the right size nor color that pleased the eye, so they were masked and sprayed....