habu2

IMO a Blue Angel model should be built posed in flight.

Using Chrome on an iPad, the back arrow takes to the top of the current page. A second tap takes me back to the previous page. Started doing this maybe a week ago?

That distance you are measuring is between the fuel & oxidizer inlet ports - not the structural mounting points. Those small circles in the upper outer corners of the decal are where the SCA (and ET) connect as a load bearing point. edit: see the callouts for "ORBITER - EXTERNAL TANK AFT ATTACH POINT" on the drawing at this link: http://web.archive.org/web/20001002192048/http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov:80/shuttle/reference/sodb/2-5a.pdf I found another drawing that shows the attach points are +/- 57 but no units are given. I doubt that dimension is in inches because I know the doors are 50" x 50" with 4" radiused corners, making the attach point spacing closer to 200"

That would require new molds for the fuselage halves - the largest pieces in the kit. Not a very cost effective way to go about it. If that were the plan they should have started there to maximize ROI. Having said that, nothing about this kit seems "cost effective".....,,

Speaking of credit cards, I keep expired ones (and those cheap fake ones you often get in junk mail) and use them like sheet styrene for scrap building or filler strips. You can also make custom sanding sticks or pads with them, cut them to size and attach sandpaper with doublestick tape to get into corners and crevices. Another use is using them to apply and spread filler putty.

What do you base that on? If you look at the release chronology on scalemates.com the original kit was released by Otaki in 1971, then by Entex in 1972 & 1976, next by Revell in 1984,then by Testors in 1988 and finally by a company called Yodel in probably 1988 or 1989. If the molds are still around someone has been sitting on them for almost three decades.... .

I would say it is close to Kinetic since that is the basis for the XL kit.

Every kit should be viewed as a starting point. For some the journey from that starting point is strictly OOB. For others, it is replacing every perceived shortcoming with scratchbuilt and/or aftermarket corrections/improvements. Choose your path, grasshopper. Do not be swayed by the winds of words of others....

This is the color map from the kit instructions, from the HobbySearch website:

Looks like Verlinden on steroids.....

Those decals have inaccuracies, they portray the serial number as 64-316, the correct serno is 84-316

More likely 27 + 30 = 57. :)

Zero. The B-58 was never deployed, operationally or experimentally, in Vietnam. This story started over 30 years ago when Jay Miller first published his book on definitive history of the Hustler. In it he published a drawing of a TO 1-1-4 showing a B-58 in SEA camouflage. He stated he had investigated rumors of the scheme for many years, interviewing historians and crews who flew the test profile missions proposed for use in Vietnam, and none had every seen or heard of an aircraft painted in SEA. When Miller published the second edition of his book in 1997 he revisited the topic, relating a story told to him by a model builder who worked at the Air Force Museum in Dayton. In that story the modeler tells how another friend claims to have flown the one and only B-58 painted in SEA as part of "Bullseye Project" a highly classified program that would use the B-58 as a pathfinder for a four-flight of either F-4 or F-105 on low altitude, high subsonic bombing runs. The friend stated Project Bullseye was killed by none other than Robert McNamara himself before they could deploy to Thailand even though the B-58 was "the best suited aircraft for that environment". In my opinion the friend of a friend's story has several gaping holes in it, including choosing the B-58 to lead the flight for its superior radar capability at low altitude, its abilty to turn inside an F-4 or F-105 due to its massive delta wing, and claimed CEP of 200 ft in a mach 0.94 low level ("tree top"), straight and level delivery, "better than existing dive bombing tactics". Of course no photos were ever allowed of the painted jet as it was kept under armed guard inside a hangar when not flying. Sorry, the idea that an aircraft designed for M2+ speed, high altitude delivery of a single nuclear store would be employed, much less be superior, in a low level conventional bomb scenario, sounds like someone's been embellishing a story. Miller retells the story without taking a position on its veracity, other than to close by saying "no name was given..."

A better reference worth hunting for is Wings of Fame vol 12, here's one on amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Wings-Journal-Classic-Combat-Aircraft/dp/1861840217

Guys let's not turn this into the Asinine Retort Center... Do less bitching and more building.