mawz

Yeah, the Italeri Hornet does bring back some memories. Did one a few years back with leftover decals and armaments from an Academy CF-18 boxing (the Academy got one of the neat 433sq demo schemes)

It's worth noting that Voodoo's only carried single drop tanks on operational sorties, the second tank was only used when ferrying. The reason is a little odd, at the speeds used on operational sorties, the extra tank didn't add any range, because it added as much fuel burn from drag as it did fuel. Ferry operations involved cruising at lower speed and the drag is speed-related, so the tank added a lot of range when ferrying. I've heard the related F3H Demon had the same issue.

I wouldn't call it an ordeal, just a case of 'never trust a Vallejo official colour match', which I should have remembered because it's bit me before in the past (For example their Medium Sea Grey is US Neutral Grey, the paint is a good match for the latter colour, but MSG is a completely different colour and far lighter)

That is true, but they were designated as P-400's in US service (these were RAF ordered aircraft with 20mm cannon in the nose rather than the larger cannon the US used). They served in Guadalcanal and wore an RAF scheme with US markings. As it happens, I have a Eduard P-400 on the go right now.

If anybody's wondering about the colours on the underside of the Eduard, I got ahead of myself when shooting the nose initially and forgot that the Ilmavoimat repainted to RLM65 undersides when they went to the green/Black/blue scheme from the stock RLM scheme. It will get the correct RLM65 all around. Both RLM 65 and 76 are Vallejo, so far the only usable colours from my Luftwaffe set by them. I picked up a few bottles of paint for the Hasegawa. Only need 81/83, but figured I'd grab the trio so I had them all And yes, I know RLM83 is actually dark blue, but that ve

Back to the Eduard Inside of the chin oil cooler assembled, PE+plastic And completed, including the super-fiddly front flap adjuster And installed in the nose The fit in the nose is better than it looks here, after the wing is clamped. As expected, the oil cooler install fixed the wing fit challenges, so I'll be able to install the other wing upper surface soon.

Most of the paintwork done on the Fujimi Just need to mask & shoot the RLM04 Theater markings and then the core painting is done.

And was just going through my pain stash and realized that I do in fact have some RLM74 in MM Acryl (a brand I don't really use anymore) and not only that, I have some RLM75 as well in Acryl (and oddly, in Italieri, a paint line I liked but it seems nobody else did). That quickly lead to the realization that the Valljo Model Air RLM75 isn't even vaguely RLM75, it's more of an olive green-grey than Grauviolet. So I repainted the RLM75 with the Acryl and then did the RLM75 part of the Fujimi as well. Acryl on the left, Vallejo on the right. Not even close and it's the Vallejo tha

Getting some RLM75 down now And realized I don't have any of the other necessary colours in stock, so it's off to the hobby shop for some RLM74 & 83

Remember, that's an SG boxing, not an E boxing, so the weapons sprues would be different. I don't think the RSAF uses CBU's, so they probably deleted that sprue from the SG boxing.

Finally got some time at the paint booth (I had a balsa wing framed up on that bench, so it's been blocked for months), so both the Fujimi and the hasegawa got the canopy masked and I shot RLM66 overtop for the inside colour Since then I've shot primer and started on the RLM76 (which is very hard to discern from the grey primer, should have used white or off-colour primer instead)

Eduard does ETO Hellcats 😉 There's markings out there for ETO Corsairs as well (both served in the ETO, primarily in the FAA).

Marsh Creek's Facebook page is active https://www.facebook.com/MarshCreekMiniatures/ They're just in the process of returning to activity after a hiatus since last spring.

And they've found Akagi as well now, on the 21st Along with Yorktown, 3 of the 5 carriers sunk at Midway have been located.

Just saw this via Marsh Creek Miniatures, but apparently Rust-oleum Corp is ending the Testors brands, with the last day for orders being Oct 31st 2019. This includes all Testors Corporation sub brands, including Model Master. --Update: Apparently this is international sales only, US/Canada is unaffected at this time

I was pretty busy last week with a conference followed by Thanksgiving, but have been puttering away. Did some more painting on the nose of the Eduard Cleaned up some seams and added the intake on the Fujimi Started on the wing for the Eduard. Interesting to note that the wing lowers are setup for locating pins, but the early G uppers do not have locating pins. I'll need to check if the bulged upper wing has the pins. Got the cockpit installed into the Eduard fuselage And started gluing up the fuselage. No locating pi

Very nice work. Pretty clear that the ICM is overall a tad better, but the Monogram is still pretty respectable. Did ICM copy Tamiya's B-model mistake on the curved cockpit floor? (the Allison Mustangs did have a curved cockpit floor, which was the top of the wing, the Merlin Mustangs have a flat wood floor as the wing was lowered 4" compared to the Allison models) One note for future reference the floor on Mustang cockpits was painted with black anti-slip paint, rather than being bare wood. Most of the warbirds have clear-coated wood instead which has led to many of us (including myself)

Thanks. And moving along, Some touchup on the bottom of the Hasegawa, then it's time to start painting it. Since the eduard exhausts mount from the inside (boo hiss), I'm getting the basic nose scheme on so I don't have to do any gymnastics around painting near the exhausts (or gun barrels, as they again mount from inside)

Nice Selection of kits, And I have to give Academy (& Eduard) props for not putting the same plane on their box art. That's 3 Showtime 100's out of 4 kits (the regular Academy boxing has a VF-102 ship, and their other boxing is a VF-84 only boxing)

This article documents an operational 16,750lb load used on a few Syrian strikes, albeit a good chunk of that is a full 480gal tank. Given the Super Hornet has a reasonable range on internal fuel (unlike its predecessor), there's no reason they wouldn't operate with 17,750lbs of weapons and no tank for closer-range strikes if required. The Super Hornet is 32,000lbs empty, has a MTOW of 66,000lbs and carries 13,500lbs of internal fuel so ability to haul ordinance is hardly an issue for it. In fact, based on the math it's actually limited by pylons, not mass, when it comes to weapons configurat

The much more complex Eduard cockpit has that build lagging the other two as I'm building round robin. I work on one until it needs to dry, then set it aside and work on the next. I'm on vacation this week, so LOTS of build time. The basic pit is all but done now. Just need to fold down the seatbelts after they dry. note I decided to go zero aftermarket on this trio, so no belts for the other two (that would be the biggest win in improving the Fujimi and Hasegawa cockpits) Left sidewall done, panel still needs 3 parts added Right sidewa

Wing tops on the Fujimi. Sadly, one slipped a bit after clamping and will need some cleanup Wing tops on the Hasegawa note don't glue the top surface to the top of the radiators, or it won't align on the fuselage. An engineering miss for Hasegawa Closeup of the Hasegawa instrument panel after installation. That's a decal on a detail-painted panel. And spare Eduard exhausts fitted to the Fujimi to replace the horrid stock items. A nice improvement although I will say that Hasegawa's exhausts are nicer than the all-plastic Edu

The B-2's book bombload is 40,000lbs, although estimates suggest that real world max is closer to 50,000lbs. That's less than 3 Super Hornets worth of load, at 17,750lbs per Super Hornet. However the B-2 is nuclear certified, and the only aircraft on carriers which are anymore are Legacy Hornets, so very technically a B-2 can carry more firepower than a typical carrier group deploys, simply because the Carrier group won't have B61's or B83's in inventory. The reality is that the Super Hornets are nuclear capable, but not certified as the surface fleet had lost that mission by the tim

Good idea on adding the intakes now, that should let you get a better fit on what's probably the worst fitting spot on an otherwise brilliant little kit. Gotta say, as much as I do like the Academy kit, I would not be averse to Kinetic scaling down their version if it maintained the same basic layout as the 1/48th version.

Was there a tail gun change before the Cheyenne Tail? Because that's a late G feature, early G's didn't have them.