Grey Ghost 531

That's a "giant water bug", also known as a "toe biter"

The radome was ceramic. It was white to start but got grimy pretty easy since it was a dull surface and would pick up grease during any handling. They usually looked a blotchy off white.

I like it. Nice subtle camouflage.

That's definitely a "just....WOW" model. I like the black A-3.

If it's the wrap around cover on the leading edge, the old school way was to just use shiny clear scotch tape. Wrap it around the leading edge and trim it just outside the perimeter of the opening. Or maybe, this just occurred to me, you could heat and stretch form some clear sheet over another part of the leading edge and cut a cover out of that.

this definitely looks to be a "some modeling skill required" build. Looking good!

When I was on the Coral Sea she usually launched her C-1 via a deck run. I can't remember seeing it shot off a cat, but then they left it in the PI when we went into the I/O so I didn't really see it fly more than four or five times.

Oh, you can't see it in these pictures but since the intakes are only about 3/4" deep and I didn't want to mess with trunking or covers, I shaded them with the airbrush before I glued it together so they fade to black at the back. It doesn't look too bad, I'm going to try it on other jets in the future.

Wheel wells detailed, speed brake mechanisms imagined, strut drag links added, airframe rescribed. Added filler caps to tip tanks and made up a blind flying hood on the aft cockpit's port sill. I also decided the kit's canopy was too thick and to dull to abide so I vac formed a new one. Now everyone will see my crooked instruments...now it's time to break out the airbrush and ruin the whole thing!

Put me on the wait list for the 1/72 sheet. Ooooold Matchbox version and Cobra's upgrade kit are standing by in the stash! You must have surveilled my stash, judging by your to do list.

That's funny, the decals in mine look perfect. I'm absolutely sure Airfix would replace defective decals if you asked about it. They've got really responsive customer support.

I'll build mine (eventually) and also the Academy and old Hasegawa kits I have with minimal embellishment to sort of have a display of different manufacturer's attempts at B-17Gs. I'm no Nationals level modeler so I refuse to get too bent about any kit's shortcomings.

I didn't say I preferred one over the other. I'm mostly done with the Airfix kit as far as building, I just have to work up the mojo for a lot of bare metal paint now. I haven't started the Revell kit I have yet so it was just an in the box comparison. What I see is that the Revell kit has more detail, but the Airfix kit has sharper, deeper detail for what it has. Look at the faces of the radios. As for what I've seen in building the Airfix kit: keep glue surfaces free of paint or they won't fit together. There is no windage engineered into the kit, the parts are exact fit, plastic

Some people don't like the panel lines, especially around the nose. I can live with it. Compared to the Airfix kit, the detail seems a little softer to me. I have both.

well, not without a lot of contortions and a mirror and flashlight.

Depends. Is the airframe camo or bare metal? If it's bare metal, so is the bomb bay and really everything aft of the cockpit. If it's camo, it depends. It's one of those situations were to be truly accurate you need a picture of the aircraft you're modeling taken in the time period in which your model represents. I think they got away from worrying about corrosion when the Air Force realized none of them would last long enough to corrode. I can't tell you when the date of that realization was. Or you could be like me and SWAG it because the only people who will really c

I do all the time. It's the only thing that seems to get Model Master matt black to behave in my airbrush. Anything else seems to come out grainy. It does mean you can't touch what you painted for about a day, it takes it a long time to harden.

Mr. Color Leveling Thinner

I believe they were discontinued and then the line was restarted in its current format. They work very well. I haven't compared the colors to Model Master's but the Colourcoats I've used have sprayed better and covered better than the other Model Master colors I've used.

White Ensign Colourcoats is another option. They spray really well. https://www.hbhobbies.com/collections/us-navy

Our AIM-9s also had a scan feature provided by the SEAM system. (Sidewinder Expanded Acquisition Mode) It would make the seeker head scan in a figure eight pattern until it sensed something, then it would lock on. By using VTAS (Visual Target Acquisition System) the seeker head could be slaved to either the radar antenna or the pilot's line of sight. This was in the mid '70s on F-4Ns. AIM-7s don't lock on to the target, but they do need to be tuned to the aircraft radar's frequency mixed with the Doppler shift of the radar's locked target. Otherwise the missile's receiver won't see

I find it interesting that they use that dark red orange and black deck edge marking. Is that just to avoid using the decadent west's yellow and black? Do PLAN carriers use red lighting during night ops? Do dark red orange and black deck edge markings turn into black and black deck edge markings under red light?

I'm betting that line on the deck perpendicular to the aircraft is the "your nose wheel must be behind this line to avoid smashing your radome" line.

"Two experts", more like one expert and one guy who used to add up numbers on spread sheets a long time ago.

Cockpit parts all painted, now it's time to glue it all together. I'm not worried about the crookedness of the painted-on instruments, they look fine through the fishbowl canopy.