Joe Hegedus

If it's part of the landing gear, it would be in any of them. They're all the same for that assembly.

Yeah, the bit about "constant" force is jacked up. They have the spring installed so that they are always pulling on the stick; it helps with precision control as I understand it. I suspect the 7 pounds is for straight and level flight. That said, the stick doesn't move very far so the force isn't changing a whole lot.

Contract to modify Block 1 E/F jets for Blue Angels issued. https://news.usni.org/2018/08/14/35796

I have a T-28C that I'm willing to sell. Email on the way.

Nice! Those Classic Airframes kits are said to be difficult to build - you did very well with them. Love dem yellow wings!

PM on the way for Revell Spirit of St Louis

That’s not an unreasonable position to take, in general. I would expect, however, that most people do not consider a price difference of 300% or more to be a “little more money”. I consider a price difference of maybe 20-30% the threshold of “a little more”

In 1/32, from someone like WIngnut Wings or Accurate Miniatures: Waco YMF-5 and UPF-7 Travel-Air 4000 Fairchild PT-19 Curtiss F6C series Boeing F4B-1/2

I'm just the opposite. I like the new format much more than what they had previously, so I'm more likely to participate there again now. Its still not my idea of what is ideal, but it's much more useable than before.

Shoot me a PM to remind me, but I may have one of those I don't need (at least the resin, the original packaging is probably long gone). If I have one, we can work something out.

42-26299 would have been delivered in NMF, being a P-47D-22-RE, as evidenced by the unpainted canopy frame and area under the canopy. The area on the upper nose in front of the windscreen would be olive drab for the anti-glare, but the rest of it would be a field-applied paint scheme. You can make out the different shade between the anti-glare section and the rest of the nose if you look closely. My interpretation of what you're looking at is that the airplane was painted in a shade of OD or dark green on top, with the invasion stripes added and then the upper surface stripes painted out with fresh OD as was the ID stripe on the fin. The slightly darker color between the cockpit and cowl looks like it could be discolored by oil coming out from under the cowl flaps, rather than being painted a different color. Pick a green that you like that is lighter than fresh OD, and go for it.

I'm not a big photographer, but have dabbled here and there in the past. The "no buno" thing isn't unique to Whidbey, as I've been told the same thing in the past at a couple places; I think it was (is?) policy in that I guess the higher-ups don't want anyone to be able to tie a particular aircraft to a particular unit. Not saying it makes sense, but it doesn't appear to be an isolated incident of an overzealous security guy.

Early Hellcats that were painted in the blue-gray over gray scheme seemed to have the prop hubs in an unpainted or aluminum lacquer finish or flat black. Mid-war Hellcats in the 3-tone scheme commonly had the prop hub and dome painted intermediate blue like the fuselage sides and fin, although some had the hub and dome painted in NS Sea Blue like the top of the fuselage. Others seem to have the hub and dome in flat black like the blades. Some squadrons seem to also have painted the hub and dome in other colors; I have a picture of a USMC F6F-3 that has white on the cowl ring and fin, and the prop hub and dome also appear to be painted white but other airplanes from the same squadron at the same time have the hub and dome in intermediate blue. The F6F-5 in the overall blue scheme seems to have the hub and dome painted flat black in most of the pictures I've seen, but there are variations. It's entirely possible that the dome on your subject could be blue, but if it were me, I'd probably go with black. The variations I've seen typically have the dome, or part of the dome, in a lighter color.

Guys are on a roll. Hornet and Wasp next maybe?

That's why I said, "normally". The convention was for the CO to lead the first division, in X-F-1, and the XO to lead the second division, in X-F-10. Under the operational necessity present at the time leading up to the Coral Sea battle, complying with convention obviously was less important than getting the proper equipment to the units going into battle - it wasn't "normal" circumstances.