Fly-n-hi
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Posts posted by Fly-n-hi
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Thanks, I needed a good laugh....I don't know, you give a country it's independence and they go and start mis-spelling everything...Yeah, the UK "gave" alot of countries their independence.
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Ok, I did a little research and I'll keep it simple. Keep in mind my source was the internet so take it with a grain of salt.
Airliner fuselages are built with a durable type of aluminum that cannot be polished to a high shine. It is very strong but does not resist corrosion well.
Boeing (and McDonnell Douglas) coat their fuselages with Alclad (Aluminum Cladding), which is a sandwich of Aluminum and some kind of Aluminum alloy, to provide corrosion resistance. This layer can be polished to a nice shine.
Airbus uses paint to provide the necessary corrosion protection.
Now, apparently, American Airlines ordered their A300s with the polished Aluminum look and they were delivered with the grey paint. AA questioned Airbus about it and Airbus explained why. In fact, AA may have sued Airbus over it, I'm not sure. My understanding is that AA engineering was given special permission to strip the grey paint and add some kind of Alclad to the fuselage. I can't see this being cheap but back in the 90's when AA was making money this may not have been a big deal.
I suppose that AA could special order their new A320s with this Alclad coating but that would cost a fortune. And considering that in the near future there's a high probability that they will be re-painting all their planes in some combination of white and blue I can't see them doing it.
When its all said and done I like the polished look alot better and I'd rather see that. That grey A300 looks like it belongs in the NAVY.
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Actually, if you will recall, American was able to apply a bare-metal-like finish to its A300 fleet. Also, AA has the option of painting their Airbus aircraft in the silver-tone that was used by both Northwest and Virgin Atlantic.
And that metallic paint is very expensive. Considering American is in Chapter 11 and burning through $800,000,000 a year I doubt they will splurge on paint.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Besides, when AA bought those A300s they were originally painted in grey:
It wasn't until a few years later they painted the Polished Aluminum color on them. Not to mention they only had a relative few A300s to paint. They are getting 200 A320s.
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Actually, they are, sort of. The new A320s they are getting will be painted grey.I think AA's livery is timeless. It will look good in 20 years (they aren't going away folks).
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I just built a Monogram AV-8B from the 80's and the decals went on just fine. The decals weren't sealed or anything. The box had been in some guy's house or garage for 25 years.
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He's not talking about dipping the canopy in Future. He's talking about applying Future around the masking to keep the paint from bleeding under it.Sealing with Future is a good idea. This will allow you to strip the canopy easier in case you botch the job.
Dip, allow to cure. Dip again, allow to cure. Now mask your canopy. Give the frame a light coat of what ever interior color is appropriate. If you get 80% opaque coverage, that should be fine. Let the paint cure. Now apply again using a light coat or two of the exterior color. Let cure. Remove masking.
If you are using masking tape, be sure it is a quality painters tape, not thick general purpose tape as this will cause the paint to want to fill the area along the edge of the tape.
Since you have dipped the canopy in Future, you can ease any paint edge after removing the tape with a polishing stick. Light strokes parallel to the edge, not across it. If you scuff the glass area, it can be corrected with a light application of Future either by airbrush or paint brush.
Heavy paint ridges along masking lines typically means heavy handed application.
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You'd have to tell it to my coworker who flew -Cs at Bitburg. Since he actually piloted F-15Cs out of BT I tend to believe him. He was there in the 80's. Maybe that time frame makes a difference. IDK. And I'm not trying to get into an argument here. I'm just saying that my source is about as credible as they come.With respect- I was just employed with the 123d fighter squadron, 142nd fighter wing OR ANG- flying C's for the WADs mission and D's as a spare and trainer... ALL the C model aircraft fly with the wing tanks... the D flies only with a centerline- the C's stand alert with two tanks attached... the word from the drivers I know, even a C with three bags on will be too heavy. For what its worth.
In fact, the reason it came up is because I showed him a pic of an F-15C that I built (with 3 tanks) and he pointed out that they (the BT Eagles) only carried a centerline tank. He wasn't blasting my build but rather he just said that it was very unusual.
It doesn't matter anyway. The original poster has said that he wants 3 tanks on his bird so its a moot point.
BTW, I fly in and out of PDX quite often and I have never seen the F-15s there operate with wing tanks. I'm not saying that you are wrong, but I myself have never seen it (assuming that is the ANG unit you are referring to).
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I like it. Reminds me of a game called Over-G Fighters. You can load up your Superhornet just like that.
FYI, it looks like you mixed up the nav light decals. The left side should be red.
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That's cool. I think they look pretty good with 3 tanks myself.Yeah, you're right, mostly when i saw the F-15's fly over town, they we're loaded with the centerline tank.
I have already build an F-15C with just one center tank. This time my choice has fallen on fully loaded.
But thanks for your advice.
Patrick
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Nice to see the A-10 got a 1st place.
Yeah...I know what it is.
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I don't know how determined you are to have 3 fuel tanks but if you are going for accuracy then you might be interested to know that one of the guys I fly with was an F-15 driver at BT in the 80's and he said that they almost never flew with the fuel tanks under the wings. He said they only used them to ferry the planes across the pond.In my spare box, i found a additional fuel tank. I will spend my D Eagle three fuel tanks.
Just so you know.
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Great work. You've got a nice variety.
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You should be able to decal right on top of the Alclad II with no problems. I'd cut out the decals right up to the colors so that there is no extra film on them just to be safe, though.
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I can confirm that the "armored" underside is more of a flat black while the rest does have a dark Navy Blue tint to it.
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I don't know about KLM's 737s but I can tell you for sure that our 737s don't have steering tillers on the FO's side. But we also fly 737-300s so maybe Boeing added them to the next gens but I don't believe they did.
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That turned out great. Very good paint fading.
One thing that I noticed is that the canopy looks a little scratchy. It might just be the photo. Did you polish it and/or dip it in Future?
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Nice job. Great weathering.
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Nice job. The gloss white turned out good.
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Thanks for the comments guys.
The camera really brings out the contrast in the dirty spots. When looking at it on the shelf its a bit more toned down. The lighting wasn't very good and I tried to edit the photos in iPhoto. I'm a complete novice with the camera.
I forgot to mention that I also used a Wolfpack resin WAR heads up display.
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Being the launch customer isn't the same as placing the first order.Still don't get how Southwest is the launch customer when Lion Air has already ordered over 200 of them... :huh:
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That's really good. He's gonna love it.
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Hi guys,
I just finished this a few days ago. Its the 1/48 Tamiya F-16C built up as a Block 42 airframe from the 56th FW at Luke AFB in Glendale, AZ. She's configured in a typical air-to-air training loadout.
For the most part it is OOB. The stuff that I added:
- Afterburner decals
- Tamiya detail set (PE reinforcement plates and metal probes)
- AIM-9s from the spares box
- AN/AXP-95 from Hasegawa
- TwoBobs decals on the ordinance
She might be a little bit on the dirty side but other people have told me that they think it looks ok so I won't sweat it.
I'm not the best photographer so the pics may not be the highest quality. This was a makeshift studio on my kitchen table. Anyway, thanks for looking. Hope you enjoy it.
- Afterburner decals
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Excellent work. It turned out great.
Academy F-22 Raptor 1/48
in The Display Case
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Nice work. Its clean but weathered. Looks good.
Can you strip the paint off of the nav lights? You mixed them up. Red is in the left side.