Brian P: Fightertown Decals

Jared - PM inbound for colors. Have to slightly disagree with Marbrey on the color. On most of the jets, it was standard tps markings - medium gray stencils stuff, however, the star and bar and ejection triangles appear to be newly painted where the paint is severely weathered and on some of the jets, medium grey really only appears on the back of the top of the jet, more like washes and heavily faded around the canopy. Watching the dvd, there was one tomcat that seemed to have darker star, maybe 081, and the triangles and rescue arrow appear darker than the medium gray around the canopy, but

I agree - great price, fast shipping on cats! btw - ming, did you buy those....darn I was too slow... still need 3 more 1/48 hasegawa tomcats -brian p

NACES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! F/A-18C/D cockpit for hasegawa Open burner cans for F-14B/D / F-16C/D And I'll post this a hundred times so that I always agree with myself!

Petition signed. Sending link out to my list. Thank you for passing this on Ken! -brian p

Jared - I'd go with the color in #3, tho #1 looks pretty close too keep at it! -brian p

On 114 it is LT. PETE MITCHELL and the callsigns are in quotes - "MAVERICK" The periods look like blocks more than round. (not to say that the period isn't always there due to repaints/weathering...) At one point IIRC 104C did have names. Doing a model of 104C would be interesting with the camera pods attached... Jared, you might want to include this one too!! Yeah, just convinced myself I'm gonna have to do this one. -brian p

Jared - did a little 'research' for you with the dvd and a 60 in HDTV... Paramount marked up a number of different jets in different ways, and the editing was done for story and shots, not for accuracy of markings in shots. That being said, Maverick's 'main airplane', at least the one that was most marked up for him was 114. And on 114, you had the VF-1 tail and crew names as LT. PETE MITCHELL and LT. JG. NICK BRADSHAW. 2 good shots of this at the end of mav/viper fight and end of film on the carrier deck. note, testors modex numbers are too slanted. Ice's main jet was 104 with their names.

Can't wait to see your sheet Jared. I'd definitely "help you out $wise" for a 1/72 copy. One quick correction to the Testors sheet, I know there are many though, Goose was LT JG... And once again, as in the other Topgun movie posts - I've got the licensing information for Paramount if anyone/any decal company wants it. -brian

Actually in the F-14A and B there is a select switch to set up the ejection sequence. In automatic, the RIO always goes first know matter who pulls the handle, but there is the option for the pilot to go first or allow whoever pulls the handle to be the only one to go with or without the other. When VF-213 has their incident at Fallon with the Fam hop for the SWO guy, the pilot had the ejection sequence set manual. Smart (and standard) move when giving someone a ride so they can only eject themselves! -brian p Don't know what or if changes were made because of the "Topgun" accident, but the

EricYY has one for sale in the marketplace right now. $75 US, but accepts money from anywhere. -brian p

JackMan - I believe it's part of the telemetry/datalink/radar package. Phantomologist or someone else may be able to give a more detailed reply. -brian p

You really should get the Black Knights release. Yes, it's usually more $, but it has Lantirn pod/pylon, better bomb racks and Bol Rails all of which you'll need for the D that you want to do. If you buy those aftermarket (Meteor has them) it ends up being more expensive. have fun with the build! -brian p I am going to go with a Tamiya F-14, the question is if I'm going to update this as a F-14D, is the Tamiya 1994 a good version to start with?

Here's a few more of UNDERDOG -

Darren and Gordon - Congrats on the new venture!! With these markings, I'm sure you guys will do great on the first sheet. There is always high demand for the VF-41 SU-22 killers and the jolly rogers! 103 was the jet that Kara Hultgren crashed in. I've got some pictures around here somewhere of VF-213s jets at the time... Best of luck and it's great to see SB expanding! -brian p

This was the first Fugimi 1/72 Tomcat I built back when it first came out, 1989/90 I believe. Either way this is an oldie! Was recently visting my father and found it tucked away in a closet. It's fallen apart now so this is more of a reverse In-Progress set of pictures...

Why not...here's one more - Underdog. Check out the paint weathering - Brian got it right on!

Close up on Muttley

First try posting a pic...

Brian - Actually, as far as gloss gull jets with orange tips... both 144 (Muttley) and 145 had the dogs heads on them. 145 didn't have the orange nose though. I always though Underdog was the best looking jet, something about the black and red just looked damned cool! -brian

So after playing around with this set for a few days, I've come to a few new conclusions - 1. WIth respect to the side panels. I'm not going to completely replace them. It isn't that much work to remove the A details that the D doesn't have and add some new switches and stuff. 2. RIO hand control unti pedastal. It's half right. Same fix as above. A really nice touch here is that BB centered the base of the controller just like the real thing. 3. For the RIO's armament control panel and the DEU, although hase got these right, the kit parts are too tall for the kit design and interfere with

Stunning work! I love them! Order inbound. One point is that you might want to reconsider the loadout. VF-31 and -213 carried the GBU-38 and GBU-12 almost exclusively throughout the cruise. I haven't seen pics or heard of them carrying the larger ordnance that you depict. same goes for the sparrow... can't wait to see more! -brian

Brian - I've got some good shots of 121 (and others). Check your email. Tried to keep them large enough but not huge. If you need hi-res, LMK -Brian p

The " I wish the war wasn't going on" quote was from Meagan's sister. IE: not a pilot or member of the armed forces. Dogfight13 has morphed into Speed and Angels. (I won't get into how or why that happened, but the result was a filmmaker decision). Bummed because I just deleted the dogfight13 demos and trailers I had downloaded . Love the inflight stuff they got - look forward to seeing this. btw - this isn't the only fighterpilot movie coming up... -brian p

Good luck I hate to say this... (and I love aftermarket stuff that makes things look more like the real thing) but if you want an accurate 1/48 F-14D cockpit, Black Box dropped the ball in too many ways on this one. It's not a D, it's an A/D hybrid. And for $30-$35 bucks it's VERY disappointing for accuracy. Okay, here's the rundown: The set was normally packed and it came with only one broken piece - the pilot knee panel on the tub. Can't find the other half to it, so I'll cut a kit piece in half. BB updated some of the stuff from the older D set and the updates are very welcome! You no

Now that's great news!! We can only hope that they'll update the fuselage with Naca vents (I seriously doubt it though). My guess is they do what DML did - add a D chin pod and new exhaust. I'm still going to buy some of these because Revell now has the best f-14 in 1/144 available! -brian