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I vaguely remember a story that because of its development problems, some in the aerospace industry would refer to the Navaho as the "Never-go"........😀

In the above photo, is it just an illusion or are those A-10s painted in three shades of gray? I thought only Light and Dark Ghost Gray were used on the "gray" scheme. Has this scheme been updated?

An Air Force pilot in the static display area of an airshow several years ago told me that many squadrons had gone to painting on markings to represent each weapon dropped rather than each mission flown. It'd be interesting to hear confirmation (or refutation) of that statement.

I've heard there's an F-22 painted in homage to the P-51 'Cripes A Mighty', with a blue nose. An F-22 with some color - that would be awesome!

BastionD - Your build is coming along nicely! I'm also working on this kit, and will be following your build. One item I found helpful is adding the "vent grills" to the top of the fuselage. I found a modeling item on E-Bay (Steel Spirit AW-130 Detail Up Metal Parts Photo-Etch Vent) that is made for Gundam (sp) robot models. There's multiple sizes in the set, and after trimming they give at least a representation of the vents (see photo). Some of the small vent indentations in the plastic need to be slightly widened to fit the photo-etch. Hope this helps!

The paint colors look really close to the actual aircraft. What grays did you use?

Berkut's entry earlier in this thread:

I'm building the Star Trek 1/350 Enterprise Refit, and lighting the navigation lights. I attached micro-LEDs (SMDs - Surface Mounted Devices) to the bottom of the kit's clear plastic nav lights with 'G-S Hypo Cement', an adhesive for watch crystals. Dries clear and provides some "work time" before it fully sets. Its worked wonderfully for me - and its available from MicroMark also - Item #80343.

A suggestion for 1/72: "F-35 - The Early Years". Specifically, I'm referring to the first production models of each variant, i.e. AF-1, BF-1 and CF-1. Great colorful tail flashes, and those markings haven't been done in 1/72, especially now that Academy and Hasegawa have done nice kits of the A and B. (And the Orange Model release of the C is out there.)

On page 24 of the 1990 edition of "P-38 Lightning in Action" is a photo of an NMF P-38F. The photo's caption says its an ex-RAF Lightning II, but the unit, pilot and location are unknown. Some interesting details - the aircraft has five kill markings, and the prop blades appear to be NMF also! Would love to know more about this aircraft - it would definitely be a 'different' P-38F to model.

In seeing the thread on updating the Model Collect kit, I emailed Nigel to inquire whether the equivalent nose update was being done for the AMT B-52G & H. He indicated there didn't seem to be much interest, so work on it has been paused. Besides myself, are there many others that have the AMT B-52G and/or H that would like to see Nigel complete work on an updated nose (early and late) for those kits?

Awesome build - all I could think of was "If Darth Vader was in command of Moonbase Alpha instead of Commander Koenig, this would be his Eagle." 😀

Kursad - Any chance these markings eventually make it to 1/144? The LS/ARII kit decals are in desperate need of replacement...

I bought two all-glass Infinity Wall Display Cases from Store Supply Warehouse (www.storesupply.com). They are 72 x 48 x 17, with 16-inch shelves, so they can hold models that are a little larger (I have a Monogram 1/48 B-25J sitting on one of the shelves). They list for $548.00, so would be a bit cheaper than the one you listed. The SKU is 65274, and it comes unassembled. Note: The 1/4-inch glass panels are pretty heavy - definitely a two-person job to put together!

I'm selling a set of updates on E-bay for the Hasegawa P-40E. It's a resin cockpit, Moskit exhausts, and Yahu instrument panel. Search for '1/48 P-40E updates'.