oortiz10

Ooh, this is a fun one. I'll play... I've gotten more done since March as I did in all of 2019! Monogram 1/48 F-84F Thunderstreak Tamiya 1/48 Spitfire Mk. Vb Hobby Boss 1/48 A-7A Corsair II Hasegawa 1/48 A-4E Skyhawk Los Angeles County's Stay Home order is supposed to extend until July at the earliest but likely August. I'm a teacher so I don't see the lockdown letting up for me until the Fall

PM sent. -O

Hey ARC, The title pretty much says it all. I'm looking for the skids from Monogram's 1/48 AH-1S skids. If you have an old junk kit or shelf queen you're looking to unload, please contact me. I'm posting in the Buy & Sell and Spares Box forums too. Thanks, -O

Hey ARC, The title pretty much says it all. I'm looking for the skids from Monogram's 1/48 AH-1S skids. If you have an old junk kit or shelf queen you're looking to unload, please contact me. I'm posting in the Helicopter and Buy & Sell forums too. Thanks, -O

Hey ARC, The title pretty much says it all. I'm looking for the skids from Monogram's 1/48 AH-1S skids. If you have an old junk kit or shelf queen you're looking to unload, please contact me. I'm posting in the Helicopter and Spares Box forums too. Thanks, -O

Thanks for the pats on the back, ARC. Hey longmc, yeah, if you really look at the forward part of the fuselage, you'll see the skinny nose and squashed intake. Again, only if you're really looking...or an A-7 expert. Otherwise, I think it looks OK built up. One other area you'll need to pay attention to is the rudder. On the kit it's too tall. HB modeled it extending all the way up to the fin cap. In reality, it only extends to the "kink" in the trailing edge. I fixed it by simply cutting off the extra bit and gluing it directly to the tail. After some fi

First of all, thanks everyone for the compliments. Much appreciated. I'm glad you like my Skyhawk and thanks for looking. Second, to answer your question Underdog, I use Testors' Dullcote Lacquer. I thin it 1:1 with lacquer thinner, and it gives me a nice dead-dull finish. Let me know if have any other questions. Cheers, -O

OK ARC, Here's the second of a pair I built for the Viet Nam Aircraft GB on FSM. I like the look of the Scooter without the hump, and a loaded Scooter is even better! Over the years I've seen photos of Marine Skyhawks with impressive CAS loads. I've had the decals for VMA-121 sitting in my stash for a while. This was the perfect opportunity to use them on a Marine Skyhawk in Southeast Asia. This was a loadout that almost wasn't! I had procured the necessary Mk. 82 Snakeyes to build my jet, only to learn that the airframe couldn't carry 12 Mk. 82s. The bombs in pictures

Hey ARC, Here's an A-7A I built for the Vietnam War Aircraft GB over on FSM. I was originally going to build a Corsair as it would have looked when deployed, but decided to do a test squadron SLUFF with this loadout. I liked the way the green sash looked on the VX-5's tail, so I used a little artistic license on my build. I've read a few reviews that bashed this boxing saying HB screwed up and made the Corsair look a little too much like the Crusader. Well, I can see that, but I'm more from the if-it-looks-like-a-(insert aircraft here)-then-it's-a-(insert aircraft here)

Howdy fellow plastic mashers, I just finished up my first Spitfire. (Gasp!) Yeah...I'll let you all catch your breath... I don't pretend to be a Spitfire expert, but I've always enjoyed the lines of the Spit, especially the clipped wing version. When I saw the green-on-green camo version on Eagle Strike's sheet, I knew I had to build one. I picked up the decals before I had the kit, but not long after got my hands on Tamiya's super-nice Mk. Vb. Now, by no means am I a rivet counter, but I wasn't able to find any concrete evidence that this camo

Hey Joe, sent you a PM. -O

Jari, Thanks for the information. I looked for Mk. 81s in 1/48. Eduard makes sets of 6, but two sets to complete my Skyhawk would cost more than the kit itself! I think I'll go with napalm on stations 1 and 5, TERs with Snakeyes on 2 and 4, and gas on the centerline. Cheers! -O

Hey Don, great topic! Heck yeah, I've been building! I finished Monogram's F-84F Thunderstreak, I'm finishing up Tamiya's Mk. Vb, and I'm in the middle of Hasegawa's A-4E. I'm a teacher, and my district's already decided to close campuses for the rest of the year. That means I'll have plenty of more time for building. After the Spitfire, I'm not sure what I'll be starting. I'm planning on having a couple of builds going at the same time. Looking forward to seeing what everyone else is building. Everyone stay clean, stay healthy, and stay indoors! Cheers!

Good day ARC, First, I hope everyone is healthy and well. I have question about A-4Es in Vietnam, if I may. I'm building a USMC Skyhawk and want it to carry a typical CAS load. I want to build my Scooter with 12 Snakeyes, or 10 Snakeyes and 2 napalm canisters. My question is this, did the A-4 carry 12 Mk. 82 Snakeyes? I've seen pictures of A-4s with 1 Snakeye on stations 1 and 5, and 5 hung from MERs on stations 2 and 4. (See below.) The problem is, I can't tell if that's a real load of Mk. 82s, or if the bombs I'm seeing in the pictures below are Mk. 81s.

Hey ARC, I hope everyone is safe and well. Since I've been hunkered down at home, I used the time to slap together another 3-footer for my shelf. I pulled out Monogram's venerable F-84F (circa 1983) and built it mostly OOB. I say "mostly" because I had to replace the pitot using some styrene rod, and the flimsy tube/rod on the nose gear using some fine wire. Fit was decent, but there was some issues with the canopy parts. They were all different widths and none of them lined up with the fuselage halves. I did what I could. For finishing, I used the kit's decals, and they worked OK.