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. I'm sure I'll get a few more shelf-sitters done. Stay safe everyone! -O

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 filling, sanding, and rescribing, it looked fine. Good luck with yours! I'm looking forward to seeing it. Again, thanks for looking everyone. Cheers, -O

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 I had been looking at were Mk. 81s. I didn't have Mk. 81s and buying some in resin would've cost more than what I paid for the kit. Luckily for me, Mr. Joe Hedgedus came to my rescue and generously donated a dozen Mk. 81s for my build. (Thanks Joe! This build couldn't have been done without you.) So, besides the bombs, decals, and a resin seat, everything else is OOB. The kit is painted with Testors little square bottle and MM paints. Weathered with pastels and Flory washes. Here she is in all her heavy glory... It's not perfect, but it's a nice addition to my 3-foot collection. Comments, questions and criticisms welcome. Thanks for lookin'! -O

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) school. So, I can tell it's a Corsair, thus, it's a Corsair! The kit itself was built OOB except for a small corrections made to the rudder, the ordnance, tail and squadron markings. The squadron markings are from my decal pile and the tail markings are painted on with homemade masks. The gaskets on the windscreen are painted decal strips after the masks pulled up the underlying paint. The kit went together very nicely and I only used two small pieces of styrene as filler around the intake. The kit is painted with Testors little square bottle and MM paints. Weathered with pastels and Flory washes. Let's get on to the pictures! I'm happy to have this 3-footer on my shelf. Tell me what you think. Feel free to share your comments, criticisms, or questions. Thanks for looking! Happy modeling! Cheers, -O

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 was ever used in theater. The sheet's decals even go as far as to say that they think the camo was green-on-green, but that it could've just as easily been RAF Earth on green. So, thinking this was the MTO, I went with earth and green. Just because the two greens didn't seem very likely for that area of operations. Anyway, Tamiya's kit is a dream. The cockpit is nicely detailed and everything fits together nicely. Everything in the office is OOB, except for some PE belts. This marks the first time I've ever used PE belts in one of my builds. (I'll give everyone another minute...) The rest of the kit went together like peanut butter and jelly. I didn't use any filler on this build. The kit was painted with MM enamels, and weathered with pastels and Flory washes. So, thanks for looking. Feel free to share any comments, criticisms or questions. I hope everyone is healthy and safe. I wish you all well. Please take care! Cheers, -O

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! -O

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. Yet, this ad from Douglas and this loadout diagram show that the -E could carry up to 6 Mk. 82s on stations 2 and 4. (I know that 5 were typical because of the gear door.) So, could someone tell me please if 10 or 12 Mk. 82s is doable? Thanks! -O

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. Paint was MM enamels, and weathering was Flory's washes and pastels. Comments, questions, and criticisms welcome. Feel free to share your two cents. Stay well and happy modeling! Cheers, -O