Nate

OMG Habu2, you are my hero. I thought I was old because I downloaded the original Rhino 3D beta over dial-up in high school, had to save my undergrad CAD work on a Zip Disk, learned NX when it was still I-DEAS, Creo when it was ProEngineer, and (very briefly) had work in industry in CATIA V4. The entire Rhino installer was like 8.5MB and took me a couple days to download, but was totally worth it for free NURBS modeling.... Thanks for making me feel like a spring chicken.....

The mathematics behind mesh models (point cloud data) and parameterized solid models (Solidworks, CATIA, Creo, NX, etc.) are fundamentally different, which is why you can't turn a mesh into a parameterized solid. You can convert a parameterized solid into a mesh (Fusion creating .stl files), but not the other way around. 3D and CAD seems super fancy and exotic, but the problem is no different than what we deal with when we work with 2D images. A vector image (.svg) can be converted to a raster image (.jpeg), but a raster image can't be converted back to a vector image without some

I was noticing the same thing while looking through the website - some of the artifacts are amazing and others have taken huge liberties to weave them into the collections. The ones that stood out to me were the B-25 they randomly found but have converted into a Doolittle Raider look-a-like because that's cooler, the Mosquito that was built in 1946 but it was a lot like what the USAAF flew so we've got one, and an honest-to-god captured Me-262 that was just painted with some German looking camo because, yea, why not? On the flip-side you have stuff like Bockscar, the SR-71 with the highest sor

It's really hard to tell from pictures, but there is ~13ft wingspan difference between MQ-9A (66ft) and MQ-9B/SkyGuardian/SeaGuardian/Certifiable Predator B/Protector RG Mk I/insert other name for same airframe here (79ft). The big wing adds several hours of endurance and 2 more hardpoints for "sovereign payloads and mission systems" because they are pleasant guardians of the sky and not reapers of death and destruction like their little brothers.... The shorter wings sometimes have winglets that look more like stall fences (NASA's MQ-9 is a good example), but the big wing MQ-9Bs h

Oh yeah, nothing is going to stop me from going, I just didn't know how many little kids I would need to beat up to make sure I get to see the X-15, X-29, and Me-262, among other gems they have there 😉

I just found out I'm getting sent to Dayton for some work stuff, but I am going to extend my stay to be able to visit the museum - I know it's ginormous, but does it get crowded on Saturdays? That will likely be the only day I can get there, but my goal is to open and close the place 🙂 I didn't realize how excited I was to be able to go to the museum until my wife misread the website and thought it was closed for training while were going to be there - I almost cried. Fortunately it was a mobile website formatting glitch and everything is right with the world again....

Or sit out the traffic at The Museum of Flight - it's only 10-15 minutes away from Skyway 😉

End of an era, but a pretty impressive run! I got to see that one on the final assembly line at the Boeing Family Day event a few months ago and it definitely stood out proudly from the sea of KC-46/767/777F in that building. It's cool that after all that time the first and last are ones are currently only about an hour's drive apart from each other since the Spirit of Everett is at the Museum of Flight. And she still has better lines than the rest of the fleet... Thanks for sharing the link.

Another thing that might help the opacity is to use a base of, or mix in to your paint, white acrylic ink. Artist acrylic inks (like Daler-Rowney FW Inks) are highly pigmented, but with superfine pigments - miniature painters use them straight or mix them into traditional acrylic paints to increase opacity or saturation. You can even airbrush them. It's black (white?) magic - I airbrushed the white D-R FW to create a zenithal lighting map on some D&D minis for the kiddos and it is amazing how well it covers while being so thin. You can also hand brush it and it is equally amazi

Not sure about missiles, and I know it's not the right F-14 timeframe, but the F-14 Tomcast Episode 23 (OEF Ops) had an interesting discussion about how the BOL chaff/flare made a huge mess on the H-Stabs. They came back from a mission after expending almost all of their countermeasures and the maintenance crew was pissed about the mess until they realized how many MANPADs/SAMs they had to evade and that they legitimately needed all of them ...might be worth investigating to at least figure out where the weathering occurs in the H-Stabs since it's the same pylon location?

Oh man - the old Anigrand kit? You are brave. I don't think all the resin I own adds up to the resin mass in your photo... I'm hoping ModelCollect will release their A-12 before he retires, I think it would be a unique addition to his collection that is a pretty good representation of our weird friendship 🙂

I just took the plunge and ordered a printer yesterday (the kids want one to "learn", so that's ok, but when dad wants one because it's cool tech, then noooooo....🙂) - do you mind sharing what dimensions you model to successfully print a panel line? I know there will be plenty of iteration, especially because I ordered an FDM printer, but I don't even know where to start 🙂

I'll second habu2's question re: how did flying change your life, with a bit of a twist. When we interview prospective hires with flying experience, I always ask "how has flying influenced the way you think?" (About solving problems, overcoming challenges, planning for the unexpected, etc.) I have found that pilots (especially retired military pilots) have a different mindset that comes from the procedural aspects, safety culture, training coupled with advancing a little before you're ready, and personal accountability that comes with the Pilot-in-Command role. I'll als

Thanks gents - I also found Wave made a series of different shapes for customizing Gundam kits, but they are all sold out like the Fujimi ones. I've been looking at various gaskets and o-rings on McMaster that might do the job too. Thanks! Nate

Does anyone know of a source to buy just polycaps? I need 50 polycaps, basically equivalent to what Tamiya uses for holding wheels on, for a random project I'm helping with. They worked perfectly on my prototypes, but I don't have enough spares leftover from failed car projects for my mini production run. TIA!