Colin K

I didn't see any ads when I clicked on the links and I am not logged in to the website. However, I'll see if there is another option for displaying photos in the future

Working on the Kinetic model of the 2017 Demo Hornet. Fit of the nose section has been an annoyance for many who have built this kit. I may have a solution. Disclaimer: This is what has worked for me. YMMV Hopefully this helps out with your Kinetic build. 1. Glue part H31 to the lower fuselage. Assemble parts C14 and O3 (if building a Hornet with the spotlight installed) separately, then attach to lower fuselage as shown. 2. Attach part C13 (for the CF-18). You can apply extra-thin cement from the inside, just to keep things clean. 3. Attach part H7 (IFR bay) to the upper fuselage. Then join upper and lower halves. I would recommend you start applying glue at this point. Shot of the left side. Seam clean up is going to be minimal and no step! A bit of a step on the refuelling door, but nothing major. Again, seam clean up will be minimal and again....no step! Shot of the bottom fuselage. Not a lot of seam work will be needed here. Again, this is what I came up with and what worked for me. Hopefully it will help with your Kinetic Hornet builds as well. If you have any feedback, let me know. Thanks!

Hey guys. After completing my first Kinetic 48th Hornet kit, the fit of the intakes and trunking got me thinking. How could I improve the fit of the whole assembly? Well, I pulled out another Kinetic Hornet tonight and fiddled around with it, and I may have come up with an assembly sequence that may help with the fit. 1) Assemble intake trunk halves F2 and F6 for the left (F5 and F1 for the right). You can probably take care of the intake trunk seams now. Once you've finished with them, move on to the next step. 2) Attach H33 to the left intake trunking (and H32 to the right trunk) This should ensure a good fit with the trunk and allow you to take care of the seams around the inside of the opening. 3) Slide the intake assembly through the opening in the fuselage. You may need to spread the opening wider, just to get in through. At this point DO NOT GLUE ANYTHING. 4) Assemble parts H38 and H36 (left side), then slide assembly into position. It's at this point that you can start applying glue and getting everything buttoned up. This is what I came up with after about an hours worth of dryfitting. It's by no means the only way to do it, but I think it will make assembling the intakes and trunking a bit easier. Let me know your thoughts!

Cool story! When you were crawling over the Boss's jet, did you happen to take any photos of the boxes on the glare shield, above the IP panel? Also, did you get any photos of the stick and the spring that they attach to the stick for their shows? Thanks!

Well, Kinetic forgot to mention the brackets in their instructions as well. The gear doors didn't really give me any problems at all. I love them compared to the doors on the Hasegawa kit.

http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/assets/AIRFORCE_Internet/images/news-nouvelles/2017/04/ck01-2017-0278-011.jpg Looking at a lot of photos, I'm inclined to go with Italian red. It's not a pure red, but leaning towards a bit of an orange tinge to it. Compare the fuselage colour with the red on the large maple leaf. Model Master has an Italian red in their line.

I'll just post these for display as I'm not sure if these were started before or after July 1st. Anyhow, I ended up building six Snowbird Tutors for some of the pilots on the team. They were all presented at the 2017 year end show, by their spouses. Needless to say, they were well received. They are all 1/48 Hobbycraft kits with a few resin bits (antennas, etc). Decals are a mix of Belcher and homemade decals (pilot and tech names, logos on tails, tail numbers and RCAF/ARC titles on the underside of the wings). They were all mounted on bases using acrylic rod. The Snowbird logos are actually keychains that I bought from the Canex in Moose Jaw. Snowbird 1, flown by 2016 Team Lead, Major Yanick "Crank" Gregoire....and yes, tank cam is included with the jet! Snowbird 8, the Opposing Solo, Captain Greg "FOMO" Humme-Powell. He also flew as Snowbird 6 in 2016. The tail is made out of resin and was made using the impression of the kit tail. Snowbird 9, Lead Solo, Major Craig "Nacho" Sharp. Snowbird 7, Captain Maciej "Match" Hatta. Match is the guy responsible for all of the Snowbird video footage from tank cam, over the past couple of years. He wanted a jet, sitting on the ground, ready to go. Match also flew as Snowbird 6 in 2015 and Snowbird 3 in 2016. Should be noted that the speedbrakes are made from scratch and the ejection seats are resin. This was the fun one. Snowbird 10, Captain Blake "Naughty" McNaughton, threw down the challenge of capturing the entire advance party (Snowbird 10 and 11), with sausage bags on the seats, with smoke on, performing the Snowbird pitch. Oh, and the spacing and formation references had to be correct! No problem! In any case, here it is. The bags on top of the seat were made with Tamiya 2 part molding putty and painted to look like the real bags. The smoke is simply piano wire with cotton batting on it. The cotton was then dipped in diluted white glue and left to dry. I am also happy to note that the formation spacing and reference points were bang on, according to Naughty. So, there is my Snowbird project. I actually owe a few guys thanks for giving up their Belcher decal sheets for the cause. My original plan was to get decals through Canmilair, but with Bill's knee surgery, that changed and I was stuck for decals. Luckily, a few guys answered the call!

Nice work on the Tracker!

Hi guys....I've been absent for a while. However, I have still been building. I started this kit back in August (ish) and finished it recently. It's my Kinetic CF-188A Hornet. Overall, this kit isn't that bad, but it has its weak spots. It doesn't blow Hasegawa's kit out of the water, but it does have a slight edge, in my opinion. Anyhow, every Hornet I have built to date has either been a demo bird or one with some sort of artwork on the tails. I had never built a line bird for myself. So, I decided to change that. I built my Hornet as 188757. I saw this jet in Cold Lake, back in 2016, during Maple Flag. At that time, it was assigned to 401 "Rams" TFS. Currently, there are no decals for the Rams squadron insignia......until now. I've been working with making some of my own decals (mostly small stuff like pilot names). I decided to take a crack at making the Ram head on the tails. I used a photo, put it into Photoshop and shrunk it down to the correct size (don't ask me about rations, etc. I just made adjustments until I had it right). One other thing was the new BLOS mod on the spine. The kit does not include this part, but it provides a decal. Using that as a pattern, I made a master out of sheet styrene, made a mold and cast a few in resin. For my purposes, it came out pretty well. Model was painted with Model Master acrylics, a pin wash was added and some fluid streaking was done with pastels. I decided to add a bit of colour to the jet, so I made a seat cover using Tamiya masking tape. It was painted red, then a Remove Before Flight decal (I made it) was applied. A The Major resin fat pylon was added to Station 8 and for something a little different, I painted up one of the kits GBU-38s as an inert practice bomb. Finally, since it had the option, I left the refuelling probe extended, as they usually are after a jet completes and air-to-air refuelling, during a mission. All in all, not a bad kit. A few headaches were the intake trunks, windscreen/glare shield/HUD fit and the nose section fit. The instructions from Kinetic still leave a bit to be desired though. One has to be really careful and heavily rely on their references to get things correct. Anyhow, onto the photos. Sorry they are so crappy, but I just don't have a great set up and the lighting isn't that great.

Thanks for that info, Bruce. I'll probably order that decal sheet.

I'm in!

Thanks Sean!

Hey guys.....I just finished a Kinetic 1/48 CF-188A. I didn't take any progress photos of the build, but I was wondering if I could still enter the finished model? Thanks!

Just wondering if anyone has definitive information on the font used on Hurricane YO-H, assigned to 401 Sqn, during the Battle of Britain? Trying like a madman to figure it out so that I can make decals for my Airfix Hurricane build. If anyone has info or wartime photos, any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Just a word of warning, with regards to the Sniper pod, if you are doing a current CF-188. Remove the stubs on the adaptor for the Sniper. They plug into corresponding square holes on top of the Sniper pod. If you don't, the intake on the Sniper will be angled out 45 degrees. When Sniper is mounted on the Hornet, the intake should point straight down. I caught this while dry fitting the pod.