Skull Leader

Well, that answers that!

I was duly impressed. Of course liberties must be taken, for flow if for nothing else, but their attention to detail on the flying scenes is impressive (Mav mentions having up to date ATIS info while taxiing in the Darkstar, training loadouts carried during the training mission, traded for live loadouts during the real mission, the whole Tomcat startup process (obviously not the entire dance, but enough to point out that Paramount knew the Tomcat was as much a star of the show as Tom Cruise... to the point of even mentioning pulled fuses in the RIO seat). I was especially impressed

Not to re-open a really old can of worms that we've debated in years long past.... but I thought the PTID displays were brought online with the first LANTIRN F-14Bs? I was under the impression that the older fishbowl TID display used in the F-14As and Bs in theory *could* use the LANTIRN, but the resolution was pretty terrible to the point of being unuseable? I know the D models had a higher-resolution TID display that could handle the LANTIRN footage more easily. I seem to recall hearing that in the early LANTIRN years of the mid 1990s, PTIDs were transferred between squadrons whe

Thanks for the info, guys! I think I can safely pass on adding the wire to my jet and save the skills-flex for a future project lol

After conversing with st0rm on the matter and unable to find definitive answers, I turn to the masses.... I'm building an Arkansas KC-135A (of which, at best, ive found maybe 5 reference photos of the 189th during their ARW days) and upon doing more research of A models, it seems some had the aerial wire that ran from the tail to the front of the fuselage and some did not. I can't find any rhyme or reason for this... I know that thanks to modelers license, I can build it however I want but I'm left curious about it. It doesn't seem time-dependent.... later

Maybe he means he photographed them stateside

Looks like radome tan to me.

My name is bumpity.... pronounced with an umpity....

I have a list, but heaven only knows where I put it. Just look at photos from the time, it'll be obvious which ones are bravos and which ones are novembers. There's a pretty popular picture of 4 jolly Roger's phantoms flying in a diamond formation from late 1973. 3 of the jets in formation are bravos and 1 is a November. Easy enough to get bunos off that list. I dont think the Bs had names stenciled on the canopies

I mean... are you painting it yourself? Just make sure the decals are the right for the cruise you want to depict.

If you're doing a jet from 1965, make sure you get decals specific to that... the skull looked different

The tamiya F-4B it should be fine as-is. If you want to build a jet from the 73 cruise, some them had the RHAW blisters on top of the tail, you should research the specific airframe to figure out which ones.

They did not initally have the all black tail for their F-4B cruise. On the way home from Vietnam, they painted the tails all black. These can be identified by the yellow vagabond stripe on the fuselage (as opposed to black), black radome, and the USS Independence markings on the side. VF-84 lost 3 jets on that cruise ('64-'65) ALSO, according to Don Hanna, who commanded the squadron during their final phantom cruise, when they were switching from F-4Js to F-4Ns, they received a number of F-4Bs as placeholders until enough N models came out of rework, so there were all-black tail F

They re-pop another run every 10 years or so. Theyre at the nadir of their availability just now. You're better off chasing the meng sets unless you absolutely have to have the hasegawa set... in which case, be prepared to take out a small loan

The words "make sense" and Tamiya's marketing strategy seldom belong in the same sentence. Mr Tamiya builds what Mr. Tamiya wants most of the time. Here's the thing... there are a million 1/48 F-4 kits on the market (or at least, easy to find). None of them are outright terrible... the minimal-detailed esci/italeri kit, which still nails the shape of the C/D very well... the testors F-4S misses a few details, but again, very accurately captures the shape. Those are generally hailed as the worst two in the scale. Some of these kits require a little more elbow grease, bu