CraigSargent

Been working on a 1/48 YAV-8B. Started long before the Kinetic kit came out. Using a Monogram AV-8A, Monogram AV-8B and Hasegawa AV-8B plus a large amount of Fusion design to get this one finished. There are many parts of both variants needed to interchange to get the prototype. You actually have to cut back the sides of the fuselage and the engine bell to fit the double row of auxiliary doors as they intrude further back into the fuselage sides. It's definitely not an easy conversion. But I'd love to see a sheet of XV-6, P.1127 and YAV-8B markings in 1/48 (and 1/72). I

Full colour pic of the "French" A-4M (there were 2 sent)

158148 as evaluated by the French Navy

I'd still like to see this one as well. Both Hasegawa and MF kits can be built out of the box with no hump.

Posted on the A-4M thread already, but 1/48 A-4Ms Part 2? Would love to see VMAT-203 represented, which has never been covered by anyone in any scale.

Will there be a second 1/48 A-4M sheet - Part 2? Love to see decals for VMAT-203 in 1/48 which have not been covered by anyone.

Colours are spot on - nice work.

Having been through the conversion to the prototype using the Hasegawa F1/48 F-15C last year, here are a few I can add specific to the early jets 1. Small fillet at the rear of the tail fins 2. NACA intake ducts on the bottom of the fuselage behind the main gear wells (ask me how I know - had to retrofit to mine AFTER painting) 3. Tail hook faired over for flight testing I ended up designing and printing a new instrument panel and test instrumentation to cover the cockpit differences.

LITENING Sniper not integrated into Harrier as near end of service

Difference between Harrier and CWIS is ability to quickly acquire and track. Phalanx is highly manoeuvrable for aim and fully radar guided. It’s designed to be able to target missiles, shells and pretty much anything in flight. GAU in the jet depends on pilot’s manual aiming and the jet’s rate of response to pilot’s reactions. It was designed for CAS which is generally soft, slower moving targets.

Pretty hard to hit something that size with a Gatling gun although I doubt there would be a USMC pilot alive that would not want the opportunity to try. Given most AIM-9Ls are going life-ex and being phased out for AIM-9X et al, would be easy way to dispose of inventory, if this did indeed actually happen - which is sounding more and more like a deepfake exercise than a real-world event.

USMC AV-8B II+s were first modded to carry AIM-120 in late 2000s Two things of note on this: 1. Reports are coming out from the personnel on the USS Bataan that this story of the drone shootdowns by the AV-8B is actually fake (according to those Marines, there have been no drone shootdowns by AV-8Bs anywhere), so watch this space. 2. For the actual config, this IS new. You will note that the Harrier is missing the outboard underwing pylons and that the AIM-9 on the LAU-7 is using the same ADU adaptor on the mid-wing pylon as the AIM-120 LAU on the other wing

They say memory is the second thing to go when you get old. I can't remember what the first was... 😄

No, pretty much exactly the same in production. The exhausts have never sat over the tailplanes

The rear of the engine pylon to fuselage fairings on the YA-10 was squared off, not tapered like current ones so may be throwing off the relationship perception a little. Solid red lines show pylon rear end. Dashed red lines are approximately where production fairing goes.

Huh?

Here you go

It's more than that - you actually have to move the trim tabs (fill and rescribe) to the inboard ends of the elevators. They are not on the outboard end as per the production aircraft.

Yeah, the oval panels have to go, but the wing joint cover needs to stay, but needs to be flattened a lot. It was definitely there

Something like this 😄 Removed the wing fillets, reshaped the nose (have reshaped it more since), reshaped the tail fins, removed the strakes under the fuselage in front of the wings, glued the inboard slats closed, shortened the wings, glued the ladder door closed and filled and sanded it, this was before I shortened the pylon fairings for the engine, and the Aires wheel sponsons have since been removed and I'll CAD some new ones. Lots to do, but now I have the Caracal decal sheet in hand

LOL, yeah, nah. But nice work on the composites

On top of the new parts, the other things I changed were - squared wingtips - filled dogtooth on leading edge of tailplanes - ESCAPAC seat - filled gun port and vents - added small scallops on the fin trailing edge/fuselage join - used exhausts with petals fitted - reshaped spine profile - shortened speed brake and squared the front end - used ResKit early F-15 wheels - filled tailhook opening No list I could find, just used good reference photos.

Hasegawa 1/48 F-15C backdated to the first prototype and finished using Caracal "F-15 Eagle: The Early Years" sheet. A lot of work and new parts designed and 3D printed.

I've got the early issue Tamiya A-10 with the MASK-10 boxtop and was going to build it in the boxtop scheme, but after building prototypes of the Eagle and Hornet to use with the Caracal decals, maybe I need to reconsider the use of the A-10 kit. Who knows, with my CAD super-powers, there may be something in it... None of these prototypes can be easily built from any kit in 1/48. Both the Hornet and Eagle took a lot of work, but I think the A-10 will be more problematic. Gotta love a challenge.

Too late to ask for this one?