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SebastianP

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Everything posted by SebastianP

  1. What I really want to make is actually a list of links to threads discussing which kit to get for a given aircraft, together with the conclusion. "F-14: get the Hasegawa New Tool. Here's why, *link*.". But finding all those threads with the forum search is a pain in the rear, and many of the threads are out of date as there's been new developments. And I agree that quoting entire long posts is a nuisance. I quote the entirety of small posts because there's nothing to trim and I want to make sure the respondent sees my reply (notifications) and know I'm responding to *them*. And I
  2. The "Italeri in a Revell box" is the "A-6E TRAM Intruder" in the blue box with the yellow "super decal" triangle from 2000, kit number 04614. It's their latest release of an Intruder kit. The previous ones in the gray boxes were ex ACE models kits, the "Flight of the Intruder" boxing et al. Hasegawa's Prowler is indeed nice, I have one that's waiting for some attention to its landing gear wells. Their A-6 is from the 70's, though, raised panel lines and no cockpit worth speaking of. Fujimi gets some minus points because I'm just completely unfamilia
  3. Never had a problem getting the Hasegawa Tomcat together myself, you just need to approach it from a different direction than the instructions indicate. The root of all the problems with the Hasegawa kit is that the bottom half of of the fuselage warps really easily. The perfect tool to fix the warping are the kit intakes - if you install those, completely unmodified, and force them in place with strong brush cement, they force the bottom half flat. Then you add the front of the Sparrow wells to the bottom half, using either the Phoenix adapters on the outside or a piece of styren
  4. I'm reworking the OP right now, to flesh out a little about the options available. Edit: done with reworked OP, let me know what you think.
  5. I hadn't heard of the Tomcat kits you mentioned, will have to look them up on ScaleMates. I saw a build of the Academy F-15E, it's a press-fit kit and the details other than the engines look nice, but.. the engines are two pieces each and the featherless exhausts are such a big part of the F-15's look that I can't take it seriously, at least now that Hasegawa has finally made an extra sprue covering the mods you need for the E. (they hadn't when I built my last, which came in a Revell box). Does anyone have more insight here? I have the Academy F-35, haven't b
  6. I'm kind of missing a good central list of "which kit to get for which subject" in my preferred scale, as there's been a lot of things happening on the kit front in recent years while I was busy with other hobbies. So I figured I'd start one and the rest of you can fill in my blanks and I can update the thread as necessary. I'll start with kits I'm interested in myself first, and have at least some idea what's going on with. The goal of this list is to be a one-stop answer for "I want to build a so-and-so, which manufacturer makes the nicest one". Note that this list i
  7. Thanks @Mstor and @Flankerman! My color vision is not the best, and all I really remembered was that green was associated with Flanker landing gears, and figured they were a really pale green and I couldn't see it. thanks for setting me straight on the light gray. I think I can get away with using my lightly yellowed Humbrol 127 (FS36375) or something on the gear wells and legs themselves? The Su-33 landing gear leg (middle picture) looks like it's painted in the same color as the bottom of the aircraft to me, is that true or a trick of the light?
  8. Almost sufficiently practiced with my airbrush to start work on painting my Zvezda Su-27SM, was at the hobby shop today to pick up the paints and then remembered "crap, I don't know how to mix the landing gear color!" Which Tamiya colors do I need for the green of the Flanker landing gear, simplest possible mix? (I don't need hyper accuracy, just something that looks reasonably close before I start adding grease and things). I know other manufactures give an out-of-the-bottle match, but they're not available locally and the domestic web shops have flat-rate shipping tha
  9. Remember that Modelcollect up until now has been primarily involved in armor modelling, they probably don't have much if any actual experience with QC-ing transparencies. Flowmarks and stuff don't matter when the plastic is opaque, so their QC teams aren't used to seeing those as defects that need replacing. Since they're being really nice and fixing the problems people are having thus far, just be patient with them, and wait and see until the B-52 and B-1 show up to see if they have similar issues. *Then* it might be time to break out the pitchforks. :)
  10. That's great if you're satisfied with building whatever version Tamiya provides in their box. If I want to build an F-14B though, I need alternate engines - that's the kind of stuff I was talking about. Also, unless they've started adding monstrous PE frets to their re-released 1/350 ship kits, those kind of do need aftermarket details. Then again, they're 80s kits.
  11. More like Tamiya and Hasegawa have different philosophies on how you milk your toolings. Tamiya tends to go "let's sell this one boxing until people lose interest in a decade or so, then we release another version with different parts and rekindle the interest". They don't have special releases or things like that, they just have the best basic kit of one model that the aftermarket will gladly provide all the alternate bits for. Not a lot of other manufacturers stick to this philosophy, but Tamiya are legends and are basically getting away with it. Academy may actually be trying f
  12. Have a look for yourself at the DACO set. http://www.dacoproducts.com/KDCC4802a.html Basically, it contains a bunch of operator-specific gear, as well as corrected wings (DACO thinks the kit wings are the wrong size), and on the E sprues, a bunch of weapons Hasegawa won't ever make (AS.30 and Kormoran ASMs; B43, B57 and B61 nuclear bombs; and Aspide AAMs).
  13. First of all, Hasegawa probably suffers a fair bit from (justified) "Airfix syndrome" - "We're already making good models of these aircraft, that we spent a fortune on designing, and they're better than the vast majority of the competition. Why should we redo all of them?" The difference between Hasegawa and Airfix being that Hasegawa's models still *are* really good and offer everything you expect out of modern kits, despite a lot of them being thirty+ years old, as opposed to Airfix who kept selling 1950s models with raised detail at full price in new boxes in 2006. All of the
  14. Mk82 Snake Eyes does look like the cheapest option for arming it, yes (you can get even cheaper if you get Hasegawa's first weapons set in 1/72, it has six Mk82 Snake Eyes in plastic). The only other options I can find from the display above are AGM-69 SRAM (either from a Testors/Italeri B-2, which doesn't need them in the first place; or another Ozmods resin set); and the B61 bombs (Italeri's F-117 has a pair, as does the Italeri/Testors "US/NATO Aircraft Weapons" accessory set). The plastic items are all *old* - the Snake eye bombs are from 1980, and the F-117 and B-2 kits are from 1990 and
  15. There's a couple of pictures in this tweet of the FB-111 with it's weapons options laid out in front of it: IIRC, the FB-111 did not have a non-nuclear mission - they were doomsday planes, and so trained only for nuclear delivery. The weapons in the picture (an M117R, at least two, possibly three configurations of the Mk82, and a heavy CBU), all seem like they were chosen for having similar aerodynamics as the B-61 or B-83 and would be useful for training in how to deliver those weapons accurately. After the FB-111 fleet was stood down
  16. Filling the bomb bays on this thing with appropriate weapons will cost almost as much as the plane if you're using Hasegawa weapons sets - your spares box will be happy I suppose. The alternative to the Conventional Rotary Launcher is to scratch build the fixed bomb rack assembly that's used when you want to load oodles of GBU-38s or CBUS - it's like a left/right dividing wall, with ten bomb attachments per side, plus another ten on each wall of the bomb bay for a total of 40 in each bay. That's another "your wallet will scream" option....
  17. Thank you kindly, @mingwin! Sad to hear that the bird itself is gone, though Joe Baugher's USAF serials list tells me the crew made it out safely at least. Does anyone make a sheet for this bird in 1/72?
  18. Will this do? You can tell from the picture how the bomb racks are arranged as two offset crosses, one behind the other, same as in the kit. I'm pretty sure the reason is weapon clearance issues - with the offset racks, you can load eight of certain stores that you can only fit four of on a B-52 or B-1 rotary launcher because the fins stick out too much. Like JSOW or Paveway. Edit: Picture is from Wikipedia courtesy of the USAF, so it's in the public domain. Edit 2: Just found out while looking for a pic of the Modelcollect bomb bay that they'
  19. While on the topic of white stencils and after market sheets for the F-4, I'm wondering if anyone can help me ID a scheme from a description? Years and years back, the first time I visited the local hobby show (must be nearly two decades ago now), one of the most memorable models of the entire show was an 1/48 long-nose Phantom (I'm pretty sure it was a Hasegawa F-4G), in of the "camo on top, white belly" schemes, which was absolutely covered in stencils. The thing that really stands out most in my mind is a circle of words, in white, on the top of the nose between the windscreen a
  20. You're on the right track, but It's not actually a Phantom I've found though, it's a Tomcat. I was hoping there would be a US Navy F-4 squadron that flew SEAD missions that had converted to Tomcats, so I could make a plausible what-if *Tomcat* SEAD bird with HARM under the wing shoulders and either Rockeye or JSOW on the bomb racks... as I have a complete Hasegawa 1/72 F-14B, with all the extra bits you need from the weapons sets to build a Bombcat (BOL rails, bomb racks, LANTIRN and plenty of the pylons for them)... but no Sparrow or Phoenix missiles to counter-balance the LANTIRN pod. Now I
  21. Nice! Wonder if there's any chance you can kitbash together an offset-IRST Su-30 and a centered-IRST Su-27 if you chop off the forward part of the fuselage insert (from the back edge of the windscreen and straight down for example), or do we just wait another few years and let Zvezda come out with them on their own? :)
  22. Re: lack of ARMs on Navy Phantoms Thanks for the info everyone, but *rats*, there goes one of my ideas for fixing up an airframe I found under the pile of debris on my desk...
  23. Quick question, since this seems to be the go-to thread for Phantom armament questions... Did US Navy Phantoms ever carry HARM or Shrike, or was that an Air Force only thing? I can't find any pictures on Google, the only thing that turns up are pictures of the F-4G, even if I specify F-4B, N, J or S. If they did, I'd be interested to know which squadrons might have done so operationally.
  24. Hmm, that looks an awful lot like the color used on the Typhoon and Tornado for the landing gear wells. I wonder why Revell didn't specify *that* color instead of playing silly buggers like this....
  25. What color is the inside of the Airbus A400M's landing gear wells and landing gear doors? I've found precious few pictures, most of which appear to indicate they're the same (or very nearly) as the exterior of the aircraft, but Revells instructions for the 1/72 kits - both the old version, which I have, and the new one which I've looked up the instructions for online, call for a very very light gray (75% white + 25% of Revell's lightest gray color) that's so light I can't tell it's not supposed to be white from the "prototype model" photos on the box. This same mix doesn't show up on any other
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