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SebastianP

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Everything posted by SebastianP

  1. I now have this kit in my hands, and have been looking through the box contents. From some of the details I've found, it looks like the helicopter used in the movie was one of the prototypes - the instructions have you blanking off the smallest of the cockpit windows, you're supposed to sand off the flotation devices below said windows, and while the kit comes with twin-wheel main gear, you're supposed to cut one of the wheels off... The cabin window layout is also not one I remember seeing before, what with the dome window just aft of the starboard cabin door. I'm unsure if I'll build it a
  2. Seeing as my local hobby shop only rarely stocks the Revell Super Hornet kit and doesn't carry Hasegawa at all, I've been thinking about picking up a few of the Italeri version and building them up as the development machines, just to do something different. It helps that at least the single-seaters also come with SLAM-ER missiles, which are decidedly difficult to find in plastic outside of that kit. (There's the SkunkWorks weapons set, but that's about it). The only one I remember seeing built up as just that - a development machine - is Joe Hegedus' E4 in the orange-and-white flight test s
  3. That's about what I thought... I need to start building kits from Hasegawa instead of Revell again, every time I buy a kit nowadays there's enough leftovers to arm another jet and a half. And that's if I finish the jet - I've had to throw out several jets after dad's cat broke all their landing gear. I counted sixty-odd air-to-air missiles in my spares box, and I only have six jets to put them on...one of which is French, and has it's own missiles.
  4. That pic only demonstrates captive carry - it doesn't prove they even tried launching the missiles... :) (IIRC, the first time they flew that loadout, they had pretty much the US Navy's entire stock of AMRAAMs hanging on that one aircraft...) The loadouts I'm interested in in particular are: 12 AMRAAM and 2 Sidewinders on a Super Hornet or Lightning; 8 AMRAAM/METEOR and 6 ASRAAM/IRIS-T on a Typhoon; 14 AMRAAM and 2 Sidewinders on a Raptor; and 13/14 MICA on a Rafale. All of those were touted in the promo materials and sims, but I don't have a clue whether they were ever actually tested.
  5. A combination of renewed interest in old flight simulators (like EF-2000, Total Air War, and Jane's F/A-18), some old promo pictures from Eurofighter, MCAIR and Dassault, and a growing pile of leftover AAMs in my spares box has made me wonder about whether the "Missile truck" loadouts demonstrated in those sims and promo pics (between 13 and 16 AAMs depending on the aircraft) would actually be realistic under any circumstances? The loadouts aren't flown operationally at the moment, but is that solely due to economics (costs too much to have that many missiles on the jet when there's no air-to-
  6. I'm also sloooooowly working on an 1/48 Hasegawa F-14A that I picked up second hand a couple of years ago from someone who'd taken a look in the box and gone "no way". I've built two of the 1/72 Tomcats before, so I knew roughly what I was in for beforehand, and so far aside from the dratted white paint, it's actually been easier to work with than the smaller one, mainly due to the pieces being easier to hold on to... (and the reduction in PE parts. ;)/>) First of all, go get yourself a bottle of Humbrol Liquid Poly brush-on cement (or similar). It will be your best friend throughout the b
  7. Correct! I've only found *two* pictures of an NFH with the upturned exhausts, both of which were that machine (Italy's 3-03) during their sales trip to Australia... I know that building a real machine won't be very difficult, but the hard part is the painting - I still don't know what colour the NL version is supposed to be, and while I know what colors the FR version is, they're tedious mixes that I'd rather avoid. :( Currently, it looks like this will be a what if - specifically "What if the UK hadn't dropped out of the NH90 program?" On a mostly unrelated note, does anyone know where to f
  8. Was browsing Hannant's site looking for an Agusta A109 when I found this: http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/IT1332 I had honestly never heard of it before, and I'm wondering what exactly is in the box - about the only thing I can tell from the photo is that it has the ramp fuselage and four side windows, like the Cormorant and VH-71. Can anyone tell me more about this?
  9. On my first visit to my LHS in ages, I discovered that not only was there now an NFH version of the NH90 out, but it contained all the sprues of the TTH and was some 4 euro cheaper than the old one to boot. Seeing as I have an unbroken TTH sheet in my stash (due to the kit losing a fight with a cat before decalling started), I figure I'd get an extra and build a new TTH from that. Which means I'll have an NFH sprue left over, which in turn gives me ideas... First of all, are the ASW-specific interior parts (consoles, seats, dipping sonar) appropriate for any other helicopter type, or is the N
  10. It has both good and bad parts. On the good side, it has even *more* weapons than the Revell kit (which is pretty much a weapons set with optional airplane as is...). Also, it has the complete set of hardpoints, which so far only the old, old Italeri kit has gotten right in 1/72. On the bad side, the photos of the weapons look off, it has only closed engine exhausts, the seat is oversimplified, and the landing gear bay detail was fictious. For my money... get Revell to add the extra hardpoints (the mounting holes are already there in the wings...), a Brimstone rack, and a pair of extra ASRAAM
  11. Ah - slight misunderstanding there. Those four were the only (1/72) Corsairs in the store period - the Airfix and Hobby Boss kits were some variation of F4U-1, but I've had really really bad luck with Airfix/Heller (my last two kits from them was a Hellcat and a Hawker Typhoon - the Hellcat was warped beyond recognition, and the Typhoon was a squeeze-fit kit with ginormous alignment problems and no detail at all); and the Hobby Boss was an "Easy Kit", which makes me think of snap-tite models. The Revell kit I knew was at least buildable, and the Italeri F4U-7 is basically the same kit with a f
  12. Yeah, these help a lot. I noticed I actually have a post in the first thread, but that's about the 1/72 version... I'm kind of thankful I seem to have gotten old kit. There's no flash or other signs of mold wear on this - of the two 1/72 kits I've built, the older kit was by far the one that needed the least cleanup. Sadly, when *this* dwarf enters a fey mood, he gets put in a hospital and all his kits get thrown out. :/ SP
  13. Thanks, I will! As I said though, the selection is pretty poor at the LHS (they deal mostly in rail and r/c stuff), and since the Japanese kits weren't available, I went with the devil I knew... Would any of the other options (Airfix or Hobby Boss) have been more accurate? Cheers! SP
  14. Is there a "community build instruction" out there for the Hasegawa 1/48 Tomcat kit, like there is for its smaller cousin? I was offered an "Atlantic Fleet Squadrons" Tomcat for a third of retail the other day, which was too good to pass up, but I've never built one before and I can't really afford to waste this kit learning how *not* to build it, like I could for Revell's F-15E and F/A-18E. Since the kit looks engineered mostly the same way as the 1/72 kit which I've built twice, are the issues similar or is there even more to look out for? (For the smaller kit, I discovered that the only th
  15. SebastianP

    Late Corsairs

    I caught an Italeri F4U-7 kit this afternoon, to build as a warmup for the winter's big projects, and I'm thinking about how exactly I want to build the thing. I know Joe Hegedus doesn't like the rear fuselage and canopy on it, but it was the safest choice for a Corsair available at the LHS - the other choices were Revell's F4U-5, a Hobby Boss Easy kit, and an Airfix kit. The first, I knew was too short; the second sounds like one of those models where all the fun stuff has been done already; and Airfix (and Heller) in a sealed box is like a lottery - some of their stuff is great, most of the
  16. Thanks for all the tips. As far as I know, due to the earthquake we're staying somewhere in Tokyo rather than out of town. I seriously have no idea where, I'll get that info tomorrow when the tickets are ordered. As I said, we're probably going to hit a bunch of the touristy spots (Akihabara is pretty much a given, and there are several kind of out-of-the-way spots that have been used for backdrops in anime that would be cool to visit. (seriously, someone went out with a camera once to document the area used as inspiration for one of the more popular shows, and they'd even gotten stuff like p
  17. Thanks for the tips! My friend is also a modeler, though he tends to stick to Gundam kits recently. He had one of those "why didn't I think of that" moments when I mentioned Shizuoka to him. Does anyone have any other recommendations for places that would be of interest to a modeler? A visit to Yokosuka to see the carrier would be a dream come true, but I don't think there's a chance in hell I'd get on base... Cheers, SP
  18. A friend of mine spends a month in Japan each year to visit relatives, and offered to have me along this year. Originally we were supposed to already be there now but, well, earthquakes and stuff. So the trip was postponed, but it's now back on and we're planning on leaving at the end of this month. Awesome, said I. Anyway, besides doing the obvious touristy stuff, I thought I'd check out the little town of Shizuoka, where pretty much every plastic model kit in Japan is at least designed, and where most of them are manufactured... Before I go though, I thought I'd check if anyone here had do
  19. As far as I remember, the Italeri (ex-ESCI) Corsairs are also good value for money, aside from the intakes being shallow. (There's an intake cover on the sprue, though). Bonus points for being easy to put together, and having decent plastic (almost Hasegawa-style, in the one I had). Cheers, SP
  20. The pylons can be built movable, but they're super fragile like that and they're liable to stick in place when you paint the wings. (you could pre-paint the wings before assembly, though that never works very well for me...) Cheers SP
  21. Paint them like you would US missiles - Sweden doesn't quite use the same color codes, but they're close enough. Also, all white, or green and white, is the color coding for "dummy weapon" - these will be stenciled with the word "BLIND" to make it extra clear that they're not live weapons. The Swedish color codes I remember from when I was in the service (probably not all of them...) Blue: Training device. This includes things like grenade simulators and the like, anything which goes "pop" instead of "Booom". Also, missiles with working seekers but no engine or warhead. Red: Blank ammunitio
  22. I'm a bit curious about that bulkhead and the bay doors actually. My 1/72 kit is configured OOB for internal ALCM carriage, which means the bulkhead is moved forward to make room. According to that kit, there's only one set of doors for the whole forward bay. On the 1/48 kit, the doors are separate, with a spacer on the bulkhead. Is either, or both, of these correct? (Also, shame shame shame on Monogram for those damned doors on the 1/72 kit...) SP
  23. Did someone actually come out with a proper 1/72 Longbow, or are we still waiting on that front? (All the kits I'm aware of is either A-models with the radome on top, or the prototype with the pointy fairings). Cheers, SP
  24. I have one of the 1/48 Italeri kits in my "perpetually in progress" category - some day I'll get back to it, but I'm stalled out. The kit is molded in very dark green plastic, has optional external storage wings, a weapons bay that can be modeled open or closed, fourteen Hellfire missiles, two Stingers, a three piece canopy (separate pilots and CP/G doors), and very little in the way of details. The biggest "mistake" I think is the total lack of exhausts for the turbines, unless that's supposed to be them all the way down on the boom... Cheers, SP
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