GW8345

Those are CNU-188 Baggage pods, basically, a modified old AERO 1D External Fuel Tank (the kind used on the A-7, A-4, A-6, EA-6B, S-3, etc). In the old days it was allowed to be carried on the front stations but after several engine FOD's due to the fasteners coming out of the cargo door it was only authorized for the aft stations.

Great looking Tomcat!!!!! Did you add the probes to the starboard side? Also, if I may, I recommend adding the yaw string to the nose, it's an iconic feature for the Tomcat; a 40 million dollar aircraft with a piece of string for a primary flight instrament.

You come on here requesting someone provide you free decals (even stating that it must be a complete set), then 11 month later wondered why no one has freely provided you something that they worked hard to obtain (now it comes across as a demand instead of a request). Now you get butt hurt when members joking call out your entitled behavior/attitude and then claim that the members here are displaying a “lack of understanding and friendship”; all because no one here is willing to provide you something that they have spent hard earned money to obtain. I’m not sure what is more amazing, you askin

He passed on March 28, 2014

One other point I'd like to make, for the USN, the AERO 3B was only authorized for the AIM-9A/B/C. The reason is because AIM-9D's and above required Nitrogen cooling and the AERO 3B did not have Nitrogen cooling capability. The LAU-7 has a Nitrogen Bottle in the aft end that provides Nitrogen cooling for the missile The Air Force utilizes the TMU-72 Nitrogen Bottle that goes right into the guidance section of the Sidewinder, the TMU-72 was not authorized for USN use until the mid 90's.

Yep, for got about the Hasegawa kit. Looked it up on line and notice that for the E-2C (old school), the props look like they have slightly rounded tips, on the real thing the tips are not rounded. I will say that looking at the Hasegawa kits do have way more detail than then the old Fujimi kit.

Yep, it's a Mk 83

No one makes a 1/72 scale A-5 Vigilante, the Trumpeter kit is a RA-5C, the A-5 and RA-5C are very different. One major draw back with the Trumpeter kit is the shape of the nose, it's wrong. The Hasegawa kit has a better shape but lacks the detail of the Trumpeter kit. The only A-5 Vigie's were the old Revell and Monogram box scale kits from the 60's. For A-4's, Fujimi hands down though the new A-4B from Airfix isn't bad. For the S-2 Tracker and S-3 Viking, Hasegawa, E-2C Fujimi.

IIRC For USN F-4's, it was physically possible to launch Sidewinders with weapon/stores loaded on the TER on station 2 and 8. With that said, it wasn't common practice and not recommended but you could do it. 99.9% of the time, if you were going to launch a Sidewinder you were going to get rid of any air to mud weapon/stores, you normally don't go into a dogfight lugging around a bunch of bombs. A slant load of bombs on one side with a Sidewinder on the opposite side was not uncommon. For USAF F-4 Phantom's, you physically could not launch a Side

I think loading bombs on the plane even though they were not in the combat zone is fine. I have done several Med Cruises and we flew/dropped bombs during the cruise, just not as much as when we were in the combat zone. Aircrew and Ordies have to keep their qual's so we would fly bombs ever so often, plus when we went out to the Caribbean and Atlantic we would do bombs as part of Airwing training. In fact, when we did Airwing training on the boat we did a lot of bomb, 42,000 lbs in one day (we were off the coast of Puerto Rico) and that was when I was in VF-143 (would have been 44,000 lbs but w

For more information on bombs and fuzes, check out this PDF file; https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjci-HBhpDaAhVBZN8KHa1wBQQQFghCMAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnavybmr.com%2Fstudy%20material%2F14313a%2F14313A_ch1.pdf&usg=AOvVaw08OMX3ly1HH6r4WBIKsrEV Also, those Mk 32 Arming Devices are an early variant and not ones that were used from the mid 70's and up. Look at figure 1-22 to see what the current Mk 32 looks like.

By bad.

Looks like you are going for the 72/73 time frame, Linebacker I and II era.

In order to turn a Mk 80 Series Bomb into a Mk 36/40/41 Destructor you need the Mk 75 Modification Kit which consisted of a Mk 32 Arming Device (nose fuze), Mk 59 Booster and a Mk 42 TDD (plus a few other bits/pieces). It wasn't just a modification to the nose fuze, Destructors had a different nose fuze and a TDD installed in the tail fuze well, for Mk 80 Series Bombs, the TDD (if used) was only installed in the nose fuze well. GW

To echo what C-Cat said, Navy Phantom's didn't do much low level "air to mud" stuff in Vietnam so to me, 18 x Mk 82 Snakeyes isn't a realistic load out. My dad was in VF-31 during the 72/73 cruise, he told me that the most they would do would be 12 Mk 82 "slicks" on TER's on station 1, 2, 8 and 9 with 4 x AIM-9's and 2 or 4 AIM-7's and a centerline tank. The Marines flying from in country airfields did do a lot of air to mud stuff since they were doing CAS missions but the Navy didn't do that stuff. The VF-114 pic that Twong post, I don't think that was an V

I recommend: Flying Leathernecks Models 1/48 LAU-7 MISSILE LAUNCHER STENCIL MARKINGS decals The will give you good detail and make the LAU-7's look more accurate. You can find them on Ebay from a seller called "rebelalpha". I have several sets of those decals and they really make the LAU-7 look more realistic. Also, it depends on the time frame you are doing, IIRC after 67 the AERO 3B was not authorized on the F-4C and I'm not sure if it was authorized before then.

If I'm not mistaken the F-4C/D used the LAU-7/A Sidewinder Missile Launcher, if you google "LAU-7/A Sidewinder Missile Launcher" you should be able to find pics and info on the launcher. Note, the LAU-7 has been around for 55 years, while the launcher is basically the same as back then (on the exterior) there are two details you will need to ensure 1) for the AIM-9B, there would not be any fin retainers on the nose of the launcher (the AIM-9B didn't use fin retainers, those didn't come into use until the AIM-9D) and on the back end, the missile exhaust spoiler will need to be insta

If you want it kind of generic then yea, go with plain markings. For the late 80's/early 90's the east coast CAG's were cracking down on cranial/float coat markings so you could put a black/white checkerboard on the troubleshooters/final checkers. For the yellow/green/blue shirts you could put a squadron zapper (sticker) on their cranial. For the Ordies (Red Shirts) put "CAG ARM" on the back of their float coats and cranial.

Yes What time frame are you thinking?

Throw some test squadron markings on it and say it was for flight test/fit check.

To be honest, there really isn't any pics that clearly show it so I went by the shadows that black walk ways would give off, with what would be painted on it for that time period, and that it was over all LGG. so basically, I'm taking an educated guess based on the above and my years of working on Tomcats. Hopefully Mike will comeback and say they are black but if there is no clear documentation as to what color they were, I'd go with black since that is the most likely color they would be for that time period and scheme.

I was a F-14 Ordnanceman, Ordnance and Plane Captain Intructor, and Full Systems QAR from 87 to 2001, the formations lights were modified for NVG, that's what those black stripes are, NVG lighting.

They are all at work. A Google search for shows that it had black walkways.

For the Super Hornet, Stations 2, 3, 4, 8 , 9 and 10 are canted 4.5 degrees outboard of the aircraft centerline, only stations 2 and 10 are tilted 2.5 degrees from the aircraft vertical centerline. For BRU-33 and BRU-55 CVER's, the racks are canted 5.5 degrees to the outboard so the fins on bombs will not line up perfectly like the would on a VER. The CVER's (and everything else that mounts to the pylon) mounts in line with the pylon so they will be canted 4.5 degrees outboard, just like the pylon. Basically, the only thing that mounts straight on a Super Hornet is the

The small black wire you are using is perfect, on the real MER's and TER's the sway braces were not that thick, about a 1/2 inch in diameter. A 7/16 inch wrench/socket was used to tighten them down and the threaded area was just a little bigger than the 7/16 inch head. The jam nuts were 5/8 inch. Paint both the sway brace and jam nuts silver. Funny how I can remember crap like that but can't remember what I had for dinner two nights ago.