HCS-5 AO1

As an aside, it was just announced that the Maintainers for the Seawolves are eligible to wear the Navy Enlisted Warfare Specialist wings and it was a group of pilots and aircrew that fought to get that for them, I can give anyone the link for the information if they ask in a PM should they know a Seawolf. That was announced on their Facebook page not too long ago. I was a member of one of their successor squadrons, HAL-5, later HCS-5 in the late 80s and then again in the late 90s so getting vetted into the group was easy. I never post anything there other than the occasional congrats to some

I would like to know how reputable Tracks and Troops Online Store is, especially with shipping to the US. I found some things on that site that I've not seen anywhere else or cheaper than what I would find with the vendors I usually deal with on EBay. I looked at their shipping charges and saw that they reserve 30 Euro but only charge a lower rate corresponding to what it actually costs. Have they overcharged anyone or not delivered when they promised? I'm like a lot of people, retired and on a single paycheck that has to last a month so I have to watch how I spend. My days of overtime and bi-

I recently was given a good deal, well better than Spectrum, for my cable and internet and made the switch to AT&T for everything. Aside from a lifetime discount for my military service I was sent a gift card for $300 dollars. Since the town I live in lost all of it's brick and mortar stores between 07 and 2010 all we have left is a pair of Michael'stores, a Hobby Lobby and one local hobby shop that tries to serve everyone but due to poor selection, especially all manner and scales of military kits, and very poor customer service I and my friends have few reasons to visit the place. In fac

After further digging on the internet I was able to find a total of five pics of Red cranials with the letter "O" on it, three of which were USMC Ordies, the majority of the pics shown and what I wore on my shop's gear was nothing for VP-65, "230" at NAWS China Lake due to the fact that we wore either Navy dungarees or blue coveralls, or unit designator starting or ending with "W". In the internet search the majority turned up the same with "W" appearing in most of the shots. There for, to a certain degree I stand corrected but, it did take a lot of looking around to find these five shots, so

In my personal experience as well as a member of several different type commands, P-3, HH-1K, HH-60H, F/A-18, A-6 as well a a flight deck crew member of two aviation rates, Aviation Boatswains Mate-Fuels (ABF) and Aviation Ordnanceman (AO), I personally have never to my recollection seen a the letter "O" used for Ordnance on a brain bucket. I admit to some minor memory loss from several very minor stokes, but all pic in my 1980 ship's MED Cruise album show otherwise. As NAVAIR is the got to publications for line operations concerning flight deck and flight line personal that is the publication

Sorry, Rightwinger but that's mostly wrong info. the correct info can be found on this page here.... https://info.publicintelligence.net/USNavy-CVN-FlightDeck.pdf See Appendix "H" for a complete listing of markings for shirt, flotation vest (float coat), and helmet (cranial or brain bucket, depending on how viscreal you are 😜 ). This by all means is not the last word on how a helmet is marked. For example, in 1979, before I grew up and became an Aviation Ordnanceman, AO, I was assigned to V4/Fuels Division on the USS Saratoga as a member of a flight deck fuel crew. The regulat

Really sad to hear that this is their way of doing business. It makes as much sense as when Testors bought up FloQuil railroad colors and then killed off that line. I'm like you, I can't understand why a company withholds a line of products that has a ready-made consumer base. While most figures are molded in that soft, worthless toy soldier plastic their figures are all molded in actual styrene plastic that holds detail and paints just as most mainstream kits. For some reason, there has been a dearth of modern 1/72 scale military vehicles lately. A few years ago everyone was producing Hummers

A while back I was able to purchase a set of modern Bundeswehr figures by Preiser but was told that other sets were unable to be obtained such as the unpainted Civilian Passersby, Modern US Troops, Sitting US Troops. Recently I was able to download their latest catalog and noticed that these items were still on the list. I'd like to know if they are in fact available and who sells them. The vendor I was using strung me along with a couple of back orders for so long I finally gave up and killed that PO. Since there are no real hobby shops in my area, all but one remain and that one has a very l

Thinking about the subject of tinting I remember that at some point in the 70s I came across a tip in the old Scale Modeler or Aircraft Modeler, both defunct since the late 80s, suggesting using Testors or Pactra 'Candy' color top coats that were to be applied over silver or gold base coats to achieve that Candy Apple or whatever color you were going for as window tinting. It was fine if one was tinting a 1/24 scale auto windshield but an absolute mess if you were trying to spray a 1/48 or 72 scale Huey overhead panel. Forget brush painting as that had its own set of problems, number one, gett

I just watched a youtube video about the Jollys on a CSAR mission and this is what I was able to determine. In the shots of the cockpit interior, the shade of the outside sky is darker in the overhead windows than in the side windows directly next to the pilot's shoulders. This seems to indicate tinting of some type. The colors of the video are very washed out so I don't know if it was green or blue. Going by memory which isn't what it once was, I remember an article from Boy's Life, the scouting magazine we all had as kids in the sixties, about the non-stop trans-Atlantic flight

Yesterday I had to go to Los Angeles for family business and after that was taken care of my daughter and I decided that we'd have lunch in Little Tokyo. While there we took my grandson to the Anime Jungle's model store to see if we could get him his first kit. Well, we didn't find anything for him but I was struck by the amount of Gundam and Star Wars kits they had for sale, nearly 70-80% of their stock but it got me thinking about the Bandai SW kits. I'd like to know the following, What is the quality of the parts? Are they in scale or are they like most of the snap

Swung by the Van Nuys airport this afternoon, aside from the usual biz and corporate jets you see there I drove past the Condor Legion's flight line. Almost a dozen AT-6 Texans in both USAAF and Riech Luftwaffe paint jobs. Found out too late that the batteries in my camera died.

I'm looking into getting a new printer for the house and I figured if I'm going to get one that I can print decals with. Ideally, I would like to find an inexpensive one to do colors as I plan to do more than a few 'what if' and things related to anime and manga shows and stories that I enjoy. I used to cut my own stencils when I was younger but it was just simple shapes at the time. I'd like to add text to the text and more complex designs to some of the projects I have in mind.

Well, San Diego has the USS Midway and Balboa Park Air and Space as mentioned but the Marines moved their museum from El Toro to MCAS Miramar after MCAS El Toro closed down years ago. Not sure if it's still there or open though. Further north is the California Science Center Air and Space Museum. It doesn't have much in the way of aircraft but it does have the sole surviving F-20 Tigershark, an A-12 Oxcart/Blackbird, as well as the Space Shuttle Endeavor. At one time there was an F-104 Starfighter attached to an exterior wall but I didn't notice it the last time I was there about ten years ago

I bet whoever it was had gone to college with Bluto...

Really? Darn, there goes that idea for retirement money😭

Thanks, guys, I was wondering about the Academy kit, looks like this is the one to get. Not sure when it'll go on my bench but that's the best thing about being retired, it's like a second, or in my case, third childhood without the school and anime instead of the Flintstones and Bugs Bunny for entertainment. I might get two, one in Navy markings and one in Kazama Shin's F-8 from the anime Area 88. I'll need to find the decals second hand though since I don't feel like spending $30+ for the Hasegawa kit. For those who've never heard of Area 88, it's a Japanese anime and manga that was initial

I have the Revell 48th scale EA-6A that my boss got me for Christmas one year after I was released. I think it was only molded for only a year so it's quite rare. I may put it only bench later this year probably by the fall, I figure it's time since my boss is still bugging me about building it. I plan on following this build to try and pick up a few things here and there. I know the two kits are worlds apart and you're doing a conversion but I figure that there will be some things that my kit needs to either add or remove. Best of luck on the build.

I was watching some Vietnam era videos recently and it struck me that I have not built a Crusader in years, in fact, the last kit of this bird was the old Fujimi/Bachman kit that was sold in the late sixties or early seventies. It's not that I wanted not to build one again or that I disliked the aircraft, it was just that what I had seen in my local shops over the years never caught my eye. Poor box art will kill a sale if it can't grab a person's attention. Maybe that's why I still love the old Revel, Monogram, and Airfix kits that I would get as a kid, they just fired my imagination. When we

That's good news then, I was actually looking at kitbashing the Airfix refueling trucks with more modern cabs as well as doing the same with a fuel tank from a Russian truck and grafting it to a Hasegawa GMC chassis. There is such a demand for flight line equipment that it's beyond me why the kit makers haven't tried to cash in. Hasegawa had a great start int he 80s but they dropped the ball along the way. While I hate to spend a lot of money on things I'm looking more and more at the resin market for flight line gear, Brengun has a lot of the smaller support items found on a Navy flight line

I'd like to add in these, A rerelease of the MH-53J, I had no idea that it's out of production until I went to find one online to buy a while ago A new molding of the CH/HH-3 Jolly Green. What is out now, if you can afford them, are from the sixties when I was in grade school. A new molding of the CH-54 Tarhe/Skycrane, same comment as above. An HH-1K Navy gunship. To make one right now requires two kits, a UH-1B or C, an AH-1G or later Cobra for the rotor system and resin casting for the roof and other small details as well as scratch building the M60 Kline mounts as the

Being retired I have lots of time on my hands and I try to keep active and my mind busy. One of my favorite wastes of time is prowling the local antique dealers. I visited one yesterday that I had not been in for some time. Good thing I did, more or less hidden behind other kits for sale was a 1/72 scale Monogram B-1B for $29. I was able to have it put on hold for a day until I could come back after asking, (begging) the wife for permission to buy it. Normally I don't have to but since it's coming up to the holidays my extra cash is sent to the gift fund. I was able to show her on eBay and a c

Truthfully, our resident squadron, HS-7, barely mounted them as we were in the Med and would return for to the Saratoga where me and my crew or another team of Grapes would hot fuel them. It was always unnerving to drag a hose and hook up to a helo with the blades still spinning. If they were too far out they would hit one of our escorts for a HIFAR evolution. I can't ever recall seeing drop tanks installed as that would be one less station for a kill store. I took a look in my 1980 Saratoga cruise book and there were no pics of a Sea King with a drop tank. Saying that, if you stil

Very carefully😜 I usually assemble them and paint them separately from the aircraft as the tanks are usually swapped out with other birds or 'loaned' to another squadron in the middle of the night to get your airplane flying. Anyone whose says different is either lying or never had to replace the tanks a pilot punched off into the sea that were the last tanks the unit had for the deployment because someone didn't think to take a few spares and supply wasn't going to have any more until after you were gone. A little larceny was tolerated thirty to forty years ago. The t

After spending the last four days in the hospital with a painful kidney infection and stones, last time I had them was in the 90s and morphine or fentanyl still barely dulls it. So, after sitting around bored, burning up my data plan and getting my speed chocked back to the days of dial-up, I get told that the infection was clearing up but I now am diabetic. Wonderful, let's add that to a ruined back, memory loss due to a couple of TIA's or mini-strokes and very high BP my week now officially sucked. Coming home today I found that most of my boxes containing kits, supplies, and boo