boom175

I crewed A-10's for 30 years, how can I help you?

Most of the A-10's I have worked had the soft demarcation line but some that were painted at a different paint facility had a hard edge, but that was a small amount.

IMHO The ZM kit has finer and better detail. The Meng kit has simplified details but better engineering for assembly. A lot of this boils down to personal preference, People complain about the ZM spine insert ( a valid point that could have been engineered better) and they complain about the exhaust shield on the Meng phantoms ) I cant stand it and that's what prevents me from buying the Meng kit. But I love how Meng does the outer wing panels. So you pick your poison.

Does anyone know if the new Block 30 Texas ANG boxing has the MCID (Big Mouth) intake? in the kit?

Thanks for the info Gabor, I am really looking forward to this kit. I think it will look nice set next to my 48th Phantoms.

Any release date posted? Thanks for the pics!

BTW the smaller vertical probe is also used on the A-10. It's a total air temp probe if I remember correctly.

Well looking at the video of the sprue layouts and such I think I see where they messed up the fan inlet ( i.e. blades too far forward) It looks like the cowl ring is fine, but the fan just mounts to that cowl ring. Academy appears to have forgotten about the inlet extension ring that's part of the engine. See attached picture. Also the shape of the engine "Pod" is fantasy but unless your looking up the tail pipe it doesn't matter

Are you talking about that blunt cone shaped object that's in the inside of the tailpipe? If so that's called the exhaust centerbody and its a pale burnt metal color. If you are talking about the actual "Tailpipe" thats called teh exhaust shroud and were usually Euro one dark grey from the factory, as the changed the camo scheme to the lighter greys a lot of time these were left untouched. It kind of depended on the unit. I hate to be cliche about it but check your resources on the particular jet you're doing.

Saw that a lot in the desert, just get a small leak of hyd or other oily fluid and sand will stick to it like nobody's buisness and it will turn from light sandy color to a dark red brown.

Unfortunately there is no "like" button on this board, but that deserves a "like" ! 🙂

Most likely yes, the sway braces are part of the bomb rack and the bomb rack is inside of the pylon.

The F-16's in the Aggressor role at Eielson AFB in Alaska are fully combat capable. They just don't have a combat mission. However the other Fighter squadron at Eielson is deployed and the aggressor squadron has taken over the armed intercept mission. Probably not the whole squadron but a detachment.

Thank you very much!

Well that's out of the blue!

Just wondering if F-14A (161621) deploy to the USS Carl Vinson with that nose art on the jet? Or was it removed before they went on the boat?

I don't remember any AGE being OD except for some touch ups. It was a darker olive color.

Gwen I have bottle of Alclad that are over 10 years old and while I can't guarantee every bottle will last that long, as long as you keep your bottles tightly sealed they will last a long time. I do like there metallics but not a big fan of some of there other products.

Is that aircraft painted silver or is it a bare metal finish? It looks too uniform to be a bare metal aircraft. If its painted I would go with Tamiya LP-11, if its bare metal I would go with Alclad over Gunze GX-2 gloss black.

Not super uncommon. they could have been in a transfer from one unit to the next, Usually the losing unit will remove any distinctive markings. Or they just got back from the depot and was repainted. The tail codes and squadron badges are usually applied at the unit level. They will probably put them one the next time it goes in the hangar.

Had that happen a few times on our Hogs coming back from depot.

I'm sorry if I missed it, but has there been a price established for this kit yet?

They didn't last long as they cause a lot of sheet metal cracking. I think ours stayed on less than 6 months if not less.

If you look at "Some" of MRP's paint labels it will give the color then have (FADED) in parenthesis next to it. i.e. MiG-29 Grey-Green (FADED) ya got to look at each color description.

Don't know about if it flew in or not. But most like ly it was never operationally flown. The reason I say that is that no 77 models were updated with LASTE or any of the other mods that were applied to the newer jets. In our unit we did the same thing with our two 77 models, one we made BDR trainer and the other was a load crew/ICT trainer.