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avnav

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    Pahoa, Hawaii
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    Flying, aircraft, photography, volcanoes, nature, science

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  1. It was put in the LOX bottle compartment. For NOLO flights they took the LOX bottle out and put the warhead in.
  2. That's because we climbed up and got into the cockpits from the left side, both for maintenance and aircrews. We didn't walk on the right side walkways much except for passing over them while jumping down onto the right wing. Good eye for noticing that, most modelers weather both sides the same. For a Phantom that hadn't been repainted in awhile, there often was also some bare metal showing on the top of the left vari-ramp from people walking on top of it while going from the boarding ladder to the rear cockpit. The paint on top of the right vari-ramp was much more pristine since we a
  3. avnav

    AIM-7 question

    I don't recall ever seeing any photos of Langley's First Fighter F-15As or Bs in Air Superiority Blue. I have a few photos of F-15A and B prototypes and some from Luke in the blue scheme. I don't think any F-15s were ever on QRA during that time and so photos of a blue F-15 carrying live ordnance would be extremely rare, and would probably be test aircraft carrying live missiles with an inert warhead. There's a photo on Wikipedia that is captioned that it's the first F-15A arriving at Langley in January 1976. It's in Compass Ghost Gray paint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Fighter_Win
  4. A minor point but the correct nomenclature for the nuke is B61, not B-61. The B-61 designation would be for an airplane. For example, a B57 is a small tactical nuke and B-57 is the Martin Canberra bomber. There are a few Victor Alert Phantom photos out there. I saw one photo on Facebook some time ago that has an F-4D with two B28s loaded, one in each inboard pylon. Another I found that has a B61 on the centerline, two 370s and no missiles. I have no idea where or when these were taken, nor who the photographer was.
  5. The B-58 in the video is quite likely a prototype but is painted differently than the one Boom 175 posted. Here's a screenshot: Caracal recently did a very nice B-58 decal sheet which I believe included the most likely fictional B-58 in camouflage. It did not include this paint scheme with the solid red tail and aft fuselage. Note also that the Hustler in the video has a tail gun installed.
  6. I just saw a link to this video on Facebook. Early in the video at about 4:26 is a B-58A taking off, painted in a scheme I had never seen before. The vertical tail and rear fuselage are red, and the tail number appears to be yellow. Looks like there's red on the wings too. I'd love to see good photos of this airplane in this scheme. The video also has good scenes with various bombers, fighters and missiles of the late 1950s or very early 1960s.
  7. Aloha Michael, I have five years working on F-4Cs and Es for what that's worth. I did find this about the German seats: http://www.ejectionsite.com/gh7aseat.htm The article doesn't mention anything about the Valve Sequencing Assembly replacing the banana links, sear and seat mounted initiator, but from the description it's quite possible if not probable that it is the case. So it's also quite possible I am wrong on that count and you are correct. I knew a former RF-4C pilot who described an accident in which a flashlight had been dropped inflight and during maneuvering ha
  8. I seriously doubt you are correct about the entire front seat raising and lowering on the Luftwaffe F-4F. That would have taken an entire redesign of the seat to make that happen. Why would they do that when every other Phantom in the world got by with an adjustable seat bucket and rudder pedals? You are mistaken about what the banana links are, too. It's nothing to do with "flexible tubing on top of the seat." The banana links are two flat metal pieces shaped vaguely like bananas or crescents that are welded at one end to a shaft at the top rear of the seat. During the ejection s
  9. Looking at this model on my desktop confuser, I can see the silvering on the decals, which isn't too bad but a shame since the rest of the model is beautiful. Hopefully you can find a way to eliminate the silvering, but it's not that bad and hardly worth risking the model if correcting it causes damage to the paint. I am still in awe of the exhaust area on your model. Too many people model the blast panels with various colors to simulate metal that's been heated while in reality the panels should be coated in black soot. It's only in later years that F-4s in USAF service had the smokel
  10. Absolutely gorgeous painting. Your exhaust area looks far more realistic than many if not all of the F-4 models I've seen in recent years. I'd really love to read your description of what colors you used and how you painted it. There only two things I see that could be a little better with the model, and they are both pretty minor: First is that you put the retractable boarding steps on vertically; it should be angled out, with the bottom step further out than the top. Tomorrow I'll see if I can find a good photo to post that shows you the correct angle. I'm guessing you can sti
  11. The following photo clearly shows no inboard slat actuators, and the leading edge flap panel line between Ritchie's and DeBellevue's heads wraps around well under the wing, which the slat panel line doesn't do. The inboard slat has a panel line parallel to the wing leading edge, which is slightly aft underneath the leading edge of the wing. That panel line is rather prominent with the slats retracted, you would see it if it were there in the photo below. Also this was a 1967 fiscal year jet in July 1972; slat conversions to non-slatted jets didn't start happening until late 1972 (69-7254 was
  12. I thought the photos on Marty Cavato's site were pretty clear. At the time, no.
  13. Based on many photos I've seen and on the F-4Cs and Es I worked on in the 1980s, the green (left side) and tan (right side) went inside the duct three feet exactly as the gray did in on the F-4F in the photo Aigore linked to above:
  14. MicroScale had the markings many, many years ago. You can probably scrounge the wing and squadron markings from Eglin F-15 decals. As for the weapons load, 67-0362 on that day for sure launched out with AIM-9Es, AIM-7E-2s, a 600 gallon centerline and 370 gallon wing tanks. It was also carrying two ECM pods on the inboard pylons, but I'm no expert on Vietnam-era pods so I can't tell you what types they are. Here's a photo of Ritchie shutting down after that sortie: https://martycavato.smugmug.com/Military/Udorn-Thailand-1971-72/i-K7mvnRh/A Notice the extended sway brac
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