Paul Boyer

Dutch, I have the old Revell AA 707 kit (with the fan engines), and I'm going to use the "speedball" markings decal on it as well. It was my very first airplane ride, going from Buffalo to Los Angeles (with a stop at the old lakeside airport in Cleveland), on my way to college on August 19, 1967.🙂

That's the problem with the HH-3 - no decent kits in any scale. The Whirlybirds kit(s) are great, but not many can handle a limited-run resin/photoetched kit. There hasn't been a "new" plastic kit of the Jolly since the late 1960s (Revell, Aurora) and no kits in any other scale. Decades ago, when Italeri was cranking out American helicopter subjects, I suggested to them that a new HH-3 was needed. So much for my suggestion. 🙄

Exxxxxxcellent!

I contacted Wolfpack and they responded saying that the two kits are unrelated and that Wolfpack will announce a release schedule for their F-5E/F soon.

I wonder if the "101" with the black canopy rails and no "USS ENTERPRISE" applied was that one for the photo shoot. If you scroll up through this thread, there are two shots (one linked) of both sides of that ship and it has (appears to me) the short muzzle and long blast panel. What do you think?

Isn't there somebody who makes resin early beavertails for the new 1/72 scale Academy kit?

I just realized that the first 101 with the black canopy trim (perhaps the ONLY one with it) also had its nose cone painted gray over white, not white with the cream forward portion. It also appears to have the early cut-back gun muzzle with the longer blast panel. I've stripped the decals from my recent Academy model in preparation for refinishing it as an early VF-1 as it appeared in 1975 over the evacuation of Vietnam.

I noticed that you have "USS ENTERPRISE" on both the wing glove and the fins. Might want to check photos for that.

Yes, definitely the intercontinental wing. In 1/72 scale, a merger of the Ertl/AMT KC-135 wing, a shortened Heller 707 (or AWACS) fuselage, and aftermarket resin engines can (expensively) create "Queenie," the first Presidential jet transport, the VC-137A. https://s1108.photobucket.com/user/PaulBoyer/media/Models/VC-137Aweb2_zpsexjyggno.jpg.html

The old Revell 707 airliner represented a 707-123 (IIRC), and I suppose you could make it into one of the three up-engined VC-137B if you could find the right decals for it. The AWACS kit was a revamp of that old 707, and it's NOT the right for the E-3 which was based on the 707-300-series of "intercontinental" birds with the longer fuselage and much different wing. Revell also used the base 707 kit to make its KC-135 kit, so it isn't right for that ship, either. The scale is around 1/144, so if it is indeed 1/139, it would be LARGER than 1/144.

Viewers should note that you don't have the wings pushed in all the way yet. But it's looking good. I'm thinking about stripping off the kit decals from my Academy review model and doing it up in VF-1. Love it!

Also notice many variations in markings in the photos. Looks like the VERY early VF-1 had "Wolfpack" on the tails. Note that some have "USS Enterprise" on the wing glove, some don't, and sometimes on the tails. But so far, it looks like only nose-number 101 had the black trim around the canopy. Also notice in the first photo of this thread, the CAG bird (100) that the red stripe on the tail merges into the wolf head. Others have the stripe ending with a semicircle that separates the stripe from the wolf head.

I think only one: http://www.oldwings.nl/content/c123t/c123t.htm

Interesting modeling note: Notice how the saturation of the red bands of the VF-1 markings change as they go from the gray fuselage to the white radome (same on the rudder/fin). So, you say your decals are too thin and show the color demarcation lines underneath? Oh stop complaining!🙂

I don't see where it has been "confirmed" that the announced Wolfpack and the announced DreamModel F-5E kits are different or the same.