Paul Boyer

Oh no. Now you've ruined the Italeri kits for me forever.🙄 Not really. Since there are no PERFECT kits, I'll just have to settle with the ones I either have, can afford, or can settle with. Which means pretty much everything. I'll embrace the new Zvezda kit when it comes, as it will likely be be very good yet imperfect like all the others.

So the Italeri nacelles would be correct for their AC-130A kit.

Better fit, all plastic (no resin or photoetched, and that makes it easier to build). One of the things I noticed on the sprues of the Platz kit was a label saying "T-33 F-80" - I wish Platz would do a series of F-80s, but nothing in what, 10 years since the T-33 came out?

I think the Platz is the best, but it is hard to find and fairly expensive. I've built Sword's F-80C and F-94B which are related, so I would guess their T-33 would rank second. Heller's kit is something to consider. It's a bit better than the ancient Hasegawa kit, but it hasn't been released in some time.

I think the Hasegawa kits come with the proper bomb racks for the F-111.

I'm sure I used Alclad, but I don't remember which shades.

Realized that I had not taken pictures of the Valom B-45A Tornado that I had built for FSM review AFTER I had stripped off the kit decals and replaced them with the Caracal items. So, here's how it looks now:

Seems the best way to do 775 would be to direct the modeler to paint the dark blue first, then make the medium and light blue areas decal. Notice the three blue motif on the drop tanks and intakes. Wonder what the wing looked like?

Actually, "The Thing" was a 1950 novelty song recorded by Phil Harris (and others) about a mysterious box found on the beach (hence the artwork): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(song)

Just be aware that the drop ships for some of the later test vehicles were B-50s - and that is another subject that could use more attention!

I have a small sheet of .005" styrene - paper thin. Just touching it with liquid cement and it will dissolve into nothingness. I eyeballed the shape of the two "wisker" probes and cut them both as one piece - kind of a wide "U" shape. By carefully pressing the back of the blade into the middle of the piece on a cutting board, I was able to almost fold the piece about 90º. I carefully attached it to a length of Evergreen rod (might be .020") using a tiny drop of gap-filling super glue. Same for the little "flag" (yaw indicator?). The tip of the probe is a piece of Evergreen rod (must be .010") that fits in a shallow hole I drilled into the tip of the larger rod with a No. 71 bit in a pin vise. Top tip: I drilled a hole in the tip of the radome by drilling from the inside before attaching the radome to the fuselage. The inside of the cone naturally aims your drill bit to the center of the tip.

I've been finishing one a week for the last six weeks during the quarantine! I think that makes 10 so far for 2020! Rev it up!

Here's one for you, Kursad. The 1/72 scale F-15A prototype with your decals! It's the original Monogram kit with the horizontal stabs fixed. The air superiority blue is the Mr. Color lacquer, just a bit darker than the blue you put into the tail logos.

Pretty!