Rex

they were also used for firefighting training There is a photo floating around of VFA-132 (or maybe -131) markings on the Fire Trainer F-4, I think on the Coral Sea. Oh, and VMFP-3's RF-4Bs can occasionally be seen on Far East carriers, even though they weren't on that deployment,,,,,,,for CarQuals and such.

Good, Laurent. So, just about the same length of time it takes to write and illustrate a book? Darren, heck, I'm not behind at all, I am just about right on schedule for producing 20 1/72 masters, writing that book and finding illustrations for it, building the 300 models, singing 3 or 4 shows a week,,,,,,and building 4 1/1 scale Clevelands and a sixties style 427. (I am behind on repairing Anne's truck topper's leaky plexiglass window, though) All of those show what timeline could be involved in getting a kit from first idea to boxes on the shelves,,,,if they are other

Good, now go after that Hangar Deck guy, lol. That guy is so busy, and so distracted, that he walked out to the truck with his magnifier still over his eyes. (there's a mental image for ya)

geez, this just goes in circles How do any of us know, today, without the plastic,,,,that it isn't going to be the "best tomcat in 1/48 scale?" It is supposed to already have features that are Required to be on a model if that model is going to have the wings swept forward, and the other guy's don't have them. Panel line size (or even the presence of them) or raised or recessed, doesn't matter at all,,,,,because no matter which way they choose to do them, light, heavy, deep, shallow,,,,,is going to be "wrong" for 50% of the modelers that buy the kit,,,,,,so

I'm looking forward to picking on that Steel Beach dude when he makes 50 sets of a resin improvement set for the kit, and sells out, and then takes toooooo long to make more of them. (just kidding,,,,,,but, I do wish I could grab him by the ear and drag him into 1/72 scale for about 20 items, then send him back to 1/48 land)

"roughly the same", after comparing all the variables, would work for me I won't type out what it means,,,,but, I will just let the "too long bashers" think about what it might mean. (it should be self evident to anyone with a job and a hobby, or more than one hobby)

hmm, I see now so sorry if I seemed to be supporting them. I just had realized that a company that asks for no input, doesn't show us anything in the development, or give any sort of expected kit shipment date, got a pass on the negative comments,,,,,,,,and one that does all of those things, while being busy doing work for other companies, gets that "posting angst" deal from modelers. but, since that other company is doing 1/72, it hasn't been noticed that it is taking much longer than AMK is taking to release a 1/48 Tomcat, than that other company is taking

Okay, I have a question about the timeline. I've been reading a lot of angst about how long this kit has taken to go from announcement to finished product. What would put this in perspective for me, is knowing how long a smaller company takes to produce a kit this detailed, from start to finish,,,,,,,,,without any announcement until close to the release date? Tamiya, Hasegawa, or Fujimi kits wouldn't count,,,,but any other small company that puts this much effort and time in would. (so, those kits that come to us without locating pins and holes on the fusela

Darren, I blame the A-7 units, lol. With all of those "VA-X6" and especially the "VA-X7" units created for the Corsair IIs, coupled with the sudden and fairly rapid disestablishment of A-4 and etc units,,,,the system was completely messed up by 1970-1973 or so. Then as Steve says, all of those units that kept their traditional colors (or went back to them), as the units moved around to fill in the gaps and the new lower number of Air Wings,,,,,well, as you have seen, all bets are off. One wonders why the Navy even gave the color chart in the 1971.10.27 Painting Spec,,,,since almost

Happy customer here, too. I especially like all the stencil and placement guides included. I got two copies of the USMC A-6 sheets in 1/72,,,,I use the CD as a reference for all of my A-6 models,,,,and the multiple BuNos and Nose Modex numbers as part of the "scratch parts" for decaling everything that I have to make up that was never done by a decal company. I did that with an F-4 sheet and an F-8 sheet,,,,between all of them, I can make up just about any model from A-1 to F-111, without having to use those "straight up" numbers that most number sheets come with.

This is going to seem strange to read, but, all of the 1/72 scale kits that I have wanted are available, some of them are available as Old tooling, and as New tooling. I have to do some conversions here and there, but, adding a resin or vac nose and small parts to an existing kit adds to the uniqueness of my collection. Heck, I am even happy with what the decal companies have provided so far,,,,,,from now on, anytime they release a new decal scheme, they make one of my more odd-ball models become mainstream, again, killing off the uniqueness. (I'm sort of scared what Ca

The Testors kit had markings for an A-7E, anyway. Fowler had an A-7B https://www.scalemates.com/kits/1000621-fowler-aviation-fd48-01-vought-a-7b-corsair-ii SuperScale had an A-7A https://www.scalemates.com/kits/275241-superscale-international-ms481233-usn-a-7a-corsair-iis I have no idea of how easy these are to find, though.

If you have Phantom Pictorial, from 1977, you can see that pic. And, yeah, I didn't believe my own notes, until I looked at the photo. So, it makes sense that you will also need to verify it. It just doesn't seem right, you know.

Okay Gene, I am back from where the other books and notes are. (I was in the "Skyhawk room" when I was posting from memory) So, I looked at my notes for 153088 before she got the Bicentennial paint job. I didn't believe my notes, so I looked up the photos I had noted in them. As unbelievable as this sounds to you and I, 153088, in the Light Gull Gray over White scheme, Red vertical and stabs, white rudder, barber pole Instrument probe on the plain early F-4J/F-4D nose. (no ECM at rear bottom) open ACLS door, rear flaps down, fixed outerwing slats, mid wing slats with a

Ah, but, Gene,,,,,,,,you gotta admit it would have been cool to have something like that discovered in 2018. As for that famous VX-4 bird,,,,,,,it is possible to build a "Ringer configuration of that Ringer." Instead of being just another guy with that BuNo in that paint scheme, I am building her from before that, she had a more conventional paint scheme, with some "testing Red" panels on her, and the original "Lead nosed" F-4J radome with no ECM on the bottom, and was seen with the Slats, and with and without a nose probe for instruments. Wasn't that aircraft configure

I quoted you at the bottom. It is a variation of the modeling meme that says "no pics, not a real modeler" My point is that a lot of us were "real modelers" before some of the people that type that cheap shot were even born. So, I choose to never take those guys too seriously, they just don't know how new the Internet really is.

I would have agreed with you if you hadn't posted an old "shot across the bow" that happens 2 or 3 times a week online these days. (more than 3 times, some weeks) Being born the year before I boxed up my built models and went off to Boot Camp, you don't have a reference to realize that Thousands and Thousands of models were built by guys with NO help at all,,,,,,no books, no Internet (it didn't work well in the mainstream population until 1995), no digital cameras, no magazines,,,,not even the famous Shep Paine booklets that the 1/48 guys talk about. So, yeah, the mode

Yep, those are LE Flaps, not Slats. Those pics also show why I and some others call the "inner flaps" out differently than younger modelers do. In our time, there were "inner, center, and outer" LE Flaps,,,,and in later years, the younger guys just call them inner and outer, because in their time, the old center flap became the inner, to them. (mostly a Navair thing, I guess) I think it is safe to say that ALL Phantoms had movable surfaces on the leading edge the wings, some had LE Flaps, and some had LE Slats,,,,,,,,I don't know of any that had a true Hard LE on it's w

Maybe the folks you are angry at are thinking that "In-Progress Pics--This forum is posting pics of your just finished model or in-progress pics of your current build." is for Pics? It doesn't matter to me, I rarely watch videos,,,,,,but, maybe they were thinking "build threads with pics" would be the posts in the "pics" section.

Those are the early SUU-30 based CBUs, like the ones in the Hasegawa weapons sets. They are the same ones carried during Vietnam cruises by Skyhawks for years, before the Mk 20 Rockeye based CBUs took over. (close ups of those CBU photos over those years show us the horizontal split in the weapon)

Jim, there is a "TP date" thread on here somewhere. In it, a bunch of us photo-dived to find the earliest date we saw TP bombs. I can't find it, but I think I remember that for certain Carriers, it was late 1970 or sometime in early 71. It was un-scientific, we all just looked for photos of aircraft over Vietnam or on board ship that had two stripes on the nose. (and threw out the obvious miss-dated captions)

I would guess the same, Darren. I don't even know of anyone that does "one time silk screen" decals. Another option would be to contact a silk screen decal company,,,,,,,and sponsor a production run. But, then, this idea would become like mine would have,,,,,instead of a unique collection of aircraft Wings,,,,,a modeler becomes one of 500 people with a decal collection of Air Wing sets. (that is why I didn't commission decals for my one of each Squadron model collection)

He has changed decal companies since then, Darren. From his 1/72 page "Decals printed by Cartograf of Italy or Canuck Decals of Canada." I think I remember that he planned to use ALPS for one-time decals such as a 1/72 RF-8 from one of his Air Wing sheets.

look at these https://www.starfighter-decals.com/stde.html then have a convo with Mark about doing a 1/72 or 1/48 set for you, and the cost he has his entire decal range stored as scaleable artwork (might have to tweak some line widths here and there)

this is the Furball 1/72 Phantom sheet Something like 20+ options, from various squadrons It does provide options that aren't as popular as others,,,,,so, even though there may be 500 of those sheets out there in the modeling community, I could possibly still choose a less popular option than the other 50 modelers that will actually get around to using the decals. (besides, having spare nose numbers, tail codes, BuNos, etc, doesn't hurt a guy that is going to have to "scratch-scrounge" decal bits for VA-16 and VA-54, etc)