Yuri

Sorry... can't help much with that.... the Fulcrum gray/green isn't a "easy" color... I mean... it's definitely a greenish gray (in full light is seems light green, otherwise it seems more gray). It's not close to any other "standard" color I know... thin means that the Testors (and similar paints made by some other manufacturer such a AKAN) is quite unique... Not having the color at hand you should try to mix other colors (starting with a medium gray and adding some light green until you find the right shade), but I can't help with that.

Any gray will work, depending on how much fading you want to depict... Freshly painted Tu-22m seem to sport a medium gray... more or less FS-36375, light ghost (or compass) gray. Under sunlight, this color seems to fade pretty quickly (and russians don't seem to care much about paint fading), so an "aged" Tu-22m will look closer to FS36440, light gull gray. Of course the underside is white By the way... really faded Tu-22m usually have a darker area around the cockpit, because they use to save the glass from UV light when the plane is not in use covering the area with canvas so the paintjo

One of the many scary things in this story.... The didn't ever send a mayday.... it was the Cost Guard that looking at the radar saw a cruise ship so close to the coastline, so slow, almost dead in the water, and so they started calling them to see if there was something wrong! They replied the had some technical troubles, but they were fixing them... less than one hour later they were abandoning the ship... After the news reports, the (in)famous dialogue between the captain and the coast guard, I think many are wondering not if it was a human error or not, 'cause of course it was, but... "

Testors Model Master make both the fulcrum grey and the grey/green for soviet/russian fulcrums. While the gray is more or less FS26440 (semigloss), the gray/green doesn't have a FS matching (anyway it should be close to FS 24233) Anyway, the model master colors are a good match.

They released today the text of the phone calls between the coast guard and the captain.... the coast guard guy, increasingly angered at him, pressed the captain to climb back on HIS ship, and do his job... telling him they were recording the call and he was in deep SH*T Frankly a SCARY conversation...

Btw, seems from media reports that there was almost a mutiny.... an hour after scraping the rocks, while the captain was still talking to the phone, not taking the inevitable decision (the engine room was flooded and the ship was doomed: dead in the water, no power and flooding fast), the XO and the officers began organizing the evacuation procedure without orders from the captain.

Seems a bit optimistic to me... patching the hole and refloating seems feasible (unless the stream brings the ship back to sea), but I don't know if it's cheaper to reactivate a sunken ship or to build a new one... By the way... at the christening the bottle bounced without breaking...

Well... of course here in Italy there's a huge coverage of that news... More or less... the ship stuck a rock some 150-200 meters from the shore.... it doesn't matter if it was charted or not.... they were much closer to the shoreline than allowed... the rock sliced the hull... a 70 meters long hole... and they almost immediately lost power (lights went off and on multiple times). The crew tried to manage the emergency for an hour before accepting the ship wasn't going to stay afloat, so they beached it... (seems the Coast Guard reported they were asked to tow the ship... a 114.000 ton ship

As others said, the "problem" might be Future. Using it to seal the tape makes a thick edge... As other suggested, you can dip the whole canopy in future before applying the tape... that way if you screw up, you just have to dip it in alcohol (or windex or winegar or whatever) and it will remove future and anything above it (i.e. the paint). Once you have masked the canopy, burnish the tape well and while spraying the interior color first do a very light coat... just a "dusting"... this will seal the tape too in case there's something a bit loose. Then you can make a second pass with the int

When I'm fed up of a model, I simply put it aside, trying to keep all the pieces in the same place, and move to something else. I have models that remained in the boneyard for years before I decided to rescue and finish them.... some are still there, others were cannibalized for spare parts... just like the real thing :)

Yes, use turpenoid (aka odorless mineral spirit) as a thinner and it will work (unless you rub it really hard it won't eat throu an acrylic barrier like Future). Other thinners (turpentine and most enamel thinners such as testors model master airbrush thinner) are usually too "hot" and can damage the paintjob.

I'm working on the Trumpeter 1/72 BTR-80, just a quick build to take a break... I'd like to use it later on a "soviet" diorama (with either a Mil Mi-26 or an Il-76) Well... the question is.... trumpeter gives you 2 kind of color schemes: soviet tank green or a 3 colors camo... While I know the latter is quite common on russian BTR-80s, would it be accurate also for a cold war one? (pre SSSR breakup) or were them only green back then? Thanks

Yeah! Definitely micro mesh is a must! (i prefer the pads anyway). Back in my early days of modelling... if there was something wrong with the paintjob (a slight oops, dust, some imperfection) I didn't know what to do to fix it (unless repainting). Then discovered micro mesh and... I've done things I thought were impossible: sanding out "oopses", fix gritty spots or orange peel without having to repaint.... And fix canopies and windscreens.... now I ALWAYS put some putty on the seam line of the windshield to make a seamless joint, then polish with micro mesh... Definitely a must have! I'd

Yeah, it should only be used to reach the first tire shop.... but if it's night and you're 80km from home... there's no other option than driving like an old lady trying to make it back home...

I never understood the brains involved in inventing the "space saver" spare tire... Today I had the demonstration.... was on the highway going back home when something punctured a tire and in a few km I had to stopto replace it.... Oh, surprise... the car doesn't have a spare tire, but the smaller space saver one... Ever tried it? It's just like driving a yacht, even while not going faster than the recommended 80km/h it's really a nasty task... the car drifts every time someone passes you... and as you're doing just 80 km/h EVERYONE passes you... even trucks!!! In the 80+ km trip back hope

Yeah, definitely.... the story is more silly than Top Gun (and it wasn't an easy task!) but the jet footage!!! And it's all "real" no models, no cgi, just Mirages! (And Alice Taglioni, "Pitbull", is better than Kelly McGillis)

"Stephen Wood, director of DigitalGlobe's analysis center, said he's confident the ship is the Chinese carrier because of the location and date of the photo. The carrier was on a sea trial at the time." He's confident the ship is the Chinese carrier??? C'mon... the only other ship with that shape is the Kuznetzov.... unless the Russians took a trip down south, what else should it be? Don't think James Bond movies' Spectre is building secret carriers...

Some days ago I was in a flight to Bari in a Bombardier CRJ-900... not a nice plane after all, so cramped... took a look at the cockpit while I was bording the plane and the pilots seemed to have the cockpit build around them... Anyway... we start the takeoff run and... the plane was going fast... we must have been VERY close to V1 when.... power cutoff, brakes, brakes, brakes.... A rejected takeoff is not funny... especially if you can't see a d*** outside the windows... we still had a lot of runway in front of us, so my first thought was that something had crossed the active runway... afte

Why are hurricanes named after women? Because they arrive all wet and wild and when they leave they take your house and your car.

Well, 2 years after I still have wounds... Ouch, but you were talking about the hurricane... (Sorry, couldn't resist)

Just in case someone asks "What do we fight for?" :P Anyway... the whole thing is dumb. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know... pc all the time... but what about "esprit de corps"

I've been waiting so long that!!!

Semi active: the plane must illuminate the target all the time because the missile only has a receiver antenna to catch the signal reflected from the target. Active: the missile has an onboard radar that can work alone. Curious too about the strange question.... hope you don't plan to use some!

I'll add a data. EM waves are attenuated by... uh... how do you say that?... by the square of the distance: if the distance doubles, the strenght doesn't become 1/2, but 1/4. You can get much more power from a cellphone that has a weak antenna but it's just a couple of inches away than from a cell tower that has a much more powerful antenna, but very far. As others said, it's impossible to test the electromagnetic compatibility of all the stuff people take on a plane and, albeith improbable, some problems may arise. And I'd be more worried of interferences with the fly by wire than with the n

A crack or a scratch? If it's a crack, a fracture inside the trasparency, unfortunately there's nothing you can do to fix it... if instead it's a scratch on the surface, well... it's a completely different thing... you can polish it with a polishing kit such as micro-mesh, touch pads or triple grit.... They are basically very fine sanding blocks/pads/stick (something like 4000/6000/8000 grit) that will even out the scratch, restoring the smoothness of the clear part...