Sabrejet

'tis a pleasure 🙂

For the scheme and gun configuration shown (doors fixed open) then either option works. I'd leave it as it is (colour match looks good). There is also a prominent "PAINT ANTENNA PER SPEC....." stencil either side on this option. Decal should be in the kit.

Photo above was taken in Japan circa January 1951. The grey-painted radomes were gradually paint-stripped and left bare fibreglass with a painted-on cement-type protective treatment. The square gun muzzles were often fixed open (per 4th FGp directive) and later replaced entirely with the later 'open' oval blast-tube panel. There is in fact a lot of data available regarding this deployment, including the initial issues with gun doors and their subsequent de-activation.

Any chance of Ashtray and Haymaker RF-86A/RF-86F conversion sets?

It's ongoing 🙂

Due to be announced officially at Mosonshow today: latest F-86 variant from Clear Prop! - the F-86E-1/5 in 1/48. This should keep folks happy for a while!

Are you trying to do Doc in-period or in its 'modern' guise? Bear in mind that the aircraft was a target tug in period, so you'd need to add the under-fuselage tow gear if you're doing it as it was whilst in service.

I have an Airfix Bristol Bulldog in the plastic bag/stapled instructions and a Westland Scout in the same format. Both I suspect late 1960s. The Scout is a dog so won't get built but the Bulldog is an absolute stunner!

The bands were applied in Japan and to a set scheme; all meet at a point and the only (slight) deviation was that some bands are set slightly to the aft of others.

They come to a point. If you have the Clear Prop! kit, there should be a diagram included.

Same tooling but with a small extra sprue and new decals. The later boxings of the first release included all items to model all the main F-86A versions, including that later 'open' gun muzzles. Only a few in Korea had the aluminium intake ring and A-1CM gunsight but CP includes these anyway: none had the wingtip pitot tube.

Due in March 2025:

Here's an alternative take: section through the FJ-2 nose with centralised NLG main fitting but offset wheel bay. Horses for courses...

I think it's worked backwards from the need to have the set size of wheel sitting against the nose well when retracted and cocked 90 degrees. This then places the NLG main fitting at an offset. I haven't really looked at the geometry and there doesn't seem to be any documentation to explain it.

Bryan, These are my trials. I see in fact that I mixed a small amount of Flat Green and Black with the Refractive Green to get the exact shade. You can see two dots of paint from each bottle on the panel in the first image. Hopefully that will demonstrate where the shades need to go from there. This panel came from the aft fuselage underside and so didn't get any sunlight/fading. Also shown is a pretty much 100% "out of the bottle" match for the yellow chromate primer with Vallejo Yellow Ochre. Panels which were not quick release/regular maintenance access were painted