UberDaveToo

Probably swinging after the bell here, but if you're gonna deploy the Thud's trailing edge flaps, you'll need to pose the leading edge down too. Since it's unlikely they were still deployed after landing rolls, you might want to take advantage of new (relatively speaking) 3D printed drag chutes...

Not so long ago, in my capacity as a civilian jet engine mechanic for the US Air Force, I would occasionally experience what we called "the kerosene breeze," the exhaust coming out of an idling jet engine. It's warm, a little hard on the eyes, but the odor is wonderful.

The most radically cool wiffer of all time...

By '68 my dad had crossed over to the Air Force and was working on the F-106 for the 48th FIS, It was close to Pax, but we never went there, the USS John F Kennedy had just retuned from its shakedown cruise, and hosted an open house. We went to the Newport News Naval Air Station where the famous P2V Neptune :Truculent Turtle" on display and a captured Japanese Emily fling boat preserved next to it. Confoundingly, the base commander at the time wanted them scrapped, thankfully he didn't get his way, and today the Emily is on display in Japan and the Turtle is in the Naval Air Museum at Pensacol

One cool thing about China Lake is that nearly every piece of hardware ever hung on a military airplane was invented there. They once called the nearby town of Inyokern "the secret city," and the Navy would deny the existence of nearly every project that went on at China Lake until after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. With some of the colors to make them easier to see, and experiments with guidance fins, early Sidewinders looked like something out of Buck Rogers...

I was born at the Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake California in 1957. Personally, I think the 50s are the most overlooked era in the modeling industry. Sure, they've turned out some stuff, but Trumpeter infamously flogged the F-100 in every scale from 1/32 to 1/72, Roden made a new North American AJ-1 Savage, nice but if you want to build a -2P or -2 Savage, the old Rareplanes kit is your only recourse, if you can find one. How about the Martin P4m-2Q Mercator? A few limited run vacuform and multi-media kits were made, but try to find on for sale. They've done RF and F84Fs and F-101 kit

I have to agree. That Sundowners Cutlass is extremely cool. This site could use better control in loading photos, the ability to caption them would be nice. I'm a huge fan of 1950s flying machines, there's fun for everyone. There's WWII retreads like the F-51, early helicopters like the CH-37 Mojave, anemic early jets like the Convair XB-46 and FH-1 Phantom, X planes and Century Series. Just too much cool. I snapped up the Mikro Mir XB-51 in .007 seconds after its release. And, speaking of the Sundowners Cutlass, there's this:

I concur. One thing about the Cutlass and Skyray is you could park them on a ramp with an F-18, and they wouldn't look completely out of place. The Navy used the Skyray as a testbed for the GE J-79 when the Westinghouse designs flopped epically, and they used the Cutlass for nuclear dive bombing tests. I've added a picture of a VX 5 Skywarrior to give an idea of the VX 5 markings on the Cutlass, bands in medium green bordered with white stripes, on the nose, wings and tail. The A3D had an extra touch of scalloped engine intakes. The GE testbed pic (color) is a shot from the line at Edwards AFB

Spectacular work. I just re-read Martin Caidin's "The Flying Forts." In it, Caidin chronicles how he became involved with resurrecting three B-17s that had been left to rot for years in the Arizona desert. They had become the home of birds and snakes, the tires had rotted and the wheels had sunk into the ground up to the axles, the fabric surfaces were history, they were in terrible shape. They were repaired and made flyable specifically for filming “The War Lover.” Caidin flew as co-pilot on one of the planes in the first mass flight of B-17s since WWII, he lamented that there might never aga

A man after my own heart. Who wants to build the 1 millionth '109?

I bought a 25 pound sack of the smallest gauge bird shot, they fit in the tiniest nooks and crannies and weigh more than BBs... ...It was a very good purchase, I have a lifetimes worth of nose weight.

I kinda figured. It'd be nice if someone would take a crack at it though. Even the Marines had flightline vehicles...

I've been hoping to convince someone to create some flightline vehicles in the major scales with their printer. I could give it a shot myself, but I have little confidence in my abilities. Like these pick ups in this China Lake photo. I couldn't find a military version of the Metro step van, but maybe you get where I'm going with this...

Update on the Fortress kits tomorrow...

I've had a few rough weeks, I fell and got dinged up a bit... ...In the meantime, I stumbled on some goodies. A nice Iwata top loader air brush... And some hard to find Testors paints.