Ben Brown

Oh, NICE!!! Ben

I built both the 1/48 and 1/72 versions and have them stored away right now. One of these days I’m going to redo them in modern camo and markings. Ben

Adobe Flash Player is dead. Adobe and the major browsers have disabled it: LINK "Adobe blocked Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021 and the major browser vendors have disabled and will continue to disable Flash Player from running after the EOL Date." Ben

Those Ds with the polka dots are from the 334th TFS. They had blue bands. I haven’t been able to find out exactly when they were first applied, but it seems to have been done just before they deployed to SEA. The 335th removed the nose and tail bands and the chief’s head and went with green tail bands with a white V. Some also had a white chiefs head inside the V. Again, I haven’t been able to find out when the original markings were removed, but the new tail bands were applied right before the 335th’s SEA deployment. The purple might have been a nod to the F-86Hs of the 83rd Fighter

I think it is purple. The red triangle has stayed red and the other colors don’t seem to have faded much. The colors in those drawings (Larry Davis?) could be guesswork and the decals were based on that, or vice versa. Update: I figured out how to search for completed auctions, but it only goes back ~2 months. Ben

I found it on Google just last night. I can’t remember exactly what I put in the search parameters, but it was a little different from the ones I’ve used in the past. I tried searching eBay, but couldn’t find the original sale. I had thought you could search previous sales, but I never found it. I’d love to contact the seller to see if he took more photos of the panel. Ben

Unfortunately, in the one full-on profile photo I have, the crew ladder is obscuring the Chief's badge. However, I did just find a color photo of the emblem from F-105B 57-5832 that crashed at Eglin AFB in 1961. The panel was listed on Worthpoint as sold on eBay (LINK). The listing says it was from the 334th TFS, but none of my references have any photos of 4th F-105Bs with squadron markings except for the 335th. Perhaps the pilot was from the 334th? Ben

The Hasegawa walkway decals do have a strange color. I don’t know what the FS number for the dark grey walkways should be, but there are several decal manufacturers that sell them in all 3 major scales. Some wings didn’t paint the walkways a specific color, they just painted over them with the two greys. They just looked like a different shade due to the rough texture. Most of the walkways I’ve seen in photos were outlined in FS 36370. Ben

I’ll take a look next time I get to my computer and see what I have. I guess this means I need to dust off that old F-105B conversion soon! 😁 Ben

Didn't Roden announce a 727-100 and -200 recently? Ben

Check out the A-10 book we discussed above. I’m pretty sure it had an account of that flight. It’s a great account from the pilots’ perspective and gives useable details about what weapons they carried on the described missions. The electronic version is pretty cheap on Amazon. Ben

Sorry, I should have given the name of the book I was talking about! It's the "Warthog: Flying the A-10 in the Gulf War" one. The caffeine hadn't kicked in, yet. Thanks for the help, Stephen! Ben

Here's a chart showing the weapons loads for the A-10s in DS: LINK I finished reading a book a couple of weeks ago about the A-10s in DS, and it mentioned they didn't use the multiple AGM-65 launcher often because of reliability issues. I just skimmed through the book but couldn't find the passage to quote it for you. Ben

Some British Spey Phantoms were also fitted with the straps. Re. the Hasegawa F-4S slats: Hasegawa just reused the slats from their F-4E/F kits and just increased the length of the wing fence. They didn't catch the differences between the Air Force and F-4S slats, so you can swap them to an AF jet. The "humped" antenna included in the Hasegawa RF-4B kit can be used for ARN-101-equipped F-4Es. IIRC, it covered a LORAN antenna. ARN-101 was fitted to many, but not all, TISEO-equipped F-4Es during the early '80s, so check you photos of your subject. These jets also had some

Nice! Ben