DutyCat

Interesting that they are doing a 1/72 A-6. The Italeri one is pretty good. The Flanker will be welcome..if it is accurate and addresses the issues of the 1/32 kit. I know guys ther are springing a $100 plus for correction kits for it. Now, when are they gonna do an ACCURATE 1/72 Sea Flanker. That is the coolest variant by far. Also the Flagon will be neat.

I have mixed feelings about this. I would rather see the Sundowners as a SuperHornet outfit instead of an adversary squadron. Better than nothing, I guess.

Their JSF? I don't think so. I think China's latest and greatest is the J-10, unless they are working on something even more advanced that I haven't heard about.

No, I meant Pakistan, not China.

I think the nickname Raptor Jr is going to stick.

Why would they spend the development money to build this jet? Maybe they want to nurture a homegrown aerospace industry. This is an obviously dated design to be working on at this point and for the money and they would be better of buying legacy Hornets or newer F-16s (or SuperHornets?..but maybe it is too much bird for them). Perhaps they feel they can't afford any of the newer hardware, but are they not a JSF partner?

1/72? Wouldn't this have been a better 1/144 choice?

Again, politics, influence, and money rule the day. Yes, they are all the same.

When I first showed up in VS-24 in June 1982, I immediately noticed that Scout Vikings no longer had the red rudder with white lightning bolt and red AJ in the tail. I asked why, and was told that during the previous cruise Nimitz/CVW-8 had done some exercises with the French Navy and a Scout S-3 had been jumped out of the blue and "shot down" by an F-8. During the post exercise wash up the French Crusader pilot supposedly commented that the Viking's red rudder was very prominent and made the aircraft much easier to spot. The Scout CO promptly ordered Corrosion Control to paint over the rud

I would love to see those VAQ-140 decals in 1/72.

Roger that!

Are you sure? Euro 1 gray 36081 appears to me to be lighter than the gray/black in that pic or the pics I remember being posted last year of the F-14's. It could be that the contrast with the lighter ghost gray makes it look darker than it does with the dark Euro greens next to it.

No the red thing is not it. However, the light gray horizontal V-Wing looking thing directly below the front of the tailhook IS it. Thank you very much. Now I can see how it actually goes on. Look for the model on ARC in a couple of days. I just have to write and upload the article.

I am personally not aware of a Revell 1/144 B-2. They have a 1/72 kit, though. For 1/144, the only one I know of is the HobbyCraft kit. It looks like a B-2. The intake trunks are not correct, but fixable, and the surface is slightly "sand cast." Trailing edge of the wing is pretty thick. DML made a 1/200 kit 15 years ago. It is still around if you look hard enough.

Aint that the truth.

I have about got this thing done, just a couple more pieces to glue on. There is a little sort of v-shaped thingy that the intructions say place just in front of the tailhook. However, it is not clear exactly how this piece is supposed to look when attached. There are no "after" diagrams. Anybody familiar with the F-105 know what I am talking about?

So very true. You definitely do not go out and open ocean hunt for a sub. It takes a host of coordinated national assets, but even with a bunch of assets, an aggressive ASW/USW(whatever you call it these days) posture is dicey and very expensive. Unless there is a direct subsurface challenge to the CVBG concept (ala cold war), the mission will continue to get ignored for the reasons you indicated. 22Km give on a Rhino? That is amazing. I think we could only carry 15.7 and that was with Aero 1Ds. Internal was 10.5.

Here is my build of the ICM kit. Third place at JaxCon 2004. It was a bit of work and took a fair amount of putty. But as you can see, it builds up nice enough.

The Greyhound is probably too slow and too big, plus the props might cause some disturbing airflow behind the plane. You need to be able to rdvz with the fighters sometimes, or escort them a little ways before topping them off. Even the Viking is a little slow for this. Also, how many dedicated KC-2's could you realistically keep on a carrier deck? What should have been done IMHO, is procure the KS-3 as the KA-6 was phased out. They saw this coming years in advance and had time to prepare for it. But because of lack of forsight and underappreciation of the impact of the Hornet's introduc

Well, I took a look at my new Revell F-18E and I must say first impressions are very positive. I read that review over on Hyperscale. Talk about obsessive, but to each his own. The Revell kit may have some minor inaccuracies(OMG, the pizza box is a little off), but this thing will build up into a beauty with the right touch. I certainly do not understand how someone could think of it as a POS. It is damn nice work by Revell and I do not think the Hasegawa kit could possibly be worth three times the money. Dropping the flaps will require some skill, but in my opinion you are better off do

You will lose your training squadron and the pilots will get OJT.

And also, they should consider beefening up those outer pylons and hanging a couple more tanks out there! LOL. Back to my original subject. No official utilization doctrine on the street? No even something so simple as: F-18E: A/A, A/G, tanking F-18F: A/G, A/A, FASTFAC, RECCE, etc. ?

LMAO Hilarious. But really, the take-off weight on that bird with those tanks topped off must be tremendous. Anyone know how much give they have? Do they launch first, give mission and recovery fuel, and trap at the end of the cycle? 30-40 min flight?

Well. the Raptor is just WAAY to expensive for Canada, so that is a non starter. It is just super hi end. The F-35 is not being procured just to replace the F-16. It is a joint service design with three specialized versions that are intended to replace the F-16, F-18, and AV-8. Operators of all three types around the world are onboard and sharing some development costs as well and will also transition to F-35. The twin engine config is attractive. The USN has always favored it, but in this case, there is no twin available unless Canada wished to procure Eurofighters or Rafales, both of w