Rob de Bie

One more vote for a steel pin. I have a habit of breaking off tip launchers. Like the Heller 1/72 Rafale A below, I broke both sides. I repaired both with a steel pin, and that has held until now. Rob

I see quite a few AGM-86s in museums. Hopefully they are not repainted, so the original color is retained. Anyone with a FS fandeck, please? Rob

I assume you're after the color of the operational missile, not the prototypes? If yes, I think there are two colors. These two articles show a dark version, slightly lighter than the B-52 in single-color camouflage: https://defence-blog.com/news/u-s-air-force-awards-contract-to-boeing-for-integrating-new-lrso-cruise-missile-on-b-52h-bomber.html https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/07/no-first-use-good-idea-delayed-trump/130204/ These three photos show a much lighter missile: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AGM-86_toward_the_bomb_bay_of_a_B-52H

Wow, I had no idea.. I just read the Wiki page about the murders, unbelievable stuff.. The page says the girls' bodies were found near a pheasant pen. I therefore think my guess was right. Rob

Gary, I have a weird question for you! Recently I studied Lakenheath a bit, while I was counting shelters for my USAFE TAB-VEE shelters and their genesis webpage. I was rather puzzled by one detail: if you would reverse your arrow, it would be pointing at six sheds (?). In the Google Earth photos of various years, they kept moving around. Sometimes there are white dots around the sheds, but mostly not. I guess it's some sort of agricultural method, like turkey breeding. Can you enlighten me? Like I said, it's a pretty weird question 🙂 Rob

In my work with composites, I've found nothing better than diamond-powder coated tools, used wet. It's messy because of the water spray that you'll generate, but the cuts will be very clean, without delaminations, and there will be no dry dust. Dremel has several diamond-powder coated tools, like cutting wheels and cylindrical burrs, so the hobbyist has access to these tools too. Very recommended. Rob

Over the last few months, I've been working on a webpage about USAFE TAB-VEE shelters and their genesis. In the past there were some threads about aircraft shelters, in which I participated too, but they generally contained little solid data. My breakthrough was finding great aerial photos of the Soesterberg shelters under construction. Here's one: Then fellow modeler Larry Engesath sent me basic shelter construction drawings from his time at Zweibrucken. I started researching and found a ton of open sources, that made the genesis of the

I can't comment on the paint matching aspect, but I do have another comment. Some two years ago I started using MRP (Mr Paint), and that paint sprays so smooth that the end result often looks like colored plastic. It's difficult to point out why it looks like plastic, but it really does. Just recently I brought a test piece to our club meeting, and I got the same response from club members: they thought they were looking at the bare plastic. I have never encountered a paint that has that effect - I would say it's usually rather the opposite. It inspired me to do start t

Nice to see that 'your' shelter survives in a good condition 🙂 And thanks for the additional details. Rob

Can you still find your shelter on Google Earth? There has been a lot of reconstruction and demolition since it was turned into a business area. In the stand-alone version of Google Earth I can go back to 2009, and I count 66 shelters / shelters being demolished / demolished shelters. But maybe there were more, I see some empty spots that suggest to be former shelter sites. Rob

Thanks AFammo65 and JMB! That makes a lot of sense. Do you possibly remember how they solved the exhaust gas problem? In standard-length shelters there's always an exhaust opening at the rear. That seems difficult or impossible here. Rob

Yep, I participated in that thread, but it doesn't discuss the longer sheltes. I found an intermedate length version too, roughly 125 ft. So there's the standard 100' one, and the 125' and 150' specials. Rob

I'm researching the TAB-VEE shelters on European air bases, and saw something interesting in Google Earth. For each group of say 15 standard 100' shelters, there is one 150' version. Some examples: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ramstein+Air+Base/@49.4256957,7.5689107,263m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x479674d1b564a3b7:0x8ab9f92dc7234016!8m2!3d49.440024!4d7.5972524 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Spangdahlem,+Germany/@49.9826508,6.6934991,368m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x47bfd026f428e44b:0x422d4d510db0d70!8m2!3d49.985679!4d6.684338 What was the purpose of the

I just found them a few days ago! The San Diego Air and Space Museum has uploaded thousand of films from their archive to YouTube. I'm trying to filter the ones dealing with Ryan Firebees, for my AQM-34 website: https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/aqm34/videos.htm Last week I found four that (most likely) document the use of Firebee Models 147D and E, that worked with an RB-47H to collect SA-2 fuze signals over Vietnam. Two have short footage of what I believe are the EWO stations in the bomb bay. In one you can see some stenciling on the walls, that show we're probably in

You can use a photo to measure the pod length and fuselage length, calculate the fraction, and multiply that by the kit's fuselage length. Same for the diameters. Preferably you do that with a few photos to average your measurements. Rob