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Hi Wingman, a wonderful model! I really like the weathering of the paint! Did you do it as drybrushing with the silver? Did you use circular brushing movements? I never quite manage to achieve an 'even' silver area, I always end up with some silver streaks from the brush strokes. again, congrats! Andy

Hello Ken, very nice build, thank you for sharing! To my eye the kit canopy looks a tad too high which makes it too curved at the top of the center glass. But apart from that it seems to be a Flanker kit to consider! Regards, Andy

Collin, splendid build of a nice little kit. Love how it turned out. Never saw that paint scheme before. PS good luck with the Viking ;-) Cheers, Andy

The government finally made their choice after long and detailed evaluation. However the history of fighter aircraft acquisition in Switzerland is shadowed by political twists and turns which can only be interpreted as ridiculous. The development of indigenous fighter production was killed off in the 60s due to massive lobbywork, the Mirage sale led to the demission of several officials in the following decade, the current F/A-18 could only be bought after lengthy political discussion and polling the public in a referendum. Also the current acquisition plans are threatened by several politic

Thank you for the answer Andre! Regards, Andy

Whoa, this must have been the fastest answer I ever got on any forum!!!! A thousand thanks!!! I'll try to track down a copy. Kind regards, Andy

Hello fellow modellers, does anyone know if the mentioned squadron has ever been represented in 1/72 decals? I see Superscale did them in 1/48 and 32 but there seems to nothing available in the gentleman's scale. I'm looking at a possible deck diorama together with the F-14B of VF-103 last cruise, believe it was in 2004 on USS John F. Kennedy. Link to original picture: http://www.airliners.net/photo/USA---Navy/McDonnell-Douglas-F-A-18C/0606425/L/&sid=389679363401bdaa35e16c87b80aa322 Any ideas anyone? Regards, Andy

Thanks for all the measurements Ken! It looks like a piece of surgery on the Italeri kit then... it looks like also the exhausts are a tad too high, contributing to the slimness of the intakes. Andy

Absolutely amazing, this is one of the most impressive warbird builds that I have ever seen. Rates 12 one a 1-10 scale!

Ken, you are providing us with so much valuable information... I continue to follow closely and to be inspired for more flanker builds. Your sideview pictures make it painfully obvious to me that on my Italeri Sea Flanker trainer conversion the air intakes are way too small compared to the spine height...aw dear Keep up the inspiring work!! Andy

In the meantime, I tackled the undersize wingspan. As the wings are parts which are glued onto stubs on the fuse this is quite an easy fix by simply attaching them further out and filling the crevasse in between fuse and wing. The wings in the final position. The missing section is built up with plastic card. Every minute of trimming here saves an hour of sanding later. The spars are covered with sheet plastic. After making sure it's all flush the white bits are glued in place. The flap also needs to be lengthened and the hinges previously made need to be adjusted. That is it for

Ken, I will follow your documentation with keen interest. This will be most useful for future Flanker projects. Keep 'em coming! Cheers, Andy

Thanks!!! A

@Holmes and @Jinro Thanks for yur comments! Always an encouragement for the next project;-) The intake modification was quite simple: Using prictures of a F-15 during takeoff as reference I cut off the intakes along the approximate location of the hinge line, then inserted plastic card triangles (like a pizza slice) into the cut in the sidewalls of the intake. The rest was some sanding and filling. Hope I make sense ;-) Cheers, Andy

Oreol doesn't shake out a supplier in a google search, but it might as well be named differently under a different brand. My usual plastics and composites supplier doesn't carry a similar material either. My approach would have been to produce a wooden plug, make a negative from it with epoxy resin and use this negative to make the definite plug, also from epoxy resin. But thats a long walk compared to the advantages presented by Ken's solution. Hmm.

Hi everyone, after years of on-and-off working on this here project, I can finally say that she is done! I got the kit years ago and after the initial euphoria over the nice box art I was quite surprised that inside the box I discovered a kit which only basically resembles an actual line Strike Eagle. Hasegawa moreover represented the prototype F-15E which did not have the weapons pylons on the CFTs, not to speak of the many more subtle differences to the sleek 'Not a pound for air to ground' Eagle. I ended up learning a lot in the process of the making, and I included some mods which are d

Progress has been very slow on this one the last weeks...other projects as well as job keeping me busy. I'm getting closer to the canopy though...I have tried if I could fit in some clear plastic pieces cut from water bottles and other packaging but I didn't really succeed, none of the attempts got even close. Looks like I will get my first shots at vacuforming of at least thermo-forming. I am mulling this one over a bit...fist step will be to find suitable material for the plug which will need to be easy enough to shape, and still stand high temperatures and provide a smooth surface. I was

A stunning build of a wonderful jet. To my knowledge VF-103 only flew one cruise in 2001 or -2 in the white trim Jolly Rogers markings before going to yellow. Great job! Andy

Brilliant and absolutely fascinating, and a morale boost to every modeller if their curent build seems stuck like mine... Thank you for posting! regards, a

Hi everyone, thought I'd share my latest oopsie on the work bench. Guess we know it all: Parts painted in the wrong color, forgotten noseweights yielding royal tailsitters, parts broken off or lost forever. Like my current favorite: I spend hours over hours detailing the Hasegawa Viking's cockpit, with scratchbuilt things all over, and in the end I spray the canopy so heavily tinted that absolutely nothing is seen anymore. Bummer. What are you stories? Have fun, Andy

And I bet, then the gear will be able to retract, not to speak of the operational brakes. Seriously, this work is epic. And I am at a loss of words. -a

Part two: Getting some plastic card to shape. The cockpit floor width is defining the whole shape of the fuselage section. Test sitting is the Italeri kit's K36 bang seat. From photo reference I made out the cross-section quite circular so from the floor width the cockpit back wall was drawn using a passer. Again, testing with the seat for headrest clearance. The back wall still requires some fine trimming. The front wall is also added. The flat area ahead of the front wall will be the base for the dashboard cover. The rear spine. Using a first guess and several iterations of te

Hi everyone! This update starts the real chopping work. Drawing the cutting line on the fuselage side using reference pictures. Several attempts were needed as you see. The front gear bay will define the position of the future cockpit floor. Sawing the single seater fuse walls off. Trying to get both sides at once but some fine tuning is needed afterwards anyway. The bottom line can not be accessed with the saw so the scraper was used with repeated strokes until the wall was worked through. Done choppin'. The gear bay roof was also sanded and thinned lightly and the dashboard remo

Hi PetarB, thanks! But I didn't see no pun here, maybe my english is not well enough ?!?

That is one masterfully painted cockpit section....hats off!!! Andy