Plankwing

Very nice, but how could you possibly mess up that left nose gear door! HaHa! Been there, done that -- to the point of having to repaint the whole model. I just got the Aeromaster 48-728 decal sheet a couple weeks ago. Their decals are as good as decals get these days, and the ILL ANG livery looks great on your model. Good work.

It is hard to specify "colors" for F-84 series landing gear and wells as there were many inconsistencies. I'll attempt to "generalize" but again, Rule One for F-84 models is check as many photos as possible for the specific plane and place and time. Gear Wells: Yellow Zinc Chromate generally used up through F-84E. Green Zinc Chromate generally used for F-84G and F-84F with normal elevators. Gray generally used for F-84F with flying tail and for RF-84F. Field maintainence, parts replacement, etc., means any of the colors could show up on any plane. For example, the F-84C at March Field Mu

The resin detail sets for "early" F-84" Heller/Fonderie are available now at this link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=170067141354

For those interested in comparing the 1/48th scale F-84F models in profile to the real thing, this is a link to a PhotoShop layered file with the Monogram, Heller, and Fonderie in left profile layered over the F-84F at Castle Air Museum. It is a 1.7Mb zipped file. Unzip it, open with a program that will read .psd, and click the various layers on/off to compare them. http://www.f84thunderjet.com/f84fkitcompare.zip Ignore the "Forum Topic" header ... chalk it up to newbie booboo.

Nice work, looking forward to seeing the finished models.

Great shot! As you have the neg, did you take this? Any more goodies like this? Any info on the plane such as serial number, service, etc.?

Not as simple as it is represented -- F-84 straight-wing series changed constantly even on the production line with many undocumented changes made on the fly (no pun intended). That info from two men I interviewed who worked on the series from the first XP onward for a couple years. One said he was the one instrumental in getting the access port on the canopy added after hearing numerous complaints from maintainance crews. The blow-in doors were not added until G Block 20. Blow-in doors were retrofitted to some earlier G blocks, mostly to those still at the factory before being delivered. Brac

As Mark Twain said, "The news of my death is greatly exagerated." Or something like that. The F-84 site is not defunct, just taking much longer to revise than planned. Things such as work and travel and my web designer's school studies have gotten in the way. The site did not have any photos of the XP-84 ejection seat, only a "How to" for making one for a backdated XP to D version. That "How to" was based on the illustration in Squadron's book, and it turns out that illustration is not much more than a representation. I've since found some photos of the real thing (I failed to note the source

Four gearbelts, four pulleys, four bearings and two shafts for my big project.

Ouch! File is 37 mb. Takes a while even with broadband! I resized the file from 300dpi to 72dpi, size is now 3 mb. Downloads MUCH faster and still tells the tale needed. I zipped the file, it is now 1.7 mb. Link: http://www.f84thunderjet.com/f84fkitcompare.zip So, this link was working when I posted it, now returns "object not found" ... Hmmmm. I've contacted my site host to try to find out why it can't find the file. Meanwhile, if anyone wants the file, just email your request via the forum email link. And, final "edit" ... maybe ... my host solved the problem of "object not found" whi

Well, j-fever, it's only money! The site was being downloaded wholesale by web crawlers so the bandwidth went way, way north -- and the cost followed. It is slowly being redesigned for MySQL access, but that requires renaming hundreds of files to fit the database scheme. Plan is for mid-2007 -- if all goes well. For those who may be interested, I have prepared a Photoshop layered file (meaning psd) with a left profile of the F-84F at Castle Air Museum with overlays for each of the Monogram, Heller, and Fonderie 48th scale kits in "real size" at 300dpi. The features of the kits may be compared

The arm rests on these seats were adjustable to fit pilot comfort. A particular "position" on the kit part is modeler's choice, so one position or the other does not mean one is correct and the other is not correct.

I bought two of these Fondu kits. First look said they were an improvement, and in some ways their new parts are better than Heller. However, after closer inspection, the fuselage shots were short and infested with small air bubbles. I just yesterday ordered their RF-84F kit to see how it shapes up. The postings on the forum seem to tend toward the RevMon kit being "correct" -- it isn't. The aft fuselage is too shallow in depth. Am working on getting scans of Fondu, Heller, RevMon plus photos of real airdcraft to show the differences. In short, none of the kits are "on the nose." The forums

Harold's F-84F "early" version (small suck-in doors, conventional horizontal stabilizer, low-on-fuselage air brakes, etc.) is A-1 quality. It is the first really accurate model of the "F" and Thunderstreak fans will be overjoyed to see this one to add to their model inventory.