Superheat

Hi Chris, I don't thank that VA-56 has ever been done in 48th, at least not in the high vis scheme. Microscale did an early lo-vis VA-56 (48-177), but that is the only one I know of. Furball was working on an A-7 sheet at one point, but I don't know if it had VA-56 on it, or what the status of it is - seems to me he lost some of the artwork and had to start over. Maybe if he sees this post, Geoff will ring in and give us an update. In the meantime, you might try scanning and enlarging the Hasegawa sheet and printing that out on decal paper. Cheers, Tom

Hasegawa has issued the kit as a C-21 before with no mods to the nacelles, just depicting the Dee Howard T/R's with paint. I can't imagine they will do anything different this time, but one can hope. Regardless, it would be nice if some enterprising aftermarket manufacturer would produce both Dee Howard and Aeronca T/R nacelles for the kit. Other than lacking the Area Ruling in the rear fuselage nacelle area and having only T/R-less nacelles, it is a very nice kit, as are their other two BizJets, wish they were better sellers so we could get some new kits. Cheers, Tom

Joel, If you have the bent one, just cut off the tip and attach it to some Evergreen or Plastruct rod which should be 1 7/8" long. If that won't work for you, I have a spare, PM me an address. Cheers, Tom

Hi Alex, Here are three photos of the F-89 at the USAFM in Dayton that show, I think, how extreme the angle of the Academy pylon is and should help you correct it. The third one, in particular, shows what the angle should be with the tip tank as a reference. You do have the Genie attached to the top of the pylon in the first photo, though that has no influence on the angle, it would be equally too great if mounted correctly. (As much as I like Ken's model, I think it shows how far off the angle is.) HTH, Tom

First of all, this is outstanding work, your model is shaping up to be a masterpiece. But...... The version you are building, the A-4M, was never flown by VA-55, nor any other Navy VA squadron. Only a few Navy units flew the M, mostly in test and development roles, such as NATC and VX-5. Late in the game, some of the Adversary outfits, like VF-126 and the FWS, flew the M in Navy markings. Operationally in the attack role, though, the M was exclusive to the USMC, since they elected not to equip with the A-7, which was much more expensive. (The M was essentially Douglas' submission for the VAL

Also not Tommy, but no, it did not have the fuselage crew compartment. That airframe, 138944, was originally a bomber, then a KA-3B, and still has the tanker package with VAQ-34. I have several photos of it with the bomb bay doors open, proving it is a bomber. Also, the canopy framing is bomber, not version. Here is a photo that shows both features: So you are good to go with the KA-3B (or as good as you can go with that kit), you can even open the bomb bay doors if you wish, you will just need to source an early nose for it. Break, break............... ".. if that particular aircraf

Andrew, PM me an address, I've got a bunch of these kits , happy to sacrifice a canopy for the cause. Cheers, Tom

The list is still up on the Edwards site, though I don't think it is available through them anymore. And use the email addy (the other) Tom provided. http://www.edwardsflighttest.com/price_list.pdf HTH Tom

"possible to look "through" the jet (peeping outside from one window right through the whole bird) or was there enough equipment in the fuselage that would obstruct from doing so?" As you can see, Hajo, the latter would be the case, unless most of the camera equipment was removed Here are acouple bottom side views of the RA-3B that may be useful: Hope it all helps Cheers, Tom

Hi Hajo, You want the A3D-2P/Q Retrofit. That is the original designation, in October 1962 it became the RA-3B: A3D-1=A-3A, A3D-2=A-3B, A3D-2P=RA-3B, A3D-2Q=EA-3B, A3D-2T=TA-3B. Nice work on your whale, but I never saw one with red/orange seat pads. All the ones I ever sat in or saw were grey-green, but they were all bombers. There was no back pad, the NB-7 parachute served that purpose. Since you are putting a crew in it probably doesn't make much difference. FYI, I saw one of those camo'ed RA-3Bs in Da Nang in 1969, and the crew was wearing tiger stripe camo flight suits. Cheers, Tom

Alex, Your usual outstanding result. As has already been said, you have made a mediocre kit look VERY good. Your models are always well worth a look whatever the subject or kit, and I, for one, would like to see all those TNI-AU models, and more shots of the Flanker, too. Cheers, Tom

"It's amazing the quantity of different schemes that this plane wore in all her history." VAH-4 was a very large squadron with almost as many aircraft assigned when I was in it as VAH-123, the RAG. Like VFP-63 and VAW-111, it operated on a detachment basis and aircraft and crews often moved from one detachment to another from cruise to cruise, since assignment to dets was on a first back, first out basis. Since different air wings mandated different markings requirements, a Heavy Four Whale might look noticeably different on two successive cruises, though the basic squadron markings remained

"Tail-stripe appears to red with thin blue central line and badge of some kind." The tail cap appears to be maroon/dark red (compare it to the arrowhead on the tail stripe), probably as the specified trim color for 600 series aircraft, which the tankers were considered. I do not see any blue line, and that is not a badge on it, that is the tail light - belay that! I was looking at the photo, while you were looking at the decal sheet, but that stripe and badge are for the other set of markings, not ZB 5 so maroon, no badge. HTH, Tom, VAH-4, Jun-Oct 1965

Marcel Here is Blue 29 on 11 July 2013. Doesn't look like the profiled scheme in this photo: http://spotters.net.ua/file/?id=100218&size=large ..or this one on 16 May 2014: http://spotters.net.ua/file/?id=99776&size=large Based on these I would guess that 29 is possibly second to last aircraft on the right in Niki4703's lineup photo, assuming the dates coincide. Cheers, Tom

Gents, The US distributor for Academy is MRC and their contact email for customer service is: mrcsupport@modelrectifier.com -Contact them, or contact whomever you bought the kit from, assuming it was a dealer. HTH, Tom

According to the Air Force Museum.................

It would appear that the canopy framing is 36231 gray, and the windscreen framing black. This is the Air Force Museun's example, but contemporary photos I looked at bear it out. HTH, Tom

It is a very small photo, but it is better than nothing I suppose. Doesn't answer many of your questions, but the configuration seems identical to 153006. Hope it helps, Tom

Hi Brad, 22+59 is/was definitely an MF, see photo: I have no idea what its bort number with the NVA was, but looking through my photos, the MF's all have borts in the 4xx - 7xx range. The losest numbered bis I have is 797 and most are in the 8xx - 9xx range. Not definitive in any way. and I have no photo of 493, but I would doubt that any bis had a 4xx bort. HTH, Tom

Thanks, Geoff. As I suspected, but since it is, for me, THE scheme on the sheet, I had to ask.

HI Geoff, Nice stuff, as always, but a question on the F-4 sheet. What is the purple around the VF-92 emblem? I hope/assume it is an artwork artifact and not on the sheet. Cheers, Tom

"But with the instrument squadrons borrowing out their jets for ACM training back in the days I was wondering they might have provided some refueling capes to train other squadrons." The one has really nothing to do with the other. The RAGs for aircraft with tanking capacity would do that training themselves. For the ones without it, basically the fighters, tanker services would have been provided by the local VC squadron. That is what they were there for, to provide services such as this to the fleet. The Instrument squadrons were there to provide recurrent actual instrument training for

There is also a recce nose in the Monogram/Revell F-5E kit if you have one lying around. If not, you can get those pretty cheap these days. I used it, and a lot of other parts from that kit, on a Hawk F-5A kit to make a CF-5A. It was almost a perfect fit. Cheers, Tom

Flybywire, Keep in mind that that is a museum display aircraft with the wing permanently raised and therefore subject to accumulation of dust. In operational service the wing was only up for taxi, take-off and landing, and was ordinarily lowered prior to shutdown, in no small part to avoid getting dirt and foreign objects in the space. As you can see in the photos, it is a very confined space and difficult to access or see into even in "one to one" scale, so no need to waste a lot of time detailing and "weathering" it. In Rich's second photo you can see that in spots the white is a very thi

Gents, As originally built, all the F-8s had interior green wing bays as well as the underside of the wing over the bay. The rebuilds for certain got white wing bays and underwing area, and the change to white may have been begun earlier during PAR/Overhaul cycles, but there are not a lot of period photos taken of the wing bay to say for sure. The reason for the change, I am sure, was to make hydraulic leaks more obvious. One of the post-start checks was for an AMH to stick his head into the bay to check for leaks - the pilot's arms wee out of the cockpit for this check. Mil5606 hydraulic