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Academy 1/48 RAAF F-111C OOB


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Finally I have made enough progress to post some pics. Since I am donating the built aircraft for a display on the base here, I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time counting wires in the wheel wells (I have about 8 more different types to build behind this one to complete the display and time is ticking). Anyways, this will be built out of the box, I may add a couple smart bombs just to give it a purpose (have to check and see what the typical loadout was for this era scheme). I will post pics at the end of each week to show progress. By the way, I wish I had the time and skill of some of the folks in this build, awesome work!

Here is my RADAR and avionics simulation.

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First weeks goal complete.

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Thanks Mark,

did the seats have the sheepskin covers when they wore the SEA camo?

Ron

Sure did.

Dad told me a story about when he was flying them during the 80's. There were some USAF one elevens from that were at Amberley during a joint excercise and the American aircrew were quite taken by the seat covers. A few of the seat covers were found missing after the American's departure.

The reason the theft wasn't discovered for a while was that every one was too busy laughing about the extra 'O' that the Mountain Home (MO) tail codes had aquired.

Cheers

Mark

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That's good stuff, gotta love aircrew humor. I'm going to see how difficult it will be to yank the seats out and redo them since it is a feature unique to the RAAF birds (probably the first thing an RAAF airman would look for upon inspection of the model).

Thanks

Ron

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If you can't 'yank' them out put a little PVA or clear coat glue on them and sprinkle some talc or fine sand on them then paint them athracite grey as I believe they faded a little from new sheepskin in the hot Queensland sun then re-do your seat belts.

Regards

Andrew

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Didn't get a chance last week to post progress, so there will be a two for one this weekend. I decided to take a different approach to avoiding the notorious "step" behind the cockpit.

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Here's a view topside (I paint the black on the seats later).

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Just a quick pic of the sparse guts, still haven't figured out what those two post were that I had to cut out of the wing bay.

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The carefully shaped styrene spacer to minimize the seam at the nose to aft section joint.

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The in progress result of the fuselage seam, will button up the rest of the fuselage once glue is completely set (and finally painted the seats the proper color, still some minor touchup required on them).

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Edited by bashace
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Just a quick update.

Ordered 2 1/48 Revell/Monogram A-10's ($17 ea from Megahobby.com) so that I can procure the auxiliary fuel tanks out of them, apparently they are closer to scale than the ones in the Academy F-111 kit. I would of liked to get the ones from Scaledown but I think I have to order at least $70 worth of stuff for international shipping (unless I read it wrong, plus the two week mold time and shipping delay would put me close to the end of the build).

As for the airframe, got out the spackle, sandpaper, and primer. Goal is to have it ready to lay some paint next weekend.

Finally yanked the pylons out of the wings, the mechanical sweep alignment mechanism was driving my nuts with poor pylon alignment, going to install plastic tubing that will alow me to remove the pylons for transport and such, same tubing that will be used for the elevator pivot pins (tube from a can of compressed air worked perfectly).

Will upload pics shortly.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Wow! We're getting down to the wire on time, work is doing it's best to interfere with progress. I'm actually taking Thurs and Fri off to get this pig finished. I'm using Vallejo paints for the first time, and a new airbrush, so we'll see how bad we can muck this up before the end.

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Now that the GB is over, work must continue. I'm going to bypass all the filling and sanding hoopla and just post the meat and potatoes. Just to show that I'm not slouching on the project here are some pics...

Let the SEA begin (groan!)

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Got tired of looking at the top so I flipped her over (hmmm, it's getting late).

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Still some patches to finish, but she's beginning to look like a Pig!

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Here's some of the bits and pieces awaiting some final touches and installation.

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Here's a comparison pic of the kit (gray), Monogram A-10 (dark green), and Scaledown (tan) 600 gal. fuel tanks.

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And here's the kind of mess it takes to build an F-111 at my factory!

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Hopefully the next pics will include the completed aircraft.

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Hi Bashace,

I'm liking your work however, I have a question for you. What colour is the dark colour as it appears almost brown not dark green in your pics?

I wish this GB had of gone longer as I now want to do another 1/48 F111C in a flying pose but in the markings of the RAAF's ARDU (Aircraft research and Development Unit) which had a white under side and camo top.

regards

Andrew

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Andrew,

thanks for the comment, I used Vallejo Dark Green for the dark color, had to add a few drops of black to it so that it would be closer to the recomended Model Master FS equivelant. The lighter green had to be lightened quite a bit so that it would contrast against the dark green and also match it's MM FS equivelant. The Earth color was sprayed out of the bottle without any mixing, all are Vallejo Air acrylics.

V/r

Ron

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