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Thanks Neo! According to the decal sheet, they are combat sortie markings, 445 in all. Apparantly, this aircraft flew the first USMC Panther strike in Korea. According to the internet (we all know how accurate that can be!) VMF-311 was the first USMC land based squadron in Korea, and flew a total of 18,851 combat sorties in 2 1/2 years. Apparantly, John Glenn and Ted Williams served in the unit during this time.

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1/144 Dragon F/A-18E, VFA-31 CAG Bird

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The weird asymmetric pylon configuration was seen on this bird at an airshow at Oceana a few years back. I think using it helped capture the Super Bug's often strange combination of pylons, stores, etc. I did cant them outwards, as the good folks at Dragon forgot to do this. I also added the red decal strip along the black spine.

Thanks for looking!

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Thanks, Mike! :beer4: They were airbrushed insignia yellow, and the visors hand-painted black. After I dipped them in Future, the markings were all done with decals from the spares bin, strips of thin black lines cut by hand into the lengths I needed and individually positioned in place. It took me most of 2 afternoons (mostly because I had to wait for each one to dry well enough that it was safe to put the next overlapping one on). Once they were all done, I dipped the helmets in Future a couple more times, then hand-painted the oxygen masks dark gull gray, drybrushed with gunship gray.

Great additions by bdt, Helidriver, and phantom! :worship:

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