AV-8B Wheel Bay Doors - Position on Ramp?

[ESzczesniak]

I’m building a Hasegawa AV-8B Plus and have the Aires wheel bay set. Are both the fore and aft bays open when powered down the the deck/ramp? The forward one seems to always be open, but I’m having a hard time figuring out the aft doors. It seems they’re often open, but that area gets busy in photos with the strakes/gum pods hanging in that area. I think I’ve found some photos where they’re closed too, so I’m hoping someone could shed some light on this topic. 

[Dave Roof]

Both are common. In the year I spent at Cherry Point and the dozens of photos I took on the flight line, I've seen both configurations on a regular basis. Regardless of which position you put the doors in, they'll be correct.

[ESzczesniak]

Thank you for the reply! Would the fore and aft doors always be in the same position? Both open or both closed? Or might the forward be open and the aft closed?

 

The rear bay on the Aires set blocks out one of the fuselage stiffeners between the nozzles. So if it was a “normal” configuration, I had been thinking of leaving that closed and opening the forward bay. 

Edited April 20, 2018 by ESzczesniak

[Dmanton300]

Normal configuration on the ground is mains closed, nose open. There is a circuit breaker panel in the nose bay (I think it was a circuit breaker panel) that can only be accessed with those doors open, so normal practice is to manually open those doors after shut down to allow access. But of course, "normal" does not mean "always" so exceptions will be found easily. 

[ESzczesniak]

Thank you both! It seems for once the modeling gods have made it easy to do the simple thing.