Thadeus Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 23 hours ago, Scooby said: Nothing ugly about the Herc, she is a thing of beauty. Huh, that seemed to be my most comented post in almost 10 years on ARC. Mom said popularity isn't as fun as it seems. Still, You are doing some great work with this kit. Can't wait for some more. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
HERC164 Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 Steve, Masterful work here! I am impressed with your skills, and hope that my kits turn out half as nice as yours. Of course 1 of the 5 kits in the stash have the flat windscreen ( the last one I ordered from Poland). Will have to check all of the other H, J, J-30's kits in the stash. You are correct on the black paint on the wing, just a visual aid icing indicator. You are really hitting all the details, and cant wait to see more of your work on your Ghostrider! Getting close now. Any ideas for the walkways? I know the kit decals are too dark, I will check the stash of decals I might have a set that will work, Maybe a set from the Italeri MC-130E? Hope you had a great Christmas, and wishes for the best in the New Year! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A-10 LOADER Posted December 27, 2023 Author Share Posted December 27, 2023 1 hour ago, HERC164 said: Steve, Masterful work here! I am impressed with your skills, and hope that my kits turn out half as nice as yours. Of course 1 of the 5 kits in the stash have the flat windscreen ( the last one I ordered from Poland). Will have to check all of the other H, J, J-30's kits in the stash. You are correct on the black paint on the wing, just a visual aid icing indicator. You are really hitting all the details, and cant wait to see more of your work on your Ghostrider! Getting close now. Any ideas for the walkways? I know the kit decals are too dark, I will check the stash of decals I might have a set that will work, Maybe a set from the Italeri MC-130E? Hope you had a great Christmas, and wishes for the best in the New Year! Thanks bud, appreciate the kind words. Thanks for the clarification on the black wing panels, seems I guessed correctly. Originally I had planned to shoot the entire walkway area a light gray with a white border since the kit decals are worthless but, now that I've added all those antennas to the upper fuselage area, I'm just going to do the white outline. I've found some pics of aircraft with the gray walkways and white border and others with just the white border. Steve Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Scooby Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 8 hours ago, Thadeus said: Huh, that seemed to be my most comented post in almost 10 years on ARC. Mom said popularity isn't as fun as it seems. Us Herc guys will defend the Herc as if it were our own child or girlfriend. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
aircommando130 Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 Yep...those black panels are a ice indicator. The deice boot on the tail is a glossy vinyl...maintenance puts a spray on it that's shiny like you spray on your tires after a bath. I suppose you heard now AFSOC is talking about pulling the 105mm gun off the airplane. And yes...don't talk bad about the Handsome, Sleek, High performance C-130! Cheers...Ron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
utley Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 (edited) 2 minutes ago, aircommando130 said: Yep...those black panels are a ice indicator. The deice boot on the tail is a glossy vinyl...maintenance puts a spray on it that's shiny like you spray on your tires after a bath. I suppose you heard now AFSOC is talking about pulling the 105mm gun off the airplane. And yes...don't talk bad about the Handsome, Sleek, High performance C-130! Cheers...Ron what about the fairings on the leading inbd mid wing boots? thought for sure those would be deice boots on them as well... Edited December 27, 2023 by utley Quote Link to post Share on other sites
aircommando130 Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 2 minutes ago, utley said: what about the fairings on the leading inbd mid wing boots? thought for sure those would be deice boots on them as well... The only deice boot is on the tail. Everything else is just a paint indicator. They use bleed air heat in the leading edge on the wings and stabilizer to melt the ice off. The props sling it off...you can hear it hit the fuselage on the ice panels along the prop line. I think the fellas said there is an antenna (HF?) under the boot so they can't use heat to defrost it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
utley Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 I know theres bleed air throughout the wings so you would think I know better. Cant imagine the fuselage taking ice strikes from the props all that well either, Ive worked on a few props with deice boots or heater elements installed on the hubs and this is the first time Ive ever heard of that! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A-10 LOADER Posted December 28, 2023 Author Share Posted December 28, 2023 I did not hear that AFSOC is thinking of pulling the 105mm gun off, what will take it's place ? Steve Quote Link to post Share on other sites
utley Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 15 minutes ago, A-10 LOADER said: I did not hear that AFSOC is thinking of pulling the 105mm gun off, what will take it's place ? Steve I thought it was supposed to be a 30mm bushmaster myself... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A-10 LOADER Posted December 28, 2023 Author Share Posted December 28, 2023 1 hour ago, utley said: I thought it was supposed to be a 30mm bushmaster myself... The gun up front is the 30mm. Steve Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dave Williams Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 1 hour ago, A-10 LOADER said: I did not hear that AFSOC is thinking of pulling the 105mm gun off, what will take it's place ? Steve https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/11/07/us-air-force-may-remove-105mm-cannon-from-ac-130-gunship/ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
utley Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 Its been a while since I last worked on a C-130 so Im a bit outdated here...but I always figured the 30mm would replace the 20mm vulkan, 40mm BOFORS and supposedly the 105, AGM-114Ks or AGM-176's would replace the 105mm as well...plus a few extra stuff Ive heard the capability to run SDBs and GBU-38's for extra capitalist superiority. BUt these aircraft have so many missions that I cant even keep my head up straight to figure out whats going where...C-130 A-Z was the running joke at work. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A-10 LOADER Posted December 28, 2023 Author Share Posted December 28, 2023 (edited) Thanks for the article Dave, seems the guys who get paid the big bucks don't do their homework very well, not that that is a news flash. They talked about the 130 not being able to loiter because of air-to-air threats and long range missiles. I thought that air superiority was the F-22 AND 35's job !?!? Utley, I agree that they are asking too much out of one airframe. Steve Edited December 28, 2023 by A-10 LOADER Quote Link to post Share on other sites
aircommando130 Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 That's the AFSOC way...if it's big, heavy and painted black they'll buy it. The Talon II ended up with an operating weight about 102,000 pounds....max takeoff weight was 155,000 pounds. I don't know how much weight the TF radar mod adds to the MC-J but I bet it's a lot. OK...the tail boot...the 6 blade prop moves the air around the tail different than the 4 blad Hamilton Standard did and that area of the tail collects ice more than the rest of the tail so they added the boot in that area and it works just like the wing de-icer boots on the old B-17/B-24.... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
utley Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 Kind of OT, but is there any idea what the air force did with the first AC-130J they rolled inverted on its first test flight? I know they overstressed that airframe and had to immediately retire it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A-10 LOADER Posted December 28, 2023 Author Share Posted December 28, 2023 8 minutes ago, utley said: Kind of OT, but is there any idea what the air force did with the first AC-130J they rolled inverted on its first test flight? I know they overstressed that airframe and had to immediately retire it. Never knew that either. My guess is it's probably a ground trainer, still good for "test fitting" items in the cargo area and for other training purposes. Steve Quote Link to post Share on other sites
aircommando130 Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 They took it to Lockheed in Georgia and modded it back to an MC-J...took the wings and tail off and trucked it out here to Kirtland AFB and stuck it in the fuselage trainer hanger and made it a loadmaster trainer. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
aircommando130 Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 It still has the complete right wing...half the left wing...3 engines and they cut the vertical tail down about half to get it in the hanger. It's backed in so they can load/unload out of the weather and student loadmasters can do a full power up preflight on it. It's called the "E-FUT" (electronic fuselage trainer) Cheers...Ron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
aircommando130 Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 That airplane had flown several test flights. That particular test was big rudder inputs and when they pushed it to yaw the airplane the mission computer pulled the power off the opposite engines to stop the yaw and the airplane went inverted. I forgot how much altitude they lost but it pulled out close to water in the Eglin range. It didn't have the 105mm gun. Just the 30mm up front. A graduate of the AF Test Pilot School was in the seat to recover it. Cheers...Ron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
utley Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 I thought they would put it in a museum somewhere, I worked on that aircraft briefly working squawks trying to get it ready for its acceptance by the air force before they flew it to Warner Robbins for its gunship retrofit. It had, what..100 some odd flight hours on it? Also Ive seen some things happen on the line to some hercs being dropped in some way, shape or form. Not surprising too because our tooling were 60+ years old and starting to fail. Mid fuse dropped an entire fuselage right after it had the center wing mounted. Wasnt there for that one, but we all heard about it the next day... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A-10 LOADER Posted December 29, 2023 Author Share Posted December 29, 2023 Little more progress on the Gunship, I spent 4 hours last night masking off the walkway lines on the forward fuselage for 2 minutes of spraying. I used 1mm tape for the width of the lines, maybe a little wide for this scale but, anything thinner was hard to keep straight. It was a pain in the neck but, a necessary evil and I'm happy with the results. I still need to add the outer white circle line around the forward hatch and then this section will be complete. The wings should be much easier to do and, we'll see how much of a headache the tail section will be. Thanks for looking and Happy New Year to everyone. Steve Quote Link to post Share on other sites
aircommando130 Posted December 30, 2023 Share Posted December 30, 2023 Looking good Steve...I feel your pain painting those walkways! Cheers....Ron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A-10 LOADER Posted December 30, 2023 Author Share Posted December 30, 2023 15 hours ago, aircommando130 said: Looking good Steve...I feel your pain painting those walkways! Cheers....Ron Thanks Ron and, thanks for all your help along the way. Steve Quote Link to post Share on other sites
aircommando130 Posted December 30, 2023 Share Posted December 30, 2023 No worries...glad I could help since I have the airplane right on the balcony at work. Happy New Year....Ron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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