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Michael Vorrasi

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About Michael Vorrasi

  • Rank
    Canopy Polisher
  • Birthday 02/27/1955

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Peoples Republic of New York
  • Interests
    Flying (licensed pilot since1985), modeling planes, ships and N Scale railroads, photography, shooting and outdoor sports.
  1. Artur, that is a fantastic job on the Mustang IV. My compliments.
  2. People waited years for a good AH-64D in 1/72 as all the available kits were A models or prototype D's, and you want to use the new D to make an A. Go figger.... Just get the Academy AH-64A kit for under ten bucks, and save yourself at least that much in putty and x-acto blades.
  3. Indeed! The Esci 1/48 kit is, as you say, a horror. OTOH, their 1/72 kit is really nice. Go figger.
  4. Ditto what Christian said. It is an old wives tale. Photo of the final P-51C on the line at Dallas with D models right behind it shows the early wing root was not changed on any B/C model. I believe the source of this old wives tale is the 100 knockdown kits of P-51D-1NA's sent to Australia to get Aussie production rolling. Only 80 were assembled. The rest became parts and engineering samples. It has been claimed that the first four of the unassembled D's had fuselages with the high backed profile and birdcage canopy. They never were completed as finished airplanes, and would have been D mode
  5. Michael Vorrasi

    P-40E Q

    Good catch! I although I have never seen it used on any E models of either the AVG or the 23FG. I'd be interested in any photo you might locate.
  6. Michael Vorrasi

    P-40E Q

    The first photo is a modern warbird. I have seen other pictures of it. It is owned by Dan Lo Russo. Key give-aways are: 1. the camo pattern. All AVG P-40E's were delivered in OD over NG. 2. The presence of camouflage WITH the Chinese national insignia indicates it is not genuine. The only camo P-40E's were received after the AVG was disbanded and became the 23 FG. They used US insignia, including repainting former AVG Tomahawk aircraft. The tricolor discs on the wheel hubs are another give away. No AVG plane wore these. It was a prewar decoration seen on pre-war Mitchell Field NY based P-4
  7. Michael Vorrasi

    P-40E Q

    Look closer at that first photo, claiming to be a CAMCO photo dated June 11, 1942. It is a modern day fake. The pilot has a David Clark noise cancelling headset on. Not quite WW2 issue! That photo looked just a bit too creamy smooth to be a vintage photo. Film should have been grainier, so I looked closer.
  8. Mr.Hume Bates has been working on the Airfix P-40 project. I have followed his P-40 research for some time and respect his opinions on it. Here is what he had to say regarding the existing early P-40 restorations done by those (gasp) "Professional Aircraft Restorers" at Chino (was I supposed to bow and genuflect too?) Per his 10/3/15 post on HS: "And yes... no restored early p-40 tomahawk out there has a correct lower radiator cowl its simply doesn't exist And there's no surviving blueprints for lower radiator cowl .. trust me I've looked and as far as I know all the restoration people have
  9. Yes, long tail. It came up on a P-40E search.I was focused on the cowling and belly, did not look at the tail! It is a P-40M, based on the filtered air intake. The cowling and fairing are all the same though, on Kittyhawks with Allisons. And the Kittyhawk belly fairing shape is what appears on P-40B #284, for which I was accused of heresy for pointing out.
  10. Take a look at this P-40E. The belly fairing is very similar to the one used on P-40B #284. It does not match the one used on the P-40C and the wartime P-40B/C planes. If you have Dana Bell's book on early P-40's, see the photo on page 12 of the P-40 on jack stands. You can put a ruler on the radiator cowling and it ties straight into the fairing. Look directly above the port side main gear leg for the P-40E fairing shape. Matches shape on P-40B #284:
  11. Yes, thank you. That is exactly the area I am pointing out. The NMF plane's belly fairing matches the wartime photo linked to in my post #27 above. Don't know where the rest of the post and additional photo links went. Someone tampered with the others. The CAD looks to me and several others to be closer to the #284 plane. More properly the CAD looks very Trumpeter like. The 284 plane's belly fairing looks a lot more like the Academy kit, which in addition to a tiny fairing had the added problem of an incorrect wing angle of incidence. Trumpy had a double error, the belly fairing was too smal
  12. You have conveniently selected an angle where the landing gear fairing hides the problem area. Nice try though. The silver one has a very different bottom fairing than the camo one.
  13. I did not start it. My private e-mails were brought up here and I was falsely accused, publicly in this thread, of saying something in those e-mails I actually never said. Falsely accusing me is bad taste. It may also be legally actionable. The attacks made on me were beyond bad taste, fully justifying my general characterization of the typical HS poster. (Many others were gentlemen and both defended me and agreed with me). Especially when my basic premise was correct. I will not have my good name disparaged.
  14. Let's set the story straight here, as I am being accused of alleging someone committed a fraud, which I did not do. I also did not say both restorations were inaccurate. I said the camouflaged #284 had a inaccurate belly profile, while the NMF one at Duxford was correct. Both apparently done by the same shop though I am not really sure, but I do know what I see. Well, they are clearly different, and only the NMF one matches wartime photos. For this I was accused seeing things in my mind (apparently lots of others see the the same thing - I guess it is in their heads too) and here in this threa
  15. PERFECT!! Given that of all dual 104's, only these 16 airplanes could carry anything on the center line, that is a rare bird, both the photo and the airplane. This shot shows a rack more closely shaped to the single seater than the other shots seem to show. Finn, do you recall if there were multiple lug locations, such that a store could be mounted farther aft on the pylon, like these seem to show?
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