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LanceB

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About LanceB

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    Full Blown Model Geek

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  1. For dumb weapons it shouldn't be hard, the Soviets/Russians made their racks to NATO standard deliberately. Part of their war plans involved quickly seizing NATO airfields and operating from them, using weapons left behind while they waited for their supply trains (which would take a while, as their rail gauge is different). Looks like that was all a pipe-dream, though....
  2. Are you building the Hasegawa kit? If so, the pylon is on the sprues, part T14. You will need to open the holes for it in the belly of the fuselage halves (they are marked as indents on the inside), and if fitting the pylon and guns you will need to cut/file a slot into the front angled section of the crossover fairing D7. The slot should be just wide enough that the pylon can be squeezed into it, and will only be in that front section (not extend into the horizontal middle section). You can trim off the rear of the pylon as needed for fit, it was removed from the real pylon as well so as
  3. Nice, all we need now is a corrected wing for the Hasegawa Harrier II! Get on it, Dave! 😉
  4. A minor point, but while PBJs were purchased by the Department of the Navy, they were not "Navy" aircraft. They were bought for the Marine Corps, the Navy never used them except possibly for a test bird or something.
  5. Hmm - no belly strakes or gunpods in that boxart. Should have one or the other. At least there is a Stencel seat fitted. The CG images on their facebook show an AV-8C with Mk.9 seat (wrong) and AV-8A gunpods (theoretically possible).
  6. Apologies, Scott, I misread what you were saying. And yes, I agree, for those VMA-211 markings from 1989 they were doing something different from "normal". Here's a different airframe, but same scheme, taken at Iwakuni almost certainly in May, 1989 - I went over with VMA-331 that year to relieve 211, they were the last Skyhawk squadron deployed to Japan, 331 was the first AV-8B squadron deployed, and this pic is clearly from the Iwakuni Friendship Day which has always been in early May every year: https://twitter.com/T_fighter/status/1216706729825595399/photo/1 This
  7. That doesn't sound right at all. Standard colors for the lo-vis tactical scheme on A-4M and OA-4M were: FS36495 on the underside FS36375 on the sides of the fuselage and periphery of the wing FS36320 on the top of the fuselage and center of the wing. 35237 is a dark blue-grey, used during this period in the gray/black/green scheme on Marine helicopters and OV-10s. It *may* have been the darker gray used on H&MS-32/MALS-32's one-off medium-gray/green jet "04" (not the dark gray/green jet "01", Harrier colors were used on that one), but I am not certain. I think
  8. Hi Chris, Great information, thanks for taking the time to write it out!
  9. Thanks for your insight, I think that settles things authoritatively. If you can answer this question, Chris: the kit includes parts for two bays' worth of GBU-31 and two bays' worth of GBU-38. In your experience, was it "common" to carry all of one or all of the other, or as CAS seems to be the most common usage of the Bone in recent conflicts, was one bay of each generally loaded to offer flexibility "on-scene" depending on what the ground pounders required?
  10. Yes, but one thing I learned working on aircraft is there are things that can be done, and things that are done, normally. An AV-8B can carry three Mk.82 on the inboard pylons - but we would never load that except for static display at an event as there were fears of the inboard bomb hitting the plane when the bomb was dropped off the TER. Likewise, rockets could be loaded on the inboard pylons - but we never would, because of concerns of the exhaust gasses being sucked into the engine.
  11. Ah, I could see that.... probably the safety wire that held the spinners on the fuses in place until they were dropped.... Yeah, you wouldn't want to suck that up. Thanks!
  12. In building the Academy 1/144 B-1B, I started wondering something about the fuel tank installation in the weapons bay. Academy has you fit the tank into the forward bay, then bombs in the center and aft bays. But, I have seen pics (somewhere, can't find them now, darn it...) of the tank in the aft bay leaving the bays forward of the gear for weapons. I seem to recall the 1/48 Revell kit also had this setup if built according to the instructions. And, while this could be my mind playing tricks on me, I also seem to remember reading somewhere that "tank in the aft bay"
  13. I worked on Harriers in the late 80s. At the time the authorized stores for the centerline pylon was the ECM pod (which was a mythical beast, we never saw one), or 1 x Mk.81 or Mk.82 (snakeye or slick) with gunpacks or 2 x Mk.81/Mk.82 on a TER if strakes were fitted. But note that the only time I ever saw a Mk.81 on a Harrier was when it was built with the Monogram kit, as that seems to be what they put in the box. With strakes the Harrier could originally carry 16 Mk.82, or 15 with gunpacks. I have a pic somewhere at home of one flying during testing with 16 Mk.82 fitted. In practice, we
  14. I am in the process of converting an Airfix B-25C/D to one of the VMB-612 birds, as they appeared when first deployed and before they started dropping things to save weight and increase range for patrol purposes: Top turret still in place Side blisters with windows Tail gun position Gunpacks on both sides of the nose HVAR stubs under the wings Radar in the nose Overall gloss sea blue with small national insignia By the time that pic was taken, they had removed the top turret, pulled the glass out of the side blisters (and the guns as well, it seem
  15. Hemspilot was asking about the depot-level mods, not the local "pull out a window and stick a gun in it" unit-level mods. You are correct that having the guns directly across from each other, with the turret in between them, would have made things very cramped - which is probably why everything got moved around in the H/J models. PBJ-1D MB 3 from both sides: https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/usa/aircrafts-2-3/b-25/pbj-1d-vmb-611-in-flight/ http://ewafield.blogspot.com/ (scroll down for the pic of MB 3) And another PBJ-1D showing the star
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