Mike J. Idacavage

Interestingly, the “fish tail” reinforcement that Gabor mentioned does not seem to be present on the stabs for 66-0294 in its current state. I would guess that they would not have taken these off when they prepared the Phantom for its current display. At least, I don't see where the fish tails were mounted. Mike

Hi Gabor, Ben! I am glad that you liked the photos I posted. It has been a long time since I last looked at them, so it was nice digging them out of an old file in preparation of the new Thunderbird FineMolds kit. Gabor, in a possible answer to your two questions above, here are some more photos I took of the Phantom on that day. I hope these are also useful! Have fun modeling! Mike

Ben, Gabor Is this one of the tubes that you are referring to on the underside? I have no ide as to its function, but it does stand out! Mike

Gabor mentioned that there are a few surviving ex-Thunderbird Phantoms. The ones which could be of interest and are REAL ex Thunderbirds are: 66-0286 At Veteran Park but as far as I know it is either SEA camo now or still the white/red Edward test colours 66-0289 At Castle Air Museum 66-0294 at American Legion Tucson Arizona I am able to help with some photos of 66-0294. I visited that airframe back in 2008 and took some walkaround photos while I was with a Phantom Society group visiting the area. Here's a few that I took. Note that the tail still shows

Great work as always, Mike!

Colin, your Rafael B is excellent! This is one good looking model. Mike

Outstanding YF-4E!! You did a fantastic job with both the paint scheme and the decals. Have fun modeling! Mike

Wow, the B57B/BOMARC combo looks really cool! Thanks for posting this, Dutch! I wonder how good the SOVA-M decals will be for the combo? Have fun modeling Mike

Should there be any extra space on the RF-4C Part 2 sheet, it would be nice to squeeze in the minimal markings for a QF-4C drone. This would be a nice way to honor the end of the career for the F-4C! I shot these photos down at Tyndall AFB in 2010. Of course, I would not want to bump of any Birmingham RF-4C Desert Storm Phantoms with their nose art... Have fun modeling! Mike

Your Aoshima ATV looks great! After seeing your build and final photos of the completed model, I think I should pull my Aoshima kit out of my stash and get started on it. Well done, Ricardo! Have fun modeling! Mike

Hi Fred K! One of my favorite modeling subjects are airliners. My go to gloss white for years was Model Master Gloss White as I liked its "refrigerator white" color along with its adhesion and its ability to be sanded and polished. As my supply of MM Gloss White is about to run out, I have come up with two options that work. Use the small bottles of Testors Gloss White enamel (#1145) that comes in the 7 ml bottles. This seems to be the same or very similar formulation as the larger MM gloss white paint. True North Gloss Artic White enamel (4007) looks to be a great substi

I ordered and received several copies of the 1/72 A-4 Skyhawk wheels earlier this week. They look great! These look to be a significant improvement over the kit parts. Excellent work, Jonathan! I plan on picking up more of your products when they are for a kit/scale that I am interested in. Have fun modeling! Mike

For me, that's an easy answer. The number 1 benefit is the ability to easily sand/polish the paint once it thoroughly dries. I build a lot of subjects like airliners, Display Team aircraft, etc. so being able to polish out any imperfections prior to decaling is a real benefit. I also like the usually better adhesion I get with enamels onto a primer coat. With that said, I not only have enamels in my paint rack, but also shoot acrylic lacquers such as MRP or AK and straight acrylics such as Vallejo depending on the situation and availability of colors. However, I have never seen any

Hi dann Coincidently, I had the same thing happen to me last week. I recently picked up a few bottles of True North enamel paints and decided to test one (International Orange)on a test plastic spoon. I diluted it with MR Color Leveling Thinner and it sprayed well. I then tried to clean my airbrush with Klean Strip lacquer thinner from Home Depot and got the the same pigment sludge that you saw. It about doubled the time it took to clear my airbrush as it clogged the nozzle tip. Since then, I did two more test sprays using True North Gloss Artic White and also Gloss Bla

Building a model from this and hopefully a follow-up sheet on the RF-4Cs used in Desert Storm will become much easier with the announced RF-4 series from Zoukei-Mura next year. I talked with some of the ZM staff at the recent IPMS Nats in San Marcos and was told that work is now underway in the development of these kits. Here's the official announcement that they had on their stand. Have fun modeling! Mike