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Hello,

This week I started the very nice 1/72 X-47B kit from Platz. My intention was to build a diorama of the first arrested landing of an UAV onboard an aircraft carrier (July 10th 2013, CVN-73)

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US Navy

However I then thought it might be quite fun to build it as an operational CAG aircraft in 2035, using some spare decals of a VFA-102 Super Hornet. Scenario: Due to technological pressure from other countries the Super Hornet is phased out and the X-47B pressed into service as the F/A-47.

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Wikipedia

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The main shortcoming of this otherwise very nice kit is the intake. It has a good shape but it is blanked so that there is no engine visible. This looked weird to me so I built something more realistic: I could not find any good shot of it.

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First, remove the blanked face. This will also help putty the side seams with White Milliput. The nice thing with Milliput is that it can be smoothed with water and a Q-tip, which avoids damaging the paint previously applied.

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Once the putty was applied, smooth and a couple of white coats were sprayed. Then a bit of tube was glued to give the thing some depth and finally a painted engine front face (resin copy of Hasegawa's F-14A) was glued in position.

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Looks a bit better :)/>

All comments welcome,

Arnaud

Edited by arnobiz
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Thanks for your kind words. I made some progress, in particular all the doors but one are closed. The very is pretty good except for the front landing gear doors where a plastic shim as well as quite a bit of putty & engraving were required.

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The small inlet on the port side was refined to better match its actual shape:

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And finally the two main halves are ready for assembly, last shot of their insides. On the left the jet intake as described above, on the right the support for the rod following the same technique as described in a previous build

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All comments and suggestions welcome,

Arnaud

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  • 2 weeks later...

Main painting done! I made up a two-tone LGG/DGG camo and used leftover VFA-102 CAG decals. The hi-viz intake markings were made with bits of Super Hornet markings, not fun but I like the result :)

Exhaust and spine to come...

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Comments welcome!

Cheers,

Arnaud

Edited by arnobiz
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