Chek

In this case, as in the case of many devices sucking dirty air (think the fans in your PC/laptop) 'white' doesn't actually mean 'white'.

F-4S 153835 NF-200 VF-151 USS Midway CAG 1981

Thanks for trying with the Hunter max. I can see it's difficult to access. The Lightning photos were worth the trip alone!

Paulo one thing I did for my 1/48 version you might like, was to turn a new radome from a wooden dowel in an electric drill, to get a true sharp point on it. A soak with superglue/cyano after shaping helps make it strong enough for the point to stay sharp.

It may be worth mentioning that the recent Airfix FG1 Phantom kit was LIDAR scanned and may be worth getting as a reference. While it has been criticised for lacking some important detail, from a shapes point of view, I haven't seen anything glaringly wrong from any of the dozen or so builds I've looked at. I keep hoping they have the missing details in a separate file somewhere that they'll incorporate in a 1/48th version.

I just had a browse through my 1400+ F-4S photos (but includes a couple of 40+ walkarounds) showing Navy and Marine squadrons both aboard carriers and at their land bases, and the most striking thing now I'm looking for it was how often they were completely unarmed. Most common sight is empty inboard pylons, inboard pylons with empty Sidewinder rails, Sidewinder rails with one round attached, then inboard pylon with empty rails and TER attached, and rarely with a couple of 500lb Mk82s and only sometimes all three stations bombed up. What surprised me was the lack of Sparrows, as early on two rear Sparrows were considered fairly essential ballast for Phantoms. The most I've got in my collection are the two forward bays loaded, but most commonly when armed at all is just a single Sparrow in the forward stations that could be either port or starboard. Also one non-airshow photo with a Sparrow on the port inboard pylon and a single Sidewinder on the starboard side. Even when intercepting Russian bombers, one Sidewinder and one Sparrow seems to have been considered sufficient. Reliability mustn't have been considered as big an issue as it once was, bearing in mind many of these were shots taken in the early to mid '80s when the Russian threat was still a live issue. USS Midway was the most used carrier by the S models, and that wasn't Tomcat capable, so the Navy and Marine embarked Phantoms would've been its only air defence. A Royal Jet centreline fuel tank looks to have been am almost permanent fixture and wing tanks extremely rare. My overall general impression seems to be pilots preferred flying them clean where possible.

Brave decision to use the copper wire, with the adhesive problem. But it can be done. One thing I'd advise Rob is to heat the copper wire red hot to anneal it. It'll take any springiness out of it. You can wire wool the oxidised look off it afterwards. Then press some pins into some drilled MDF or similar and bend the wire round them at the appropriate places. To be honest, I didn't find the sought after 3-D effect worth the pfaff. My other method is to tape the pattern to the exterior of the canopy, then use a mapping pen and white ink to draw the pattern on the inside

I've never noticed a Wild Hare build photographed from the correct angle to see if the intake 'hump' is properly there. With the implication it should be more obvious in order to get that more canted down look of the original. You can see it above the fuselage roundel in this shot. The intake ramp issue is in the last post on this blog page, with comparison photos. .

You could try splitting open a water filter core as these usually contain thousands of tiny spheres. Or stretch a piece of sprue to quite a thin filament, then cut an end square. Gradually approach the cut end underneath a candle flame where the heat is reduced, and it will form a sphere which grows as you decrease the distance to the flame. Watch out though as if you're too quick it will flame on you. Clip the sphere as close as possible to reduce the sprue nub. Ah, I read on further and see you got there on your own.

That'll larn me to post before first cuppa. Yes the guys are right, one of the very rare Sapphire engined Hunters, F5 WP190 is preserved at Tangmere in 1 Sqn's Suez campaign markings. The F5 was a step upgrade of the similarly powered F2 and was significant in not suffering the engine choking on gun gas problem when the cannon were fired which plagued early Avon powered Hunters' As might be imagined a fighter that flies beautifully but goes full stupid when called upon to actually shoot something down might be seen as a disappointment.. In the end Rolls-Royce solved the Avon's apparently insurmountable problems by essentially attaching a Sapphire compressor section to it.

Any nice clear close ups of the Sapphire engine vents and intakes just above below and aft of the wings would be very welcome.

For any Sabre fans, Ron Downey has the F-86E Erection and Maintenance manual (December 1952 revision) posted on his site as a .pdf. Station diagrams, panel guides, measurements, equipment diagrams, some photos, under the skin installations, torque settings ... almost anything to satisfy your Sabre curiosity in its 814 pages. I've said it before, but do visit Ron's blog regularly as he posts an eclectic variety of aviation related material every weekday. The Sabre manual is here. Illustration from intro pages below.

Has the stencil sheet FL32007 been released yet Dave? I can't see the jet intake warning chevrons on 32006 and they're kinda crucial to the looks! There are some in the Trumpeter kit, but I'd prefer that they match the colours on FL32006.

Great film, I really enjoyed it. What surprised me was the Cat dropping most of its depth charges to kill one sub. One or two sure, but it struck me as a long way home to reload to take on the rest of the pack. Not that I would know or anything.

Congrats Peter, you've saved a kit from the shelf of doom after more than 20 years! I'd laboriously fabricated the dimple panels and webs in the U/C bay on my MPM kit then started reading about how the D series had left the panels off for improved engine bay cooling. So I figured, in the absence of actual data, the same is very likely true for the similarly inline engined C model. I considered swapping the wings on to a regular A model, but the moulded exhaust tube fairing channels on the upper wing parts didn't make that an easy option. So into storage it went until I summoned up the courage to rip out the dimples. Bit of a pain as the photo etch radiator grilles and cockpit parts looked great. Only to find out now after all this time that they're fine as they are. I'll get back to it and hopefully make the decision whether to finish it as a prototype, or go for a faux operational hi-altitude finish.

Will you be creating any of the sub panels for it Peter?

Apart from the traditional Revell squashed canopy, and the necessity to correct the forward nozzle fairing for ANY version being built (its not a P1127(RAF), it's not anything ever applied to a Harrier). That said, it's quite an accurate kit as far as fuselage, fin, stabs and wing outlines go. The wing trailing edge angle is about 1.0 degree shy but barely noticeable and not really worth fixing. The cannon pods are very undernourished, but salvageable with spacers and detail added, and at least you get the under fuselage strakes if you decide not to. Useless cockpit too, of course and the fan rotation direction is wrong. Treating it as a substantial vacform is probably the best way to approach it. Decal sheet is quite good. At least until such time as a decent first gen Harrier is to be had. I shall probably copy the wheels and fan from the Trumpeter kits when, if ever, they complete their interminable journey from China.

Hi Graham. I've PMd you a suggestion to consider.

Any Hercules engined Beau kit could deliver that result with fairly minimal conversion or aftermarket. Even the Revell one.

Not well versed in the differences. Are there any other visible ones apart from that big dorsal blade antenna?

That looks superb, and will be a real bonus. Especially if they can carry off that knee guard netting. Most photo etch makes the strands far too thick

This is rather like the old Tornado GR1 RAF attack aircraft which also had a GR1A recce variant (updated to GR4 and GR4A in the early 2000s) which carried an integral internal recce suite, originally designed in the late 70s/early 80s, though with minor upgrades through the years. The introduction of later more capable equipment such as the AAQ-28 Litening pod made the earlier internal systems redundant, and in the Litening's case could be carried by a variety of aircraft, not just the original -1A or -4A variants. The RF-4EJ are recce types while retaining their cannon armed noses. Three different recce sensor pods can be carried; LOROP (with a KS-146B camera fitted) TACER (electronic reconnaissance pod with data link), and the TAC (featuring KS-135A and KS-95B cameras, and a D-500UR IR 9 infra-red system). Thoughtfully the Japanese have made it possible to tell which is which by their fin serial numbers. To keep things simple, you'll notice the JASDF split their serial numbers in two. The first digit of the second group indicates the role, with 6 being for recon, and 8 being a fighter. It's therefore possible to see for example F-4EJ nose number 380 as 67-8380 before conversion in its purely fighter days, but which can now be seen as RF-4EJ 67-6380 The serial change suggests the conversion is more complex than simply attaching an external recce pod, and some modification to the airframe has been made. I'm not seeing your photos either, and the URL isn't an IMGUR one. Try this: call up your image on your screen from your online source. Ignore any handy links you may be presented with, then copy the image address which is a right click option in Windows but will have some Apple device equivalent I'm sure, if required. In your post, choose 'edit', then click 'Insert image from URL' and paste the URL you copied earlier. Save and exit your post. Hope that helps.

As it's a Mustang, would the accolade Tour de Horse be more appropriate?

Legend is that Sue Parish's pink P-40N was a big hit with young girls and women back in the day and they appreciated her resistance to the John Wayne image male aviators had cultivated. You only have to look around at the number of front line female military and civilian pilots today to see that it would be churlish to deny any effect. And why wouldn't sharks wear lipstick? I bet they would if they could. Lady sharks at least. And in a certain light it looks kind of 'authentic'. But I'm reminded of my friend Chris from many years ago. Chris was a sought after motor mechanic and very keen modeller and wasn't overly concerned with what we'd today call 'accuracy'. His view was ''this is an Airfix model Spitfire, that is a FROG model Spitfire and that's a Revell model Spitfire. Each was as good a model as he could make of what it was, as bought. In the early autumn of 1990 just days after they'd flown out, he brought to the club an Airfix Jaguar finished in a lurid pink, which pre-internet and allowing two months delay for the aviation mags to catch up attracted much interest at the monthly club meeting. The shade of pink would have pleased the eye of a PVC dominatrix (or... so I'm told). By the spring of 1991, the Gulf War RAF planes had mostly all come home and were appearing at the summer airshows, and the well weathered reality of ARTF pink could be seen in all it's ad-hoc patched sandy glory on Tornadoes, Buccaneers and Jaguars and looked very similar in the colour magazine photos. Chris was still proud of his lurid latex pink Jaguar he brought in at every opportunity though because 'that was how they looked on the tele (TV) 'when I first saw them'. I can only surmise that the colour saturation on his CRT TV was turned up to 11, but so were lots of others too in those days. Why else have colour and not get the max value from it? Never mind the radiation burns. I still think of him and his healthy attitude when fretting over some minutiae.

The Hurricane and Tempest did not have side access doors. Your confusion may come from some modellers depicting the Hurricane's stbd side detachable service panel off to let more light into the area, but it was never for pilot access. The Tempest and late Typhoon's similarly were canopy access only.