Adam Maas

Elegoo is also noted for excellent support. I'm just getting into the SLA side of things. One thing that is pretty clear so far is that the level of product support is FAR better in SLA than in FDM, where it seems all the cheaper printers are essentially free of anything resembling customer support (Creality, I'm looking at you here....) I guess that goes hand in hand with the difference in the printer design. Most cheap FDM printers are all open source bits (the basic i3 and Ender 3 designs, the Marlin firmware, the core board designs, even the slicers) while cheaper SLA printers are mostly just repackaged Chitu bespoke components in a custom enclosure, with closed source firmware and slicers, and you can actually buy support for the latter (the Pro versions of Chitubox and Lychee both feature manufacturer support as part of the deal)

I wouldn't assume the Cold War jets really sell like hotcakes anywhere, or we'd see more of them. F-4's sell like hotcakes for sure, and 1/32 is wildly overdue for a modern F-4 tooling. Actually somewhat surprised ZM hasn't released theirs in 1/32. Sabres and F-104's do well enough, but clearly not as well as one would expect or there's be more than one modern kit of each in 1/32. But look at the rest of the Century Series, we still don't have a decent F-100 in any scale, the F-101 has the old Monogram B in 1/48, the new Revell B in 1/72 (that they rarely re-release) and the now defunct KH full series in 1/48. The F-102 and F-106 have the old Monogram and a newer option (Hasegawa or Trumpeter) in 1/48, the latter with issues, and the Meng in 1/72 (I think there's a couple other options in 1/72, all old tools), the F-105 has old Monogram and new Trumpeter and HB and again with issues. And don't even get me started on Naval Air before the F-4. The reality is that WW2 and Modern stuff sells well. And we have plenty of options there in all scales, although 1/32 suffers the most from subtype selection. But Cold War? It's a dead zone except the F-4 and F-104 which served long enough to qualify as Modern era. Even in the scales where there are options, you don't see them getting built too much.

Just to be correct, the Tornado was one of two parallel Hurricane replacements that Hawker was developing, specifically the 'R' design for the RR Vulture. The 'N' design that was developed alongside it for the Napier Sabre became the Typhoon. The Typhoon only flew 4 months after the Tornado due to development issues with the Sabre engine, something which would plague the Typhoon program. Note these aircraft were much earlier than most folks realize, with design work starting in 1937 and the Tornado first flying in Oct 1939, followed by the Typhoon in Feb 1940. Both designs were largely settled by the time the challenges with Hawker-style construction became evident. One wonders what would have happened if RR had not killed the Vulture program after the Manchester fiasco, effectively killing the Tornado, as the Vulture had been trouble-free in the Tornado unlike the Sabre in the Typhoon. The Tornado was never a failed design, in fact it was quite trouble-free in development unlike the Typhoon.

And apparently it was... :-)

The only problem with that chart is it doesn't actually reflect which of the 4 wings would be on which types, just the ones they were (mostly) built with. For example, the Sabre Mk4 was built with the first wing on your list, but most aircraft were refitted with the 6-3 hard wing, some production even had the 6-3 wing fitted at the factory, albeit as a modification before delivery, not a direct production fit (so they had the slatted wing, got converted to the 6-3 hard wing, then were turned over to the RAF) Some Norwegian Sabres were actually refitted with the F-40 wing well after service entry. It's the 'what wing on what plane, when' that makes it a minefield, not the 4 variations on the wing used on the vast majority of production.

But an absolute minefield to do well, or you end up with a very specific sub variant that requires major resin to depict anything else. The wings are the sticking point, since there are so many variations even across the E/F and the related Canadair variants. Wouldn't be too shocked though if they did a Canadair Mk4, since the RAF flew that type and many ex-RAF Mk4's got passed around as F-86E(M)'s so there's a bunch of valid schemes. And they've done it in both 1/72 (with issues) and 1/48 (with issues mostly fixed)

They haven't yet done a retool in 1/24, and they released an FRS.1 in 2002 based on their 1974 GR1 tooling.

I'm still shocked they've never done a Spitfire IX in 1/24 It should be a no-brainer.

That's not that bad a breakdown when you consider there's approximately 5x as many people in the US as the UK.

It just needs to locate, you have a pretty massive gluing surface on the propellor backplate

Note the Special Hobby instructions are somewhat better. This is a rebox of the Special Hobby kit You can get the instructions from Scalemates. Look for the regular boxing, not the Hi-Tech boxing (which has resin/photoetch)

I think there's clearly a decent market for pretty much every aircraft which saw carrier service in the US Navy. The really esoteric stuff would be the pre-WW2 carrier aircraft, not the post-war early jet era stuff. Remember, this is a short-run resin producer. Esoteric is their wheelhouse, anything that isn't would be more likely to see a release from a larger producer.

It is however significant historically, and the most numerous of the earliest US Navy Jet Fighters (both the FJ-1 and F6U had only 33 examples built). It wasn't until the second batch of early designs started entering service (F9F, FJ-2, FH-2, F3D) started entering service that production started to be in real numbers. The FH-1 was the first US Carrier fighter to see operational squadron use and was flown by two demo teams during its brief period of frontline service (the Grey Angels and Flying leathernecks both flew the FH-1)

40's jets to be honest, the Phantom was retired from fleet service in '49, but would be used by the Reserve Squadrons until 54. Love to see markings for VF-17A (the first fully operational jet squadron in the fleet), the Grey Angels and the Flying Leathernecks.

A real Phantom! I dig the Stiletto for sure, an interesting aircraft and a real looker, but the Granddaddy of all the McDonnell fighters is even more interesting. Might actually get me to buy a 1/32 resin kit.