Starfighter

Thank you guys for your effort and especially to Lester for his incredible research which will enable me to apply the correct name to my model - that's why I love LSP! Thierry, thanks for the hint. The different IP layout is the reason why I printed a new front IP according to a drawing from the NATOPS and I did not forget the boxes on top of the coaming either. I modified the rear IP as well but I think I'll print a new one. The basic Black Box part was not nicely cast which did not help my (rather bad) painting effort. I managed to get a bit of bench time last weekend. I was not quite happy with the look of the FS36320 on the top surfaces; I sprayed several coats of FS36320 from MRP and Gunze and applied a bit or MRP FS35237 on top in order to obtain the shade I was looking for. The model was then sealed with flat varnish from VLS (great stuff!). I then applied a firs warm grey wash and added several shadings with highly diluted Tamiya Smoke. The photos of the real a/c show wome nice stains around the guns. I have tried to replicate the stains with a combination of oil paint and Tamiya Smoke. The typical scuff marks above the elevators were applied by airbrush. Next step: Masking! The masks were cut on my venerable Silhouette Portrait. One of the best moments in scale modelling IMO... Not too bad IMO! Thanks to Lester, I can now draw the artwork for the pilot name. I'd love to paint it on as well - sadly, it's too small for my Portrait to cut. I have contacted Oneman Army to ask if he'd be willing to do custom laser cut masks for me, but I am still waiting for his reply. Stay tuned!

Thanks a lot Erin and Olivier for your effort helping me to find out the missing details; I will try to do some further research by looking for H&MS-32 instead of MAG-32. I really appreciate your help, that's one of the many reasons I love LSP!

There are (much) harder versions of this foam available. They are usuall brown or green.

Tamiya all the way.

Could be "Fries" (no idea why you guys keep on calling them "French" fries, those guys have no idea how to make proper fries), "Best Beer" and "Mussels" as well then... No, that's not going to happen. My aim is to stay as close to reality as possible; I think I'll go with the evidence I have and "BANDIT" seems to be a realistic possibility for the Callsign.

Perfect, please keep us posted, Alistair. I am currently working on the ICM kit for a German magazine and your skids would come in very handy.

I'm late to the party... Tamiya in standard and launch configuration for me.

Thank you all for your kind comments and encouragement. Peter, thanks for the links - I do know both of them and the photo at the bottom of th eskyhawkassociation page is indeed one of three photos I have of the aircraft. The third one was kindly shared by Anton Kochetov on Facebook and is probably the best photo I have. Sadly, I can't read what exactly is written below the cockpit... According to skyhawkassociation, MAG-32's CO in 1990 was Major Bellman. To me, it looks like: MAJ. J.J. ????MAN JR. (does not look like "BELLMAN" to me) BANDIT (not sure but would make sense) C.O. Plane captain was obviously SGT. SMITH. What do you guys reckon?

The OA-4M has a different front IP which was 3D printed - on my old Photon back in the day. The part would look better on a 4K or 8K for sure, but those were not yet available back in the day. The photo nicely shows the difference between a part printed flat (on the left) and a part printed at an angle. Eduard offers very nice and useful PE parts for the Trumpeter kits. Whilst I was too stupid to use the ones for the slat recesses, I managed to fit the vortex generators on the wings and slats. They are a huge improvement over the rather rough kit details. After a bit of tidying up, the model was primed and painting could start. As usual, I have used FS36375 and FS36325 from MRP; unlike most TPS Scooters, the aircraft I am building does not seem to have FS36495 undersides. This is the aircraft I'd likle to build - BuNo 154306, one of two TPS Scooters with black markings, flown by MAG-32 in 1990. Sadly, there are very few photos of these aircraft - there are only three I know of, including this one (Official Navy photo - source: Wikimedia Commons). All markings will be painted using custom masks. I'll need decals for some small details.

I'm in the mood to finish some of the projects I have started over the last few years. After finishing Scooby, the OA-4M is the next one on my to-do list. It's basically a combination of the old Hasegawa OA-4M and a Trumpeter A-4M following Brenhen's receipe - his brilliant OA-4AR conversion convinced me to try the same. Have a look at his gorgeous build: He was kind enough to post WIP photos of his conversion, which made my life much easier - I just did it the same way he did. In order to spice things up a bit, I decided to add a Black Box cockpit... ... Aires nose avionics bays... ... Aires wheel wells and AMS Resin intakes. The front gear bay required a lot of cutting, puttying and swaring but I was able to make it fit. Not my best cockpit, but it looks quite OK. I'll try to touch it up a little to improve the over all look. The engine was detailed with lead wire and Anyz braided lines as the hell holes on both fuselage side will be open. The Hasegawa electronics hump had to be widened to fit the Trumpeter fuselage. The rear part is from Trumpeter.

Ali, I am definitely interested in such a set but I am not quite sure 3D printing is the right solution for the skids. To my experience, long, thin printed parts tend to deform over time.

A few drone related antennas on top of the fuselage... ... and we can call her done! A proper RFI thread will follow as soon as I have taken proper pics of the model. Thank you all for following the thread and special thanks to my buddies Fred aka Stusbke for the center canopy and the PE parts and to Thomas for milling the stiffening plates on the fin for me. See you soon!

Happy New Year everyone! After another year without completing a model, I managed to finish Scooby on January 2nd... Time for a big update! More details had to be added to the rear seat. The lower cushion was removed from the second Black Box seat I had on hand. The lap belts being identical to the first seat was of course not acceptable, so I cut one of them with a razor saw and re-arranged it to make it look different from the front seat. Raised rivets (from Micromark), PE belts and some wiring was added before the seat could be painted. Some careful painting, stencils from Jira-Gio and braided lines for the ejection handles (from Anyz) later, the seat was ready to be installed. It looks quite nice in situ IMO. The rear canopy from Aerocraft was detailed with Aires and Eduard PE parts before it was painted and decalled. Four different colours for a grey canopy frame... masking that was fun. The canopy frames were weathered and then installed. Adding that curly wire between the seat and the anopies was "fun"... not. The RBF tags are from HGW. I need to print some new canopy locking hooks as I keep on losing the PE ones...

Looks easy, as usual! That's a great way to start a new year - I'll follow with huge interest and will throw in some fanboy comments from time to time!

Absolutely stunning, great to see you are back working on this one!

Anthony, now you've got my attention - even more than usual!

VERY cool, Karl!

Brilliant, thank you so much Mathieu! I do indeed have one in my stash which is due to be converted into an F-4B... which will be much easier thanks to your generous help!

What a huge amount of dedication - absolutely brillian!

Absolutely stunning work, Mathieu! A great platform to share 3D files is cults (www.cults3d.com). Fanch usees it to hsre his brilliant 3D files as well. I would love to give it a try on my Mono X for sure.

Great work so far! I have had problems with warping on my 32nd scale F11F wings as well; mine have separated flaps and slats, to the trainling edge thickness was not the main problem. 0,3mm is the absolute minimum I use for trainling edges, 0,5mm is better. You can always sand them thinner once you have assembled them. You could consider adding holes to insert metal profiles, but the problem remains - those wings are just super thin...

Thanks for the info! As already mentioned, I am not into Airforce stuff... keep those updates coming!

Brilliant work, Marcel! Can't wait to see that beauty in the flesh!

I'm not into USAF stuff and I may have missed it, but may I ask why you are using an ESCAPAC seat? Was / isn't the A-10 fitted with an ACES II seat? Brilliant work so far, I sure will follow your build with big interest!

What Laurent said. And you don't "simply mold" additional parts, you'd be impressed by the cost and time impact such relatively small changes or additions. Whilst the solution is not ideal, other manufacturers would simply ignore this kind of error. Then, I guess most people will use an aftermarket cockpit on such a large and expensive kit anyway...