jrh

Have to agree. As much as I love 1/32, the size of some of the stuff that's coming along is just getting ridiculous. I don't know how big your houses are, but mine's nowhere *near* big enough to house something like a 1/32 B-17. I'd have to sell off some furniture to have the floor space to put it. And that's but one example.

Black for a MiG-21F, or grey? MiG-15s, 17s, and 19s had grey cockpits.

What day this week works best for you???

I'd be game for that, since the Kinetic kit obviously suffered from a severe case of acne as a teenager. Despite its age-related shortcomings, the Hasegawa kit is still superior in my book. A cockpit, some wheel wells, and some speed brake wells and boards (with the proper configuration of the lower hinge arm and door) would be most appreciated, as would the variety of nose wheels seen on Sabres (at least five or six by my count). J

That's pretty much what I was saying earlier. I've spoken with three current P-51 owner/pilot/mechanics (one does all his own maintenance), and that's virtually verbatim what they all three told me. The operation of the flaps does *not* cause the clam shell doors to fall open. The mechanical uplock that holds the doors closed is actuated by the gear itself, so when the gear isn't in the well (ie: when it's extended), there's nothing to actuate the uplock, so the hydraulic pressure holds the doors closed. When the emergency gear release handle is pulled, pressure is relieved on the door actuator pistons, allowing fluid to flow back to the reservoir and the doors to fall open. If the gear were in the well (ie: the airplane was airborne) and the handle was pulled, the mechanical uplocks would be released by the gear leg falling out of the well. See how it all comes together?? As for photos, as I mentioned, in >70% of the wartime photos in all the books I have, the clam shell doors are shut or virtually so. You can argue that any way you want to, but the numbers don't lie. Ultimately you can build your model any way you choose to and nobody can argue (very much) with you. It depends whether you're trying to replicate a specific moment in history by building a photo I guess.

The geographic location had absolutely nothing whatever to do with what kind of tire tread was on what airplane, when. It depended what manufacturer's tires were delivered at the day and time that a particular airplane needed tires, period. End of conversation. Tires were (are) a consumable. Tires wear out, they burst, or are otherwise rendered unusable. You need a new tire? Go to supply and get one. Does the supply Sgt care what kind of tread it has? Not one tiny little bit. If the size will fit on the rim on your airplane, that's what you got. There are lots of photos of all kinds of WWII aircraft with one style tread on one side and another on the other side. Look at photos of the a/c you're building and see what it had on the day (and at the hour) the photo was taken. You can go by that, or you can pick the style you like. Either one will be equally correct.

That's amazing... only Red Pegasus with an Alps has done that airplane!?!?! Tks for the link! J

Oy... I hate to even enter this arena again. As @famvburg noted, on a new-ish airplane, the doors would stay closed for a long time, or exhibit very minimal "drooping" (and then almost always asymmetrical). There is a lot of misinformation bandied about in modeling circles about the P-51. The hydraulic system and its operation is one of the big ones, especially the chestnut about the flaps "drooping" down with bleeding As noted, the main "clamshell" doors (that's what they were called by the crews during the war) cycled open for gear transit, then closed tight. When the airplane was sitting on the line, unless the crew chief got into the cockpit and pulled the emergency gear extension handle to relieve pressure and drop those doors (for access to the gear well), they stayed more or less closed. It is possible that a *small* amount of 'bleed' could occur and the doors could begin to open a bit. But keep in mind the pace of operations during the war, the fact that the airplanes were not very old even by the end of the war (ie: practically new components not prone to heavy leakage), and the fact that if a hydraulic system was that leaky, the airplane would be pulled off the line to find out why. I've been flying for 35 years, and if I found hydraulics that were that leaky, I wouldn't fly the airplane. I did an informal survey of photos of P-51Ds (the B/C worked the same way..). In all the Mustang books in my collection, in photos taken during the war in which one could clearly see the position of the main clamshell doors, somewhere around 75% of the time you see the doors shut tight. In a small percent they were partly open, and in about (IIRC) 10-15% of them the doors are hanging fully open. I don't have the numbers handy, but that's pretty close to what I found. As for the flaps, I've spoken with several P-51 owner/operator/mechanics, as well as a couple of WWII era crew chiefs. The flaps on a P-51 do not bleed down as a matter of routine. They are put in the 'down' position to provide access to the upper wing surface for armorers and fuelers, and to prevent damage to their delicate trailing edge by people running into them or stepping on them. When a pilot landed, he raised the flaps according to the checklist. After taxi-in (this came from a WWII crew chief) and shut down, the pilot exited the aircraft and reported any squawks to the crew chief. The first thing the crew chief then did was to hop up on the wing, select "flaps down" and use the residual hydraulic pressure in the system to drop the flaps. Everyone I've spoken to said that if you left the flaps on a P-51 up, even with zero hydraulic pressure in the system, they wouldn't bleed to the full down position for two reasons: first, the way the flaps are balanced on their hinges. You might be able to pull them by hand to the down position, but they will not fall out by themselves. Second, the viscosity of the hydraulic fluid, even without pressure on the system, is such that it prevents their movement (same with the clamshell doors). This explains why you don't see photos of Mustang flaps anywhere except fully up or fully down. If they truly did 'bleed' down, it would seem likely that at least some percentage of the millions of photos of Mustangs taken during WWII would show the flaps somewhere in between. I know someone, even as I write this, is finding and posting a photo showing a Mustang with flaps half way down, but it wasn't something you see commonly, as you would if the 'bleeding' hypothesis were true.

Surely *somebody* has? I can't find any reference to them anywhere. Anyone know?? The a/c was captured by the 78th FG in North Africa and shipped to Wright Field, where it was subjected to destructive testing (sigh...).

The muzzle fairings were painted, at least on all the production line shots I've seen. The panel just inboard, where there was access to the main gear pivot mounts, remained removable, as shown on the drawing. Jennings

The darker areas are natural metal, the lighter areas are silver paint. The faint panel lines are shown to illustrate which ones are puttied and painted. The dark black panel lines remain visible. There is some question about the panel line where the wing tip bolts onto the wing (the one just outboard of the stiffener strakes). There is some evidence that since the wing tip was removed at that point for crating and shipping that it may not have been filled & painted after the a/c arrived overseas and was reassembled. J

Thanks If I wasn't an airplane geek before I started working on them, I certainly qualify now!

The actual vertical fin (not the lower base portion) is identical in size on all F-16s, so if the drawings are of an A, the fin is the same as a C or an F.

Don't try to second guess what Tamiya may be up to by using the "Japanese, British, American" logic.

I considered bumping up my Airway Graphics Thunderbird F-84G sheet, but honestly, the 1/72 and 1/48 ones didn't sell all that well in the first place, so I doubt 1/32 would even do that well. My experience has been that people who *love* aerobatic team stuff are generally pretty ga-ga about it, but the other 99.3% of modelers couldn't care less about it.

A given kit is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it at a given time in a given place. It's like any other commodity. The two factors that determine relative value are scarcity and demand. Something can be as scarce as hens' teeth, but if there's no demand for hens' teeth, the value reflects that.

Give it a coat of Future, then slop (with no pretense of neatness) some Payne's Grey oil paint along panel lines. Using a stubby cut off brush, scrub, twist, and gunk the oil paint down into the panel lines. Remove any excess with a t-shirt dampened with turpentine. Looks far more realistic than sprayed panel lines (which effect I've yet to see on any real airplane).

I have to put a plug in for the Talon acrylic NMF paints. I seem to be the only person on the planet who has used them, and they're **great**. No muss, no fuss with priming (they actually recommend against it), the stuff is tough as nails, is very realistic looking natural metal, can be tinted with acrylic colors, can be buffed out to a high shine, etc. And no fumes.

Now, whether this well packaged set will actually *fit* the kit for which it is allegedly intended is another story entirely. Aires stuff is absolutely beautiful to look at. But my experience has been three strikes and they're outta there. I've ruined two kits trying to their their beautiful stuff to fit into it. Fool me once, shame on me... Or maybe I'm just not as good a modeler as they are??

So the general consensus is "yes". Only one problem with SEAC, etc - there weren't any Vb's in those places. Vc's yes, but not Vb's (I'm sure someone is uploading a photo to prove me wrong even as I type these words). We've got a few that haven't been done before, so we'll probably start working them into the program. Stay tuned! J

The board of directors of fündekals is evenly split over the idea of 1/32 Spitfire Vb decals. One faction thinks that because the existing kits (Hasegawa, circa 1977 and Trumpeter, the less said the better) are both less than what one might consider stellar, that new decals might be overkill. The other faction thinks that people will still be interested in really cool, well researched decals for them anyway. Whatchas think? Jennings

I prefer to stick to kits of airplanes made in the Central Asian republics of the USSR between 1929 and 1938. And Kiribati.

From Wikipedia: He 111 P-1: Production aircraft, fitted with three MG 15s as defensive armament. He 111 P-2: Had FuG 10 radio in place of FuG IIIaU. Defensive armament increased to five MG 15s.

The Trumpeter Fishbeds are some of their better efforts in 1/32.

I can just about give you a 100% guarantee that it's only a matter of time until Hasegawa does a razorback. Not to dissuade anyone from doing an aftermarket set, but given Hasegawa's long standing practices, it's inevitable that one will eventually appear. Now, note that it took them the best part of 10 years to do a Bf109F even though they had released sprues in the G-2 kit that said "Bf109F" on them. But it will happen someday...