chuck540z3

Good Gawd Jake, that's beautiful! Cheers, Chuck

Oh boy……

You sure know how to build fantastic looking Viper's Niels. I thought the first pic was the real thing before I saw the stick coming out of the engine nozzle. The tonal variations beneath the red and white paint really make the paint job "pop". Great job! Cheers, Chuck

Haha, I know who you mean and thankfully, we're all having a little fun without anybody getting their shorts in a knot.

Really nice start Antonio and if you haven't got it already, I highly recommend the ResKit engine and nozzle set. It is night and day better than the kit nozzle and it fits the kit parts very well- with the usual kit vs resin adjustments! Cheers, Chuck

Except, the USAF needs a place to land, which isn't available all over the world, so it depends on the location. Further, carriers carry ordnance, fuel, etc., and they are always ready without the need of a ground crew and infrastructure to support the aircraft.

BADASS! I've always liked the view from the front the best. The other obvious thing to consider Pete, is that the Navy didn't have an alternative for many years, so the Tomcat was it. F-14's were a lot better than the F-4's they replaced and as far as I know, F-16's never flew off of carriers because they weren't built for it or strong enough for cat launches. The Tomcat was legendary and loved, because it could be ready almost anywhere in the world on short notice. Cheers, Chuck

So much Tomcat negativity! Getting back to the topic, "Never understood all the Tomcat love", I for one am one of the "lovers". Why? Because it was a very cool jet and to me, simply beautiful in an "evil, wicked, mean and nasty" way. I can't speak to the performance and maintenance limitations of this jet which are no doubt true or the Navy would not have replaced it with future F-18 variants, but to the general public, it was and always will be an iconic fighter favorite. I've been fortunate enough to see it fly at 3 airshows, with the last one at Nellis AFB in November 2004 before it was retired, and from an airshow performance perspective, it was just as cool as the F-15 and F-16 demonstrations and with it's wheels up soon after take off, was a crowd favorite. So there you have it. You can still love this jet, even if it wasn't the "best". There's a fairly poor quality video of the November, 2004 demo at Nellis below, but it's still good enough to show what it could do to please the crowd that loves it. F-14 D Super Tomcat Demo Cheers, Chuck

Really well done! Your painting is excellent and the chipping very realistic, which is hard to do and often missed. Cheers, The other Chuck

Great attention to and modification of pylon details! I moved some stuff around on my build, but nothing like this, which is excellent. Cheers, Chuck

Thanks for thinking of me Tom and yes, as Kevin indicated, my house has been undergoing renovations for 7 months now and I’ve been living at another location, where modeling isn’t really practical. Combined with the summer months, my modeling mojo has been zilch, so participation in these forums has also been lacklustre, but I hope to be back soon with my F-16 Aggressor project, likely in mid to late December. I continue to lurk now and again to see all the cool projects you guys have going on, which gives me lots of incentive to get back into the modeling game! Cheers, Chuck

Very, very well done. I'm not much of a diorama guy, but the figures and sandy base add a lot of realism. Cheers, Chuck

Done, which was easy, because I want to anyway! Cheers, Chuck

Looking really good! I was thinking that you beat up the nose a bit too much, but based upon your pic of 976 above, I now think you nailed the right look. One upcoming tip if you don't know already, is that most of the ordnance pylons have a rope-like gasket around them next to the wing's surface. This is great because the pylon recess on the kit wings is quite deep already, so filling the edges with this gasket gets rid of it and looks accurate at the same time. I used lead wire, but lots of other things like stretched sprue can work just as well. Cheers, Chuck

I can ditto the above comments. Dealing with Troy was a pleasure and the tools are top notch. Cheers, Chuck