Juggernut

B-17 is Queen of the Skies.... The B-24 is her ugly, fat, half-sister. I'll still buy one of each though.

To quote a famous singer.... "Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see; que sera sera."

Hey, what do we know about those ASW Liberators like the one on the ancient Resell kit box art? The bottom and sides are white but is the upper olive drab, dark grey or dark blue?

You need to use scaleable, layer based, vector based graphics for accurate resizing. Raster graphics will just turn to crap when you rescale them... Microsoft Paint will not work for anything that needs scaling. For doing decals, I use Adobe Illustrator. There are other programs out there but I've found illustrator to be the best for vector based graphics. Unfortunately, you can't buy a standalone copy of the latest version of Illustrator any more (to the best of my knowledge). Everything Adobe is doing now is cloud based and you pay a monthly (or annual) subscription fee. I use Illustrator 10 which is about 100 years removed from the latest version and it works fine for my needs. You may be able to find CS2 or 3 standalone on Ebay or someplace. I too have an Alps MD-1300 printer I bought off Ebay several years ago (for around $150 or so). I bought a shipload of cartridges (Alps is the only REASONABLY priced printer that will print white) including Silver, Gold and a lifetime supply of white. Many of the Alps colors require a white spot print (undercoat if you will) so the overprinted colors will show correctly (aka reds, yellows, etc). If you don't use the spot print of white, you'll end up with translucent decals. Alps does have its limitations though. In some cases, if you're printing shades of yellow (happens with other colors too) for example, if the color is not near to what the cartridge color is, you'll end up with little, teeney-weenie spots of red or whatever color necessary to trick your eye to seeing the color you've chosen. If you look closely though, you can see those little dots on the printed output, effectively ruining any chance of using it for a decal. Sometimes it's very obvious, other times you can't even tell. Greys are another color that it happens with, especially the modern shades of grey on today's jets. It does do Pantone colors reasonably well so keep that in mind. The "ink" used in Alps printers is actually a sort of wax and it is heated, melted and sprayed onto the surface of the paper. Consequently, if you scratch the image with your fingernail, you'll ruin the image. Overcoating the decal image with clear gloss will help protect the image but otherwise use a lot of care when handling Alps printed decals. The do not require an overcoat prior to being placed in water for use. a definite plus vs. inkjet printed decals. For one-off applications, the Alps is fine and you can create some awesome decals with it. However, if you're looking for commercial use, you'll need to create the art (subject to the printers conditions) and submit it to them for printing. I don't know if ink silkscreen printing is still being used as the common method but nevertheless, you'll need to provide your artwork to conform to their needs for the process to work. Jennings knows way more about this process so if that's what you're after, he is your go-to source for information.

Notable things I'm seeing in the illustrations of the box art. The B-24J has the Emerson nose turret and the side vision windows long left over from the tunnel gun that went the way of the do-do. Can't tell if the B-24D has a ball turret or not. I hope they've engineered it so you can deploy and retract the ball turret to suit different tastes (in flight or on the ground). If the kits mimic the box art (which we all know they do, exactly.... ) it'll make it easier on me to turn the J into an H. I sure hope that B-24D comes with the Sperry ball turret, I hate not having one.

There are more changes than just the engine. For one, the entire cockpit is different than the one in the -1D. I wouldn't call that minor but I don't scratch build that often so your vision may be minor compared to mine.

Good question....

Well damn! the UH facility is about 90 minutes from me by car and April 15 is my birthday... I may just go for a visit. Thanks for the info!

Was that B-25 operational today or a relic? If it's a flying B-25 then the blue fuel is indicative of 100LL (100 octane Low Lead). The fuel is dyed blue to differentiate it from other grades of avgas. I do know that the lower grade of avgas (87 if memory serves) was dyed red and is no longer made. I don't know if 130 (dyed green) is still available or not nor do I know if 115/145 (purple) is available any longer either. I have two of these B-25 kits so I'm watching closely. Nice work by the way....

You're most likely correct as the various IFF, instrumentation and Radio equipment changes varied with later block Mustangs.

As do I.... I operate under the doctrine of "whatever works".

They were absorbed by the Hs129 and the Ki-45.

Wow, your bench looks almost like my old one....excepting the painted airplane. Mine never seem to get to that stage in any sort of timely fashion.

Great! I hope you'll show photos when she's done.

Ah, step 17 in the Revell instructions. I struggled to find anything about eliminating the access panel in the Tamiya instructions in step 17.... There were no instructions to eliminate the access panel, in the entire Tamiya manual. Another Tamiya "whoopsie". Damned if it doesn't make the Tamiya P-51D kit unbuildable now! Damn the rotten luck; and I've built two (only finished one though)!

Indeed... I deleted my previous post as it was way too long-winded.

Awesome. I don't even think Tamiya got that one right but I don't have the kit instructions any longer so I really can't say for sure.

Not a huge deal at all but the hydraulic access panel present on the cowl panel immediately forward of the windscreen needs to be removed. It was not present on P-51D-5NA, -5NT or P-51K-1NT's. The reason for the door was for an improved hydraulic reservoir that had a filler port in it similar to the oil filler cap. Previous reservoirs had to have the entire panel removed and the reservoir cover removed (6 or 8 screws on the cover) to be serviced. Of course, if the hydraulic reservoir was changed (if possible and for whatever reason) to the later type, you may find this door present on the subject aircraft. Sorry quang, I "stole" one of your images to illustrate which panel needs to be filled/removed.

Absolutely understand Robert...No worries whatsoever. If/when that project comes back up, I'll be glad to assist in any way I can.

Just ordered on myself as I stated in the thread in the General Discussion. Robert, Any progress on the ball turret that you were planning? I know that one's going to be a tough nut to crack so if you've decided not to do it, I completely understand. I was just hoping to avoid having to scratchbuild one (since I have no 3D printer and no knowledge on how to use one or the software that is needed to generate the print files).

Just placed an order for one. This is going to look very nice in the front of a B-17, even through the clear nose.

Check this out: http://www.themodellingnews.com/2015/07/we-compare-and-review-zoukei-mura-ta.html

You can get the Ta152H-0 from Sprue Brothers here: http://store.spruebrothers.com/product_p/zkmsws011.htm I'd recommend the H-0 over the H-1 as ZM improved the H-0 vs. the H-1.

Aluminum isn't magnetic so the wings magnetism theory is a bunch of bullocks.

I believe it's an artists rendition of actual events.