Oldbaldguy

There was a time here in the States during the heyday of homebuilt aviation when guys would build some of the outrageous 1:1 airplanes and think nothing about it. I often wondered why no one took on something like the Fury. There was something called the Isaacs Fury, but I don’t think that one was full scale. It is such a pretty biplane - even in pieces - and would have been a huge draw at any fly in, not to mention just great fun to fly.

The best you can muster is well beyond good enough. The bar continues to creep higher and higher and you are the one pushing it.

I’m on the fence. I’ve never much cared for the look of a Mustang with things hanging under the wings. To me, drops, bombs and such hanging off an airframe like the Mustang make about as much sense as hanging external stores on an F-35 or F-22. These add-ons take away from its intended mission and put it in the realm of clunky. On the other hand, if your model was Korean War vintage, I’d say that stores would be 100% appropriate and would really finish it off. It’s a matter of perspective, I guess. Besides, your model looks very after-missiony to me, like it just got back and is catching a quick nap.

Hmmmm. So far I have found zilch for official drop tank on the ground stuff. Looks like they just stacked them up in the mud and grass, being expendable and all, and then picked up a couple by hand and carried them to the airplanes to be loaded and filled before each mission.

The entire model is grand but the wheels, tires and canopy really turned out nice. Since you are such a whiz at saw horses, you ought to build a storage rack for your drops. As many of those as they went thru, you know they had some kind of gizmo to stack them on.

And another one bites the dust. Hate to see this project finally end. Quite the engineering feat but I still favor the Corsair a bit.

I love feel good stories like this. It’s like when somebody adopts a blind three-legged dog and takes it home - makes you smile all over.

Well, I was close. I clearly remember seeing a photo - in a Koku Fan, I think - showing a barge load of Intruder airframes heading out to sea to be dumped. That whole operation seemed to be such a waste of a still very capable airplane just because leadership wanted something newer and pointier on deck, just like the Air Force and the A-10. I suspect if the A-10 did not have that whopping big gun that soldiers love so much, it would have been gone long ago as well. Thanks for the correction. Nothing worse than being guilty of passing bad poop, especially around here.

Anyone besides me remember the Navy rewinging the A-6 with brand new composite wings to make the A-6F and then flying the completed airplanes directly from the factory to the beach where they were immediately dumped into the ocean to make an artificial reef for diving enthusiasts? Yeah, we did that.

A quick thumb thru my dad’s cruise book from Ranger’s WestPac cruise in 64/65 shows the A model tug being used on the flight deck. Cruise book from the Yorktown at the same place and time shows much smaller tugs not like any of the above. I have no idea what the Air Force used for yellow gear in-country because their land-based requirements were different.

Looks to me like all four tugs are the same basic vehicle, the only difference being the jet starter installation tacked onto the back end of three of them. There appears to be some detail differences in those. And, yeah, those things are pretty pricy for a chunk of resin and some bits.

Holy cow! That looks sooooo much better than any decal!

Maker’s Mark works pretty well in situations like this. I’ve also had pretty good success with gin and tonic and the occasional bottle of rye. Moonshine may be too harsh, however.

I do like very well done profile artwork.

Airplanes break all the time - even my simple bugsmashers would do things I’d have rather they hadn’t whenever they felt like it. Happens to everyone sooner or later. I think the issues here are a couple-fold. The airplane diverted initially because of weather? Just how bad was it that the driver could not find the boat? Then it broke before departing in better conditions (I assume.). They couldn’t fix it so they left it wherever it is/was for at least three weeks while they ruminated over a way to relight the pilot light. What? They left a hundred million dollar lawn ornament parked outside in a monsoon while they thought about it? How many F-35Bs does the crown own these days? Not many, I’ll wager. How many are airworthy? Apparently, not many. It’s not that the F-35 is a bad airplane, it’s that it is not a cheap or easy airplane to maintain. If you have to check your bank balance every time yours needs an oil change or if your 18 year old mechanic can’t swap out a battery or a circuit card, then maybe you should have bought something else. If the Royal Navy had hundreds of these things ready to go, I don’t think this incident would have caused such interest, but they don’t. Therein lies the rub.