Oldbaldguy

Squadron markings went through sooooo many iterations that you’d almost have to pick a unit then pick a time in the unit’s history. Although this being a later block airplane will limit choices somewhat ‘cause early markings wouldn’t work. Still, choices include several options for RVAH-1,3,5,6,7,9,11,12,13, and 14. Some obviously are more modelable than others.

Ref the flasher pods: I literally grew up with these airplanes at NAS Sanford from 1962 until 1968. Saw them every day in the air and on the ground, then later during their final days at Key West. Flasher pods were part of the training syllabus in the RAG and during work-ups for a cruise and you’d see them flying around at night taking pix of the swamp land in Central Florida, so it was not uncommon to see Vigis carrying flashers. I don’t remember seeing them on airplanes that often at Key West. Could be the mission changed a bit by then or I just missed them. From this end of the pipe, it looks like flasher pods would be pretty easy to print, so what’s not to love? I think the airplane is prettier without ‘em, but that’s just me. I have no idea how many pods each squadron had or how they got them because the airplanes came from the factory with pylons and drops on all four wing stations so there was no place to hang them. Maybe they were vendor supplied? Parcel post? Who knows? This was during the height of Vietnam and HATWING 1 was losing airplanes and crews at a horrific rate. Those pods really, really put out a lot of light in hard-edged almost tangible white cones that screamed, “Hey! Over here. Shoot me!” I’m guessing there was some sort of airspeed/frame rate/altitude algorithm they had to use with the pods ‘cause they always flew fairly low, fairly slow and straight and level. Sometimes they were so far away that I couldn’t hear the engines, but you could still see exactly where they were. I think the flashers had to recharge after each discharge, so the pods would alternate from side to side when they were carrying two, I guess to provide constant coverage without gaps along the track. At least, that’s how I remember it. More than you needed to know, but there you go. Include flashers in your build? Sure. Why not?

To be read in your best Mr Chekhov voice: “I am now wearink blue jacket and brown pants.”

We need a group build. Seriously. I’m pretty sure she likes airplanes.

I always thought that quantity trumps quality within reason except among a well-heeled few. If I were an aspiring builder, am I more likely to buy fifteen basic models that I am sure I can finish at $10 each or one complicated kit that I may not be able to build at all for $150? The choice seems obvious to me but maybe not so much to kit producers considering the direction modeling is going. Pretty much everything that hits the market these days is more advanced and more expensive than whatever came before it because that’s what the loudest voices seem to want. But how many opportunities to grow new modelers are we missing when kits routinely break the $100 barrier regardless of scale and paint costs almost $10 a bottle? How does this business model work?

With few exceptions, I did all my work under the watchful eye of some very qualified IAs and experienced mechs. Most of this stuff is not rocket science and there’s an awful lot a pilot/owner can legally do if he wants to but most can’t be bothered. I would tell my guys what I wanted to do and they would tell me how if I didn’t already know and then they’d stop by the hangar from time to time to look over my shoulder and check my work when I was done. If they didn’t approve, I’d have to do it over. Worked out very well and I learned crap loads of good stuff that way as well as learning more about my airplanes than most of the other owners on the field knew about theirs altogether. Like everything else in life, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things in aviation and it takes twice as long and a lot more money to do it wrong then have to fix it later to make it legal. Things are a little more lax (and less expensive) in the experimental/home built world than when dealing with a certificated airframe. Having said all that, I’ve run across licensed A&Ps I shouldn’t have let anywhere near my airplanes. And I sure as heck don’t need an FAR to tell me it’s okay to remove several feet of coax lying loose in the belly of my airplane. That’s just common sense. But this is a modeling site and I was hoping to get people like you who are knowledgeable to chime in with useful tidbits and you did. Even I learned a thing or two. So, mission accomplished.

Having spent an inordinate amount of time upside down and backward under the panels of my machines, I have discovered the hard way a couple of factoids about electrical wires and wiring in airplanes. One: As far as I know, all aircraft grade wiring these days is white. Military or civilian. Unless somebody has experience to the contrary, if you spot wiring in an airplane that is not white, it most likely came from an auto parts or big box store and is not approved for aviation applications. No idea at what point in aviation history all-white wiring first showed up, but it’s been this way for a while. Two: To the uninitiated, aircraft wiring often looks like a big wad of spaghetti behind/under the panel and along the fuselage but it is not. Wires run roughly parallel to each other in tied bundles with a degree of slack built in. If you model them strung tight like a guitar string from one point to another or twisted together in a braid, then you, more often than not, will be wrong. Real airplane parts vibrate and move around. Wiring with no slack or “give” will break, fray or chafe at contact points and then what? Ditto several wires twisted tightly together. They may rub together over time and wear holes in the insulation but the bigger issue is in trying to track a single wire in a twisted mess when troubleshooting, making it much easier and arguably more efficient to simply run new wire. This is how modified and upgraded airplanes pick up weight during their service life - each improvement or piece of new equipment gets a new wiring harness while the old wiring often is simply cut and left where it is to ride along for free. Thuds - especially the Weasels - were notorious for this. And simple little civil airplanes are prone as well. I went through my last Cessna 182 from spinner to tail light just after I bought it and pulled out no less than 126 feet of coax and other wires that weren’t connected to anything. That’s four times the wingspan of the airplane and several pounds of useful load that were doing nothing at all. And after stepping off the scales this morning, I realized I need all the spare useful load I can find. Still and all, would love to learn if other countries’ aviation industries also use white wires and when the standard started.

Stupendous. Hate to repeat myself, but this is going to be the most - maybe only - accurate Vigilante in any scale ever.

That’s some pretty spiffy modeling in so short a time! Tip of the OBG hat to ya.

Hmmm. Bird strikes and now spider strikes? Insurance will likely go up.

There was a conspicuous lack of large orb web spiders here at the home drome last year. Don’t know which is worse: having big creepy spiders hanging all over the place or expecting to have them but they don’t show up. Either way, I’m not looking forward to sharing my property with these new Jurassic Park looking things.

Just read that Poland is now in the queue for some version of the F-35, so that adds one more option to the decal list.

Bigger models lead to more details which lead to more stuff we have to model accurately. With that in mind, can anyone tell me/us what color(s) modern jet engines usually are overall and/or the paint colors that best replicate a naked jet engine?

Pete can probably tell us more. Hard to tell, but it doesn’t look like the airframe touched the runway at all. Tanks and strakes only.

What a Chicken Little world we live in. Today will find me working on the seat for yet another Scooter and I think I will break out the Humbrol to finish the job (after stirring for a couple of hours) in honor of a fine and long-lived product. Nanny states and Karen’s world-wide be damned.

All you need is a data plate and an awful lot of money.

Hard to tell, but it looks like it’s N-numbered. Might have been modified for air to air photography out the back. Have seen that before somewhere.

Okay. We don’t mind.

And therein lies the rub. Since the Air Force is adding military mods to an already certificated airframe, apparently the FAA has to be satisfied before they can add it to the inventory. And, apparently, the feds are slow to approve the mods. Happens all the time with certificated airplanes in the civilian world for the most nit-noy little things. Logic, practicality and timeliness are not in the FAA dictionary.

Didn’t seem to break his concentration much even though it looks like it went off right in his face. Flew right through it and put rounds on target.

Last I read, the FAA got into the middle of the buy and the USAF had to punt on the initial batch in 2021 and they are not in the 2022 budget at all. Probably be hard to persuade anyone to kit the thing at this point.

Ha! I knew somebody would know how it works. Many thanks to Maru for the video and to you for the explanation. I assume Bell, Sikorsky, et al decided it was either too much trouble or too expensive to come up with something similar.

I agree with John the First about Kamov rain but I’m fascinated by the polar opposite approaches to aircrew survivability. The West focuses on seats and cockpits that collapse on impact (noun) in order to increase survivability while the other guys remove their crews from the crash equation entirely.

Well, they do - or at least I think they do, because I can’t swear I didn’t dream this whole thing. I’m pretty confident the Kamov attack helicopters have seats. The firing sequence starts with the coax rotors being blown off the rotor mast at the attach points, then the canopy goes and then the seats. I think. The rest is pretty much regular ejection stuff. Seems like I first read about this at work years ago in Aviation Week and was surprised because, until then, ejection seats in a helicopter were the stuff of flying jokes and here the Russians were making them work.

A couple of very clear photos that recently came from Eastern Europe got me to wondering: Does anyone besides the Russians build helicopters with ejection seats? That Kamov thing has been around for a while and, as far as I know, even the early ones had seats. I understand how the Kamov seats work and all that; was just wondering why we haven’t seen something similar elsewhere. Seems very practical for certain applications.