Ben Brown

Me too. It is surprisingly good! Ben

For my 1/48 Misty build, I robbed some 7-shot pods from the Tamiya A-1J Skyraider kit. One of the Hasegawa weapons sets also includes a set. Ben

I saw a comment on another forum that this would be like having B-17s still in service now. Pretty amazing! Ben

"Ben, you do not need another F-4B. Ben, you do not need another F-4B. Ben, you do not need another F-4B." Gotta keep repeating that to myself.... Ben

When you succeed and fail at the same time. Ben

As far as I can tell, the only issue with the wings is they are too thin. This, combined with the too-tall main gear tires, causes the model to sit almost level, instead of with the F-100's characteristic nose-up attitude. It's easily fixed by replacing the kit wheels with resin replacements (I found Renaissance's to just be copies of the kit wheels) and cutting ~3 mm from the tops of the struts for the 1/32 kits. Ben

I think the recently-released Airfix kit is supposed to be the best early P-40 in any scale. I have one and it is very good. Ben

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a USAF F-4 with the red gear door edges. Of course, Jennings or Finn will be by shortly with a dozen pics to prove me wrong! Ben

Another Phantom nerd question: Over on the Britmodeller forum, there is a discussion about Phantom FG.1 "Black Mike" (LINK). This jet had the exposed part of the wing dog tooth/outboard leading edge flap painted red (photo from the thread I've linked to; I'll remove it if anyone objects to my hotlinking it): The discussion seems to imply this isn't just a museum thing but was a common practice on British F-4s and that later this area on gray-painted jets was painted low-vis pink. I asked if this was only an RAF practice or if it was done on Royal Navy jets, too, but I never got an answer. This is the first I've ever heard of painting the exposed part of the flaps red. It's usually just the hidden pinch points, as delivered from the factory. I can't find a single photo of an operational jet that shows this area. Anyone know? Ben

As was the gunsight; the Tamiya kit includes both. Ben

Yes, the A-10A would have that cover, too. All A-10s use the same GE TF-34 engine. Ben

They've missed yet another HUGE opportunity to meet astronauts like this when they land... Other than this whole thing being one big ego contest between billionaires, are Branson or Bezos planning to do anything with their toys besides give rich idiots suborbital amusement park rides? As much as I dislike Musk, at least he's doing something useful with SpaceX and Tesla. Ben

Yes, there is a cover that normally goes over that area. I couldn't find any photos of the engine with it installed because it's probably one of the first things they remove when they open the cowling, but it's mostly visible at 4:03 in this video: LINK Ben

I’m more interested in seeing if that petition to not let Bezos come back works. Ben

Wow! I always learn a lot when I visit his blog, but wow! Ben