Hit Or Miss

I build gear up sir so I don't typically need a large part count beyond the obvious (and usually missed) _STAND_. What irritates me is the idea that the last boxing of the F-14B/D by Revell had a boatload of bonus weapons, pods, tanks (at /last/) and TCS/TCS-IRST pods with which to do a 1980s mold up with 2000s variant options and _still_ cost only about 22 dollars. Now, the fit is still cruddy and the details are still raised so if Tamiya wanted to do that kit with recessed lines and typical Tamiya quality engineering on things like the wingspar system (quite clever that) and the slot-lock forward fuselage as well as the windscreen surround, well hey, that's worth forty bucks. But not 75. And not 99 at the LHS. You can buy a 32nd scale F-14A for 140 online.

Forgive me, Martin. I would still be swimming, about mid-Atlantic... Did you have a good turnout? I hope so, as the Tamiya kit, to me, looks like a Monogram clone. Sure, it has good fit and the ghastly problem with the nose 'inserts' is not there but for $75.00, there should be more. I hope AMK does as well with the Tomcat as they did with the MiG-31. Newcomers that start out at the standard you achieved with the Foxhound are a treasure to be encouraged and cultivated. Best.

Nose is too slender in elevation, radome separation line appears orthogonal to the ground rather than to the airframe waterline. LERX are not sufficiently sharp radii'd and appear to join the forward fuselage at too shallow an index line (not enough nose protruding beneath) which means that the entire nose lower line needs to cant down another half millimeter or so ontop of what the real problem is: the NLG strut sit. The nose landing gear is too skinny and joins the extension strut almost 2mm too low on the main strut (meaning it's too tall, relative to landing light placement) and as a result, the extension strut tilts up at about 30` when it should be nearer to 45`. The entire strut needs to be moved forward a millimeter, so that the NLG door protrudes behind it. Adjusting all of these will dramatically lower the nose but will then run you into the last and, IMO, greatest problem: the canopy bulge. The entire sit of the forward fuselage is produced as if taken from an aircraft in flight with the nose too upright/level. To make this seem natural, the cockpit canopy is raised too high in elevation and looks to be too short by at least 1-2mm (this could be optical illusion as the canopy clearance over the pilot is really extreme). The whole 'big transparency, small nose, rocked back on it's haunches' look is very similar to the older Hasegawa Su-27 and was wrong then too, giving this 40-50 dollar kit a bobble headed appearance. Hard to believe that the Zvezda and Trumpeter have aced Hasegawa but that's the way it looks to me.

LAU-138 BOL _FOUR_ LAU-7 on correct glove upper pylon ROVER datalink antenna for Phoenix Pallet Optics detail (even just a decal) inside TCS barrel TCS/IRST in clear or with clear optics barrels. ECA Enhanced Chaff Adaptor ALQ-167 Bullwinkle ECM Augment Optional AAAM Pallet Optional High Power SARH Illuminator Pod Correct fin spacing trough inserts for AIM-7M/MH and E/F TARPS-CD (R) (there is an extra rear cockpit side console panel to run the digital camera with) Optional PTID and Hand Controller for late era D-Bombcats VF-2 low viz markings with grey sash VF-1 reduced visibility (small pinstripe, small star and bar) LGG markings VF-111 full-tail low viz sunset markings VF-84 'White' Markings Optional Sparrowhawk HUD Iraq Mission Markings AIMVAL Markings (Splinter Scheme Masks Or Template) Optional Ladyfinger Emulator quads Optional SS-2D 'AGILE' Emulator Optional VTAS helmet Optional TVSU optics barrel F110 with complete inner/outer sleeves Positive Fit/Jig Keys for Flaps/Slats/Gear Doors AIM-9P, Iran AIM-23, Iran Clear Navlights Navlight and Canopy/Windscreen Masks In-Box AAQ-25 LDS In-Box Correct GPS Antenna Pilot/RIO PE Belts Compatible With Pilot/RIO Separate Slime Lights and Decals (install after main assembly) Positive Fit between nose and fuselage Instrument Panels with drilled bezel holes, clear acetate backing, decal and black rear piece. General thoughts...

Mk.81* 74X9" (1880 X 229mm) or 39X4.7mm in 1/48 　 Mk.82 87 X 11" (2,220mmX237mm) or 46X5mm in 1/48 　 Mk.83 120"X14" (3,000X357mm) or 63X7.4mm in 1/48 　 Mk.84 129"X18" (3,280mmX458mm) or 68mmX9.5mm in 1/48 　 (The Mk.81 is most assuredly NOT a 'Small Diameter Bomb' but a conventional, tapered, ogive shape in the Mk.80 range. Small diameter weapons are specifically intended for compressed carriage, inside a weapons bay and thus have cylindrical bodies like missiles. This allows them to distribute their explosive filler along the entire longitudinal axis so as to narrow the max casing width as carriage box volume at the expense of some aerodynamic efficiency...). 　 A-6C TRIM http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2015/10/grumman-6c-trim.html http://www.afwing.com/intro/a6_intruder/trim.jpg http://www.chinalakealumni.org/1976/TMT-760000-01.jpg http://www.airwar.ru/image/idop/attack/a6c/a6c-1.jpg 　 Aside from being hideously ugly does not look like that hard a mod to me because it's less pod and more large fairing with lot's of right angles. 　 The thing to keep in mind here is that TRIM did _not_ provide for smart weapons use, only for Truck Ignition (Black Crow), LLLTV and a brutally primitive FLIR which all but whited out in high humidity conditions. 　 About three squadrons were set up for the AVQ-10 Pave Knife, starting with the famous VA-145 'Dambusters' and these jets could and did employ PW 2,000lb LGB in the final bridge dropping campaigns of 1972 and later, attacking individual vehicles, with PW 500lb weapons in Laos (a good reason to pick up the Hasegawa Set B). 　 Note: EFT -outboard- of LGB pylons, to minimize masking issues with the zot pod. http://cms.kienthuc.net.vn/zoom/1000/uploaded/ctvquansu/2016_01_21/tuong-tan-may-bay-cuong-kich-a-6-my-dung-trong-ctvn-4-hinh-4.jpg 　 AN/AVQ-10 Pave Knife https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_VRYz52BIs 　 Hobby Boss with AVQ-10 http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/286804-a-6a-with-avq-10-pave-knife-pod/ 　 Myself, I would like to see more intelligent weaponeering selections from later in the Killer Tadpole's career. In both the Sidra campaigns and later in Earnest Will and Desert Storm, it was one of the first jets to used mixed smart/dumb weapons loads as CBU-59+AGM-84A/B+AGM-65F, assymetrically, as well as the unique AGM-123 Skipper to kill enemy SSCs like the Nanuchka and La Combattante 3 class. 　 This trend essentially reversed the Vietnam stance of PGMs being 'too expensive' and 'too subject to corrosion' for wide spread naval deployment (think about the size of a carrier magazine and realize that 3-5 days of hard fighting do completely depletes available munitions, that another 2 days off-station return to the fleet trains is needed to UnRep another bunch of munitions). This made the A-6 a premier hard target killer and kept the icky folks in the Hornet community from playing too because the AAS-38 had lousy resolution, poor stabilization and no designator while the two seater Hornet was too shy of fuel to bring unexpended, heavy weight, PGMs back aboard and the USN preferred a B/N/WSO for most precision work. 　 Unfortunately, what the A-6 community didn't have was high quality AVTRs and so much of what they did, especially in 1991, as both under the weather laydown interdictors and very sophisticated SEAD (principally ADM-141 TALD droppers) and Smart Weapons platforms, is not as well known as the missions undertaken by their USAF competitors in the F-117 and F-111 communities. Bad image was a large part of what saw the A-6 rapidly phased out in the later 90s and left us stuck with the 'F'/A-18E/F later on. 　 A quick and dirty mod for a 'different' A-6 is the Quickstrike mine which essentially means painting your Mk.82 Snakes (they look like Mk.81s to me) with orange and white training markings shown below. Or applying white stripes (two forward, one aft, two parallel to the longitudinal axes, just inside the retarder tail) to standard OD bodies for live weapons with a collar around the fuze spinner to keep it from breaking off and damaging the TDD on water impact. Mineman's Page, Mk.62 Training Mine = Mk.15 Snake Tail On a Mk.82 body http://www.hartshorn.us/Navy/navy-mines-12.htm http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WAMUS_Mines_mk62_pic.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--MUnqAlca--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/1301199458176138669.jpg http://forum.valka.cz/files/mk62.jpg I also agree that the A-6B would be a quick and easy mod for the aircraft (new main instrument panel, new radome/tail dome with TIAS pimples, 2X AGM-78 STARM, 4X Shrike, new rails). Though the SEAD antenna fit meant they could not bomb in radar mode, the A-6B also often carried MERs with Mk.82 or Mk.20 for 'iron on antenna' assurance in addition to the Anti Radiation Weapons. Iron Hand Intruder, A-6B Details http://rickmorganbooks.com/a-6b-standard-arm.html http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/026061.jpg http://www.airforceworld.com/attacker/gfx/f105/f105_agm45.jpg http://ussslcca25.com/img-zach-j/g-zach-pic-03.jpg http://rickmorganbooks.com/uploads/3/4/4/8/34487367/4698962.jpg?634 http://rickmorganbooks.com/uploads/3/4/4/8/34487367/1410753.jpg?634 http://www.mcara.us/images/photos/aircraft/EA-6A/RM30_2.jpg http://www.aviationmegastore.com/grumman-a6b-iron-hand-intruder-conversion-fujimi--obs72002-obscureco-aircraft-obs72002-aircraft-modelling-conversion/product/?action=prodinfo&art=99143 And would serve as a great companion release with an EA-6A using the ALQ-76. I would also give it the four Aero-300 + optional D-704 pod and Omega antenna fit of the KA-6D. The A-6 Community being one of the first to also pioneer the 'heavy squadron' (expeditionary) deployment of 10+5 combined attack/whale jets from a single unit to carriers to maximize airwing fighting strength at minimum organizational overhead. A-6E Tanker http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eLnhLfrjKGs/VjLcjU2j_zI/AAAAAAAB0Kk/DFqZjDFuuVU/s640/d524f7c2-0ef5-4a7e-a363-3c115d7f974f-2060x1236.jpeg AGM-62 Walleye ERDL with AN/AWW-9 D/L Pod https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/A-6E_Intruder_releasing_a_Walleye_II.jpg/440px-A-6E_Intruder_releasing_a_Walleye_II.jpg Mixed Loads-1 http://www.95thallweatherattack.com/lizard-photo-library/lizard-intruders/a6e-wasex.jpg Mixed Load-2 https://farm1.static.flickr.com/44/194159014_c459273893.jpg Skipper II-1 http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/agm-123a.jpg Skipper II-2 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/AGM-123_Skipper_II_with_chasing_A-6_Intruder.jpg AGM-84E SLAM + AN/AWW-11 http://www.portierramaryaire.com/imagenes/a6e_2.jpg X4 Flat Four ADM-141A TALD (Unpowered, ADM-141B came after A-6 retirement) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/ADM-141_TALD_and_ADM-141C_ITALD_decoy_missiles_on_display.jpg/600px-ADM-141_TALD_and_ADM-141C_ITALD_decoy_missiles_on_display.jpg AGM-84A Wall To Wall http://www.seaforces.org/wpnsys/SURFACE/RGM-84-Harpoon_DAT/RGM-84-Harpoon-003.jpg AGM-88 HARM https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/19/a2/65/19a2655607350a3266bc9ed6c58724ac.jpg

Thanks, Fixed.

What you can honestly say about the Revell (neh Monogram) kits is that their cockpits were detailed at a time when everyone else was operating at little more than man-seat-stick levels (Hasegawa) with sometimes a decaled tub (ESCI). Past that, they are completely out of quality competition with the types of kits coming out of Asia now. This includes some of their 'top sellers' like the F-15E which continues to flip-flop between the un-weaponed variant for the home market and the full weaponed ROG blue-box version for the European one with a difference of a single sprue and 30 vs. 55 dollars in price tag. This is _ridiculous_ when you consider that the Revell F-15E has always been plagued by that silly 'half wing' feature which in fact leads to a major mal-adjustment in port vs. starboard twist and levelling due to the conical camber effects while doing nothing to remove the seam visibility from upper surface visibility. Bang, the GWH model comes on the market and the Revell kit is (rightly) displaced from top position because the difference between 55 and 80 dollars for either is pointless as either price excludes the majority of the market. The F-14 is a similar disaster. As released, it falls in the 18-22 dollar price range which is a fair price but you have such massively distorted molds as results in 2mm high lifts in the undernose insert and a gap behind the radome due to fuselage mismatches as well as unavoidably large blowouts in the forward fuselage side and inlet seams and frontal radome curveature that is grossly inaccurate compared to the real airframe. Add to this over-thick wings which literally split the glove seams when glued around them and gets worse through rotation of the variable geometry effect (no modeler in their right minds makes a workable toy out of a kit btw.). Never mind raised panel lines which literally disappear under the heavy duty application of sanding sticks and CA needed to get it all to stay together in a smoothly contoured external shape. What does Revell do to fix this? Nothing. The base kit is unsaveable. But they do listen to my advice (or someone's) and craft a sprue which has all the missing features of the 1980s period tooling: 267 gallon tanks, TCS, TARPS, AAQ-25, ALQ-167, JDAM, GBU-12, 500lb bombs, four AIM-7 Sparrow and a proper set of main instrument panels. Now, modelers who love the Revell for it's pricepoint as a leap off for squadron decaling and have the skills and tools to fix the flaws come back to the nostalgic memories, even if they have the 2-3 of the original kits _because_ the new model doesn't require them to purchase 10+6+6+6+12 dollars of minimum fixups in the Master, Steel Beach and Royale Resin lineup of replacement nose probe, gun doors, TCS, bagged Nozzles and tanks, lipsticking a pig for the equivalent price of a Hasegawa or Hobby Boss. Indeed, you can split out the weapons over 2-3 kits and so save yourself a lot of hassle on weapons sets as well. And then having enjoyed exceptional sales as well as a slight price increase to 25 dollars, what does Revell do? The nix the entire line (F-14A, F-14B, F-14D) line and go back to producing their preceeding non-event kits which are almost exactly the same as their 1980s versions by actively disincluding the sprues which make it competitive. Young modelers with internet exposure to the quality achieved by master builders want what they see on the web in terms of outcomes. They don't always get it for want of a lack of tools but when you give them Revell kits that actively sabotage the build with lousy fit and inaccurate parts, you are SABOTAGING that segment of the market. And older buyers no longer have cause to turn to the Revell kit with a scriber and a sigh for economic reasons because it basically has none of the features which make it a late-series service aircraft. I fear Revell is operating less under an economic model than either a Judeo Christian restriction against accurate portrayal of weaponized aircraft or G8 inhibition against competing with overpriced kits coming out of Asia. Given that the 90 dollar Tamiya is essentially a recessed line Monogram equivalent with better fit and a separate nose, you have to wonder at the massive and blatant economic miss-step inherent to a company that will not even adhere to it's bottom line need for profit. Preferring self-sabotage to niche-within-niche appropriate business strategies. This is what a lack of home market production (price point set by Chinese production lines) and competition between TWO or more major production houses ultimately means. Loss of interest in sustaining a competitive market. IF Revell were really interested: 1. 1/48 F-35 (without Kitty Hawk's silly subassemblies and warped airfoils) 2. 1/48 F-22 (sans steampunk RAM) 3. 1/48 T-6 Texan II (better than the shortrun Ibex/Isracast kits with their total lack of detail and vac canopies) 4. 1/72 scale down of the B-1B from the 1/48th 5. 1/72 scale B-2A. 6. 1/48 modernized A-10 without all the flaws of the Hobbyboss and Italeri as far as shape and weapons loads. 7. 1/48 T-50 'Russian ATF' Completely ignored market segment. 8. 1/48 F-15C Modernized Tooling, cheaper than the GWH. 9. 1/48 F-16C Modernized Tooling, less parts than the Tamiya. Instead, the only people making kits are the Revell Germany branch. And they are doing so with Star Wars licensing and giant 1/32 scale kits that nobody can afford. It's self-destructive, it's stupid.

Dunno if it's been posted yet but the ROG Typhoon Brass Tiger rerelease is a bit disappointing: 　 Flory Models Review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odJm-Pl1d5E 　 Let me add here that Flory's generally positive review has it wrong in a few big ways (he notes some of them): 　 1. The inlet is a bear to get fitted while protecting painted areas under the nose and the intake boundary louvers. I never had problems with the subassembly itself, a little bit of putty will generally blend the fixed inner ramps with the vertical splitter but the horizontal splitter plate has mold grunge on it and sanding that away just kills all the very soft boundary suckoff hole detail and this plus the awkward external seam are all but impossible to fix without major damage to the recessed panels in the area (very hard to reach into to rescribe or clean up putty with a swab and alcohol). 　 http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/c589ec3280444f828697d288bf886212/eurofighter-typhoon-canopy-raf-wing-root-kemble-air-show-2008-b1jt6g.jpg http://s534.photobucket.com/user/gibstuff/media/Models/Eurofighter-Typhoon/EF-Typhoon-35.jpg.html 　 2. The wings also have soft detail with panel lines fading in and out and additionally are rather 'plankish' in sectional profile. Where the real jet has a very swoopy airfoil with washout at the tips and considerable root anhedral/twist as well. This is characteristic of the Typhoon and Revell _never_ should have missed it. 　 https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/16/94/a8/1694a88b8eb202dff4c9d5c62040a71c.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ABBfNXGImPs/U-zQeUfUiKI/AAAAAAAAD9Y/NXU7rLBtRS8/s1600/eurofighter_typhoon_maneuver1.jpg 　 3. The kit does not have the inboard wing pylons. The ones Flory is looking at are the replacement midwing pylons (if you're not mounting wing tanks) which, while they can be docked to about 2/3rds the length as a make-do mod, are not really close to the shape of the actual inboard pylons which have a much longer forward section. 　 http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Rev4/3101-3200/rev3103-TwoMikes32007-Williams/02.jpg http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jetsetmodels/media/pylon7-1.jpg.html 　 　 4. No RAF or other Nation marking. I seem to recall the original release had Spain, Italy and Austria as well a UK markings (though the RAF unit flashes and roundels were all badly out of register on the original release). This is worth noting because Typhoon markings are very hard to source on this side of the Atlantic. 　 5. No ordnance stenciling or color bands. 　 6. Starboard fuselage half, still light on engraving compared to the port. 　 7. Still flashy as all get out. 　 8. The insert for the spine was always wonky with a large gap and rather toylike recess for the over-scale (thickness) speed brake. No amount of 'careful glueing of the fuselage' will fix this. It's basically an all-out sheet and board down solution or nothing. 　 9. Nozzles are 72ndish in their straight-groove recessed detail which isn't really okay on the Hasegawa and here looks decidedly toylike. The actual EJ-200 has a very fine inner/outer petal system in which the outer feathers splay open when powered down to show inner petal 3D relief. 　 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Eurojet_EJ200_for_Eurofighter_Typhoon_PAS_2013_01_free.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--nOXMWvYAPI/U2uC6YrTiBI/AAAAAAAAIXI/mI4fh6fw5Vo/s1600/1h.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Eurojet_EJ200_for_Eurofighter_Typhoon_PAS_2013_02.jpg 　 10. Still poorly packaged in an end-opening box with uni-bag sprues that end up badly scratched (clear parts too). 　 11. Lots of ejector pin marks in awkward spots (gear struts, structural walls of gear bays etc.). 　 12. No LITENING pod or centerline pylon. http://s534.photobucket.com/user/gibstuff/media/Models/Eurofighter-Typhoon/EF-Typhoon-42.jpg.html http://i.imgur.com/hRGqKZW.jpg 　 13. No GBU-16 (German) or Paveway IV/Brimstone (UK) modern weapons. https://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Typhoon-dual-bomb-drop.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WH395-2YvRY/T73yt1GwsNI/AAAAAAAABEQ/p391LeLlOwQ/s1600/6056946703_5ea3613f55_b.jpg https://www.eurofighter.com/files/thumbs/full/RS19426_Typhoon%20in%20mutil-role%20fit%20with%20Brimstone%20missile%20and%20Paveway%20IV.jpg http://www.ainonline.com/sites/default/files/uploads/2016/01/1-2016-4_ef_future_weapons.jpg 　 Overall, this reminds you of why the original kits went for 20-30 bucks on the bargain shelf for so long without buyers and only became EBay gold when they went out of production. A single sprue of fix-this parts together with A DECENT BOX and operational markings (RSAF anyone?) could have sorted about half the above and given existing kit owners reason to buy again beyond the gaudy demo markings. 　 http://u0v052dm9wl3gxo0y3lx0u44wz.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/RAF-6-Squadron-Eurofighter-Typhoons-on-Exercise-Bersama-Lima-11-in-Malaysia.jpg http://cdn.airplane-pictures.net/images/uploaded-images/2013/3/19/276689.jpg http://freighter.flyteam.jp/newsphoto/7296/src.jpg http://snagfilms.s3.amazonaws.com/fa/80/2f75b61747509118bc056b96370b/635700456105706378-dfn-paris-saudi-typhoonhjpg 　 If Hasegawa wanted to scale up their 72nd or HB wanted to pantograph the 32nd Trumpeter down a notch with a proper 48th kit of the Op. Ellamy era Typhoon, IMO, they would wreck the extant marketing plan for cheap ROG rereleases. 　 As is, you are looking at- 　 HERITAGE One Piece Inlet (OOP?) https://www.scalemates.com/kits/206334-heritage-aviation-models-typhoon-seamless-intakes 　 OLIMP Nozzles: $20.00. http://s20.photobucket.com/user/avro5859/media/Modelling/P1020674_zps522751d1.jpg.html 　 Inlets: $30.00. http://modelsua.com/images/D/ora4830.jpg 　 Typhoon Pods/Pylons/Ordnance: $35.00, http://modelsua.com/images/D/ora7214_2.jpg 　 Tornado Pods/Pylons/Ordnance X2 (if you want Brimstone and PWIV) $70.00 http://modelsua.com/images/D/ora7224_2.JPG 　 Eduard Cockpit Zoom: $16.00 https://www.eduard.com/store/out/pictures/z1/49367_1.gif 　 For a total of 170 odd dollars, preshipping, to doll up a Typhoon which is only worth about 40, out of the box. 　 Given the superb work done on the preceeding Rafale, I have always wondered where ROG thought they were going with this kit, a fighter which their own nation operates as part of a consortium of EU state Air Force users and thus a model with perhaps four times the customer base as the Rafale, _if it was done right_. 　 It's not and what you end up with is decidedly closer to Italeri than Hasemiya.

The Hobbyboss is the Trumpeter scaled down without fixes to such things as the windscreen contours (and penchant for stress cracking, right through the center panel) and with a weapons load that itself is more reflective of the Tamiya kit (MERs with X6 Mk.20 or Mk.82 _never carried in operational service_, ALQ-131 Shallow never used by USAFE jets which had the -131 Deep-2 and V2, 3-band systems, LAU-88 Maverick rails which were only used for about the first five years of service due to drag, electrical and gear sponson motor burn issues, Paveway I LGB and GBU-8 EOGB which were retired by the time the A-10 entered service etc.). You can cobble something up for an early A-10 with parent loaded Mk.20 for the inner wings and outer fuselage stations, ALQ-119 outboard with LAU-114 Sidewinder opposite and slant-two LAU-88s but this ONLY represents an early-mid 80s airframe. By the time of Desert Storm, you are looking at LAU-117 Mavericks and ALQ-131 all round except for the US ANG units. You get no LAU-68/131 or Comet Pods and no GBU-12 or -38/54, as appropriate to the type's later CAS/FAC-A missions. Rockets are especially important now that APKWS is coming into use with up to 5km standoff and <1m accuracy compared to the spray'n'pray GAU-8 with it's endemic DU residue hazard in builtup areas. And the modernized ALQ-184 (long and short) are also missing. The problem here is that the aircraft as represented is an early LASTE bird with four of the six required radalt antennas and the GPS boil antenna on the spine. This makes it necessary to cut and chop to make a serving Euro-1 camouflage aircraft of any type (a very few A-10s in the Euro-1 did receive LASTE but none got the GPS cancre). By the same token, you cannot build a period 2001-> jet (A-10A+ or A-10C) because of cockpit main panel issues and the lack of targeting pods as well as the later 'T' satcomms antenna. I will say that the ACES II is excellent, probably the best of any kit seat. But the cockpit tub is a little bland and overbuilt with the titanium tub surround while the main panel, with it's large, dial, cutouts, is frankly grotesque without individual instrument decals to put in each recess (the typical main panel decal isn't accurate to this task). On a related note, the weapons pylons while very well done and easy to clean up compared to the (more accurate, raised bolthead and rivets) Monogram kit versions, suffer from the reverse of the Monogram 'pedestal' mounts in that they rest in recesses cut into the wing. Especially for some ODS period jets and the OA-10 which frequently flew without all pylons fitted, this makes stripping the jet down very hard. As with the Monogram kit, there is a small forward cutout piece for the GAU barrel cluster and vent fairing which is functionally a pain to get installed without oblitering the panel line on which it rests. Since the GAU-8 itself is nothing special (barrel cluster molded as a single piece, muzzle group looks kludge like, ammunition loops which don't include the guide guards), this is a total waste, as is the nice but pointless ammo drum (honestly, if you are going to do this, provide TWO muzzle fairings and a cart on which to display the gun separately, nobody opens up the whole fuselage just to look up at a gun which cannot be seen except on a mirror base!). The wings are Monogram like with separate root attachments to the fuselage and similar fit issues beneath the big Kalman fairing. The Italeri, with it's integrated lower wing notching up into a fuselage cutout is a better deal. The fuselage is separated longitudinally, at the upper spine and this provides for a complicated join to clean up as there are TRIPLE ROWS of riveting on every skin panel and, combined with the separate wings with no independent carry through, this system puts a lot of strain on the fuselage joint. Again, like the Monogram, the TF34 engines are separate units which drop into a rear fuselage opening from the top (further weakening the top fuselage join which _will split_, with time, if not reinforced). Even as they share with the Italeri the bad idea of separate inspection hatches. Given that the 'engines' are little more than featureless armored inner-cowl/bypass ducts without even the Trumpeter kit's clear parts, there is nothing to see here and you are just adding a big seam to clean up. What IS needed is a separate rear cowling so that you can paint the inside and slip it over the engine piece after primary assembly (on the old Monogram, the exhausts in fact are suspended in a cruciform shape which is very weak so this isn't the worst kit for this). To go back to the wings, these are made weaker than they need to be by the droopable flaps which are surprisingly hard to fit up, due to the cambering in this area. NO COMPANY has mad the fitting of the gear fairings easy with integrated parts and a roof panel (they actually fit /over/ the wing bottom surface) to ease detail painting of the gear wells. If they did this, they would still have to mold the (undercut) rear fairings as separate pieces but this would allow you to have either early or later versions (with or without the 4-block dispenser buckets) in place which is a _good thing_ because the A-10 with loaded buckets, looks cool but the JAWS birds do not have them. Needless to say, the two piece wings also have fit issues on every A-10 kit ever made where the tips curl over and fixing the insert line also makes the outboard ALE-40 quads very easy to screw up. With modern, multi-zone and slide mold technologies, I would likely mold the entire wingtip to the upper surface or even separately and then add the dispenser blocks as a separate piece, if need be. The A-10 needs serious nose weight. The A-10 sits atop some fairly anemic, tall, landing gear with the scissorlink MLGs and their associated brake lines very much a weakpoint. IMO, when combined with the 'everything ever carried by any jet the airforce' weapons loads, the A-10 is one of those subjects which, like the F/A-18, simply should never be issued without metal gear. Added to other nuisance issues like round or square ladders; exhaust fairings or non-exhaust fairing avionics vent covers (any A-10 after 2000 should not have them, nor should /some/ of the earliest A-10s); cockpit coamings built into the fuselage sides with a monstrous seam to deal with right where the delicate HUD framing is located; windscreen clear parts that SHOULD extend down into the fuselage to make it easier to fair them in; separate IFR receptacle panels as yet more putty-this-in problematic areas right where an observer is certain to see the flaw; and the various ALR-46/69/74/47 bugeyes for the threat warning receivers and you are in a position where you can either do ONE variant correctly. Or screw up completely, while adding useless detail widgets that simply drive cost as parts counts, through the roof. The A-10 should ideally be a kit in the 25-35 dollar range. Going with the original Monogram tooling, it doesn't need a whole lot of reengineering because that kit's basic outline is correct. I don't particularly care for raised detail because it never survives rub down of glued seams anyway. And I definitely believe in unitary fuselage and wing/tail insert pieces because it makes the kit stronger and simplifies alignment. If they could 'digitize' the existing Monogram tooling, fix the above issues and keep the parts count below 200 pieces as 40 dollars, they would rip the Hobbyboss (70 bucks) and the Italeri (48 bucks) to pieces. Because neither of those jets is worth the parts count (HB, 3 sprues of useless weapons) or major shape (Italeri, needs a massive nose job) discrepancies that their MSRP should not require supplementing or modifications to fix. If you want a decent A-10, simplify it's devil's cross shape as assembly sequence as much as you can: single piece lower wings, single piece tails, nothing drooping. And then fit it with a decent but not excessive weapons load, representative of it's modern era usage (GBU smart weapons, Maverick, guided rockets, two ECM pods, two LDPs, LAU-114), and standardize it to a late series A-10C out of the box. Remember, you only have about 3-6 years (2018-2021) to make this happen before the USAF finds a way to retire it, 'needed or not'. And once it's gone, the urge to celebrate it's combat history with a replica will disappear as a missed marketing opportunity.

Combat Radius, CAS: 150nm with 2X 275 gallon tanks and 7X Mk.82 with a tailored profile and 48 minutes over target. Combat Radius LoLoLo Strike: 340nm with 2X 275 gallon tanks and 5X Mk.82 Combat Radius HiLoHi Strike: 550nm with same loadout. ASST Mission: 800nm with 3X 275 gallon tanks, 20,000 square nautical miles of surface area radar surveilled. ASUW Mission: 400nm with 2X 275 gallon tanks and 1X Harpoon. Ferry Range (Official): 1,350nm with 3X 275 gallon tanks and a 200nm divert reserve. Ferry Range (Achieved): Edwards to Andrews, 2,300nm with 3X 275 gallon tanks, unrefueled. The F404 and Tigershark inlet turbopath were superbly well matched to each other and as such, the engine could be throttled right back to stretch the legs of the jet. This does not mean you could fly without externals as it only carried about 5,000lbs of internal fuel. The problem as I see it is that the GBU-16 shown on the boxart (necked, big canards) are too long and too heavy for safe assymetric carriage with the tails in particular posing likely MLG door conflicts. If they are actually GBU-12s on the sprue, this may not be a problem. I have seen publicity films with both wing mounted GBU-16 and centerline GBU-10 on the ramp- (Time Index 8:45) But never an inflight photo. The LANTIRN is more problematic (too early) being both exceptionally delayed, FMS restricted and having a proprietary bus interface. By the time period suggested (1991 Desert Storm) we only had about 20 of the targeting pods in-theater with about half of them on F-16D Killer Scouts and the rest going to F-15E SCUD Hunters. As I hinted earlier, the AVQ-23 Pave Spike or French ATLIS-II pods are much more likely with actually superior resolution in day-only conditions and an easier to handle analogue interface. The Pakistanis integrated ATLIS-II on the F-16A for GBU-10 employment back in the mid-80s when the Indians bought the Series 3 upgrade for the Mirage 2000. They beat us to in-service smart bombing off the Viper by at least 7 years. This rendition of the Hasegawa kit- Idaho ANG 'F-20CJ' http://www.network54.com/Forum/47751/message/1151550785/F-20CJ+Tigershark Is much more likely for an F-20 in the USAF CAS mission, with an emphasis upon precision rather than volume of firepower (though the F-20 was not certified with 350lb wingtip weapons...). I should also add that the Saudis and Iranians had full GBU-12 capability with their F-5E, using an F-5F companion designator and the AVQ-27 ALD (modernized AVQ-9 Pave Light cockpit designator). http://goo.gl/k4IzNq If Freedom Models missed anything with their F-20, it is in the lack of foreign ordnance common on the F-5E/F 'International' (Tiger IV etc.) upgrades for the likes of Brazil with the FAB using both Python 3 and 4 as well as indigenous Pirannha- FAB F-5E With Various Non-U.S. SRM https://goo.gl/Bl2M7q https://goo.gl/I3iG30 https://goo.gl/Djvk42 While Iran modded their F-5E's with vertical R550 Magic Rails when they ran out of AIM-9P. And other states (Thailand) integrated the GPU-5 GEPOD- (Time Index 8:03) http://goo.gl/s9REh2 Assuming a natural flow from the F-5E to the F-20 in FMS upgrade sales (as happened with the F-5A to E) it would follow that ordnance would be transferred across or accommodated in a midlife upgrade. I would have also included- ELTA 8222 http://goo.gl/ZqfgMd ALQ-167/188 Emulator Pod https://goo.gl/FtrHk4 And ASQ-40/50 AIS Pods http://goo.gl/dti0SK http://goo.gl/8RZ2Pf Because the F-20 in U.S. Service would have almost certainly been an Adversary at Fallon or Nellis and perhaps Alconbury and Clark as well as serving as (polished aluminum!) trainers out at Williams or Luke, you need to support those roles. The easiest way to get there, in terms of sprue counts and box volume, is to pull the 150 gallon tanks as these are residual to the F-5A program (carried by the F-5F solely due to weight considerations on that pig) and simply don't provide enough fuel to support the F404 airframe.

As with the F-22 (though not to the same mirror-flash extent) the F-35 has a metalized base finish. That is why it is 'brown but shiney' looking. The Top Coat over that finish acts as both surface protection for the multiple composite types and contains IR band shifters and RAM in a clear dope with 'stuff' particulates to blend those materials to a common impedance value. When the jet is hit with radar and develops surface waves, those waves transitioning across different panel material type edges causes the breaking of charge states in the wave polarization which generates 'fuzz' as soft returns. This is what makes it have that sheen when viewed from certain angles and look very dark in others. If you want a super looking F-35, paint it Vallejo (Metal Color, not the old stuff) Dull Aluminum, then take some Vallejo glaze clear and suspend a Dark Metallic in it like Magnesium and overspray as a filter until the aluminum is just about gone. For a good looking F-35, consider straight shooting Vallejo Metal Color: Gun Metal or Exhaust Manifold. The secondary seal trim is closer to 36251 Aggressor Grey. I think they too are hit with the surface unifier Top Coat which is why they look so much duller in some photos. Again I would mask and spray them once with the contrast color and then overspray with the base fuselage color in a clear carrier so that the 'plastic' (molded) color of the zig-zags shows through but is dulled down.

Has anyone made a direct comparison between this and the Arkebuza Model Art equivalent? I would think that PE would be very hard to 'lift' in getting the loops to stand up whereas the paper product from AMA does this automatically when you distress the art-paper it's molded on but...it's paper. And I have no idea how long that would hold up after it's been painted before it started to look rather tattered and faded. Also, does anyone have a recommended scheme for putting together MCS _panels_ from either product? MCS Mobile Camouflage System is NOT a 'net' so much as a foam shape with layers of RAM and IR absorbers built in and large velcro lock tabs on the corners. The scrim is just sewn on top as the last layer with the loops allowing the air to circulate and carry away the trapped heat like an exchanger. It is the backing layers which make it effective as an IR Masker and these are flexible rubber or plastic. Felt? Ten Thou? Something... Thanks.

No retarded 2,000lb munitions in 1967. Metal Brakes wouldn't hack it, especially at .94. BSU-50/B was at least a decade and a half away. That right there kills the thought experiment because 'treetop' (anything below 3,500ft in laydown) with four Mk.84s is certain to frag you. If it happened at all, I would instead suspect that someone knew something about the Paveway Program as we were already testing BOLT modified M117s and Pave Light designators and those were vastly closer to 'Zot On' than 200ft. Other things you have to keep in mind are that the chemically milled skins on the B-58 wing are SO THIN to maintain the NACA profile within the sectional requirements for the fuel that there was absolutely no room for combat foam to keep the jet from burning if hit by the number one lolo threat of upwards of mile long flak lanes in the approaches to most targets worth hitting. Skyspot was specifically designed to take the droppers out of this horror and up into the 'rare air' where only 57, 85 and 100mm heavy guns were really a problem. We had in fact already learned this lesson with F-105 drivers going in lolo because their principle TAC training was _no different whatsoever_ from the lolo profiles to be flown by the Hustler crews as a function of both being principle nuclear platforms (different Sievert count, same mission). The big problem being that the F-105 at 1,500ft ingress with M117RE on the centerline and an ALQ-71 and AIM-9B outboard of the 450 tanks was both considerably slowed down and unable to climb above 9-12,000ft with a maneuver margin. This placed it below any practical chaff layer which, together with maneuver celling up, was the on sure way to avoid being blown to bits by 'SAM threats', at least in RFCG mode. What made the dive toss profiles so impossibly dangerous was the lack of CCIP modes so that all attacks had to be flown canned and that gets a little dicey when the other side is shooting back and you cannot vary your dive angle or airspeed to get the pickle commit. SAC Jamming kit was basically worthless, a lot of power but very dated allocation controls and techniques as well as strobe light sectors and depression angles which were hardwired to the system. It was intended to be used in an environment where the SIOP planning would have rapidly saturated background to beyond survivability for exposed air defense troops and thus very few total systems, compared to what was seen over RP5/6 would have been encountered. As well as under circumstances where the 'strategic' (PVO) systems, while nominally superior, were in fact receiving fewer on the fly updates than the 'monkey model' SA-2 which was continually getting band, gather and even dual-target/HOJ modes in rapid succession. As a result of this, you would have almost certainly seen ALQ-71/72 (or their QRC equivalents) fitted to the jet, along with APR-25/26 scabs (a significant re-wire effort) which either means losing a pylon or fitting a stub. And if what happened with the RF-101 is anything to go by, the external RAT on the early pods would take anything up to 100 knots off the clock. At 500 knots, a MiG-19 can catch you if he's airborne with a running start and the fuel for a chase. A MiG-17 can catch you in the egress turn. And a MiG-21 can flatly run you down from the QRA barn. Lots of good reasons not to commit a jet which, even in 1956, cost 12.44 million dollars when the B-52 (in 1962) was only 9.28 million. The Hustler was a supersonic B-57 as a Theater Bomber whose concept dated from the days when SAC had to fly B-29 and B-50 airframes forward to mate with weapons in England and Libya to have even a one-way reach. With a range of something like 2,269nm in a lo-lo-hi profile, it's simply not going to reach target without hitting BOTH the flush and the EAM pole tankers and even then, it will not make Turkey. As a one-race Ferrari which cannot ditch it's biggest drag element (the fuel and weapons pod) the only thing which could have saved the B-58 was the SRAM because, by 1970, you didn't want to come within even 10nm of a SIOP target terminal area for a B-43/B-28 laydown. For the tactical role, we simply didn't have the munitions (thermal protected JDAM, like the M62T on the MiG-25RB) or the ejectors to let the Hustler use it's phenomenal speed to sufficient utility to score 60-80nm hits from Mach 2.6 and 60K where it was more or less untouchable as long as the SAMs were not S-200 Vegas with nuclear warheads.

The best way to understand camouflage is to think of it in terms of layers. Background, Fractal, Filter. Where the human eye, from it's cuddlefish earliest inheritance, tracks light intensity differences and polarity shifted 'glint' (especially that induced by motion parallax which generates synthetic precess against the background) before any other shape, color or intra-shape details; background matching color must first be determined as the overall light 'temperature' or specular intensity of the whole-sky backdrop. Because it will tint the air with diffractance levels of particularly frequencies that effect surface plane reflectance values. Fractal can be thought of as the negative space (holes in-between shapes, not branches but lack of sky etc.) which defines how much reflectance is coming off the near, mid and far field planes of shapes in the image field -other than- the viewed object. It should be treated as a 'noise value' which breaks up image planes by mixing these reflectance values so that they could occupy any of the three fields, pulling the target outline apart. Where there is nothing but uniform skyfield to view against, a camouflage artist must adjust their vision to look for edge contrasts within the shape of the airframe instead. On an aircraft whose configuration as shape-complex as the P-38, this is not going to be easy because you are not looking for 'shadow zones' so much differentiated points on the airframe where angular planes come together to form 90` or better 'light traps' that highlight the edge differentials in surface plane return. Again, it is the intensity -difference- in isoluminant variations between return planes which effects human vision ability to pull out shapes from backgrounds. The 'clouding' or 'misting' effect of Haze is what you would count on as randomizing noise variations, with which to seemingly decouple surface plane coadjacency and merge reflectance values. Finally, at the Filter level, you must determine the viewing range and specific aspect angle _for time of day_ which leads to a dull or bright return index from the local Fresnel scattering effect of light as it's own intensity value in the air between you and the target. All within a foreground viewing acuity average (for a human, about 100-300 yards for a trained observer, 4-5 miles for a good pilot and 3-6ft for a civilian). This is more difficult to describe but think of high noon where everything is in bright edge relief and contrast with a white = hot color contrast definition. Versus mid morning or later in the afternoon where the differentiation is not bright but golden and not sharp but blurred to a blended outline whose edge differentials tend to be duller. At dawn or dusk, when the eye is functioning almost purely on rods, it sees in a 'unichrome', tristimulus color scale, whereby all colors are still perceived but seen based on the way their individual light values (waves) interact as a 'texture' rather than as true color differentiations (only 6-7 million cones vs. 120 million+ rods). Combined with the differences in foveal center vs. peripheral (scan based) shape capture, it becomes essential to treat camouflage as something which doesn't block out or shadow background values rather than that it match their exact specular index. A dull pink beats a ninja black simply because the eye is seeing the scattering value not the Background. Tristimulus coordinate values are a fairly new field in camouflage study in that we didn't have during WWII. You simply sent a chase pilot up to "Better or Worse?" make a direct evalulation. In Photo Recce, the nature of the mission also likely had a major effect in that the early F-4 and F-5 units, based on the non-bearded inlet P-38F/G/H had their best speed (350 cruise, 420 sprint) around 20-25,000ft, right in the heart of the conband, but by 40,000ft suffered major intercooler efficiency issues with the ducts in the wing LE, which limited available horsepower well below that which the engines were still capable of putting out. Bad fuel and wet weather further hampered this with turbo icing and rough-running engines and lack of proper cockpit heating in the early Lightnings all being major issues. With the conband topping out, more or less, around 40-44,000ft as the _dominant driver_ on visual acquisition with engine streamers as much as 5-10 miles long, lack of high altitude capability was a critical deficiency in early Photo Lightnings doing deep recce over The Reich. Far more than fuel or weather effects on target obscuration. Camera setups obviously matter as well in that, if you are doing vertical work on a narrowly defined ground track with a K-17 or K-22 pairing for best resolution pullout, you want about a 25-27,000ft height for best stereo overlap effect from slightly offset camera objective apertures. If you are doing Oblique (what we now call LOROP but which was then 'horizon to horizon'), the higher the better as it keeps the 3 dimensionality of ground objectives as seen through the aperture graze angle as steeply elevated and thus relieved as possible through the middle of the near:far coverage swath. Photo runs were themselves made in overlapping ground tracks because of this limited, 'in range', stereo elevation issue and all of Germany was remapped, roughly every 3-4 months for historical comparison with veritable legions of photogrammetrists and interpreters going over hundreds of yards of film in stereo viewers, 'just because'. Now, consider that, at 40,000ft, the sky is a very intense, deep cerulean, blue. Like swimming through a pool tinted with banded layers of blue food coloring at dusk. The human eye, with little in the way of clouds or background features to reference in forcing focal point distance shift, has very limited filter capabilities in this UV saturated height band and so, provided you are within 1-2 tonality shifts of background isoluminance, aircraft tend to just 'appear' from within the distance at which the scattering effect of the airframe exceeds the ability of the intensely blue-lit air to act like a curtain, obscuring/blurring visual focal depth acuity. The best way to acquire a hostile aircraft here is to be co-height or slightly above it, looking for the tell tale short contrails and dark-spot contrast against a typically still bright horizon terminator. Especially in WWII, it was very difficult for Hohenjagers to climb above our recce platforms for the simple reason that the horsepower difference in the twins like the Mosquito and Lightning added up to a significant cruise speed variation which the single-engine interceptors could only match with good GCI and use of (limited, by time and quantity) chemical boosters. At lower levels, camouflage is more complicated in that you have clouds often behind, below and above the viewed aircraft which randomizes the Background luminescence values. At the same, you often have very dark lower hemisphere contrasts as background intensity polars, often in a blue-green or turquoise shade, mixed with purpleish, far-horizon, color shades for the still heavily forested central European regions landscape. Here, the best camouflage scheme, _viewed against the sky_, is a milky, blue or brown grey pale hue with a countershade (darker) center to inhibit sudden wing flash with changing surface area as viewing aspect, especially in maneuver. But when viewed from above (which is easy enough to achieve for a PR bird locked into 25,000ft by it's camera suite), the best color choise is a dark grey, like our modern 'Gunship' (FS36118) that comes closest to matching the dirt through the widest TOD and seasonal/weather variations. Again, sudden reflectance flash counts more than absolute tonal match. The problem with the dark shade is that it increases the black-silhouette effect of an airframe shaped hole in the sky against _any other_, brightlit, Background base isoluminant value. The application of Haze Grey, as it was described to me with a dark base and progressively more opaque transitional translucent top coats of off white, is something more suitable for a medium level aircraft in this 20,000ft range with darker tonality on the upper surfaces and brighter/whiter shades for the ventrals. This would, unfortunately be reversed for a very high altitude platform however because nearly all threats would be in uplook and against a dark ultramarine backdrop, a highly lightened Haze underside and countershaded uppers would 'flash' like a neon bulb. Instead, you would want a very dark underside and a light (gull) grey uppers, rather like the Taiwanese U-2 schemes. CONCLUSION: For any kind of high threat air defense environment, where the enemy has the radar and depth of field to put up interceptors well to your front to cut you off, you could not afford to give them a positional dominance as height leverage and would have to fly most of the mission _well_ above 35,000ft. And at these height levels, the Haze Grey scheme would be too light and wrongly hemisphere flipped to be effective. The early F-4 and F-5A model (38G/H) Photo Lightings would be nearly crippled here with their 1,100hp limit. The only way you could make them effective would be to switch to high altitude tuned powerplants, 120 Octane or better fuel and plug pulls after every mission. Even then, to achieve the effective 360KTAS Compressibility limit would require a graduated Rutowski step climb, opening out the engines as you went and hopefully never touching the throttles after you reached cruise height. It is worth noting that all early Lightnings had a climb power issue related to turbo function and were rarely at mission height before crossing over the Continent, which left them vulnerable (as escorts) to early intercept out of the Benelux. The 38J/L, F-5E/F/G, with their bearded inlets providing availability of the nominal full 1,600hp @ 60" throughout their operating envelope, never had this problem and were particularly strong climbers, able to achieve cruise height, well out over The North Sea, before feet dry. Effective camouflage was essential for them. With a solid 1,300hp at 40" and all the wing fuel made available when the intercoolers were stripped from the LEs, they would ironically also make the best mid-level photo birds, well able to hold 400mph in cruise and with a 1,725 WEP that would let them outrun and particularly _out vertical_ anything short of a jet or a Ta-152. The 20-25K height band, along with the brakes, also offers the best Compressibility margin with runouts to something like 480 KTAS before hitting rough air. So, provided you could see the threat coming, you could firewall, bunt and unload to about 550mph, if you had to. A quick roll on the powered ailerons and you're on a different compass heading for the roundout and nothing is going to stay with you through that. These performance options may be part of why a lot of the later F-series were seen without the special paint. Speed is a safety cushion against Stupidity. Or Bad Luck.

Hey Thanks Parabat. I will go out on a limb here and say that we have yet to see the best A-10 made. I would never push for a Revell 32nd scale F/A-18E (too expensive) but the latest word in a new A-10 would be welcome. It needs: 1. At least three eras of markings. MASK, JAWS, Euro-1 and Ghost. 2. Cockpit tubs or at least main panels which are both A and C compatible. Along with both ESCAPAC and ACES II. 3. A single piece fuselage upper, similar to the Academy F-4 series. 4. A modern, accurate, weapons load: (ALQ-119, 131, 184, Sniper, LITENING, AGM-65B/D, LAU-88/117, LAU-114 DRA, LAU-68/131, GBU-12/38, TER, Mk.82 AIR, Mk.82 Radar, CBU-97...) 5. Single Piece Windscreen with integrated lower frame. It always puzzles me how airliners can get this so right for so long, yet tacjets don't but for the A-10 it is particularly appropriate because the lower frame is so obvious. 6. Single piece aileron. 7. LASTE, NVIS, PE, AAR-47, greeblies. 8. Gear Up MLG options (retracted tires, single-piece doors...). 9. Singlepiece lower wing 'prealigned'. 10. Better Pave Penny (gimbals and dome, not a cover...). 11. Obviously, recessed lines. 14. Price under 35 dollars. 15. Mask sets for the JAWS polka Dots and Canopy (preferably with the latter preapplied...). 16. Dragon Loader. 17. Master Models PE muzzle group. 18. Shaped Lead Nose Weight. 19. Eduard PE Self Adhesive Zoom set alternative to painting the raised cockpit details. 20. Separate HUD and single-piece Coaming elements to protect them during build. Just as Revell missed an incredible opportunity with the F-14 on or immediately (SURPRISE!) after it's September 22, 2006, retirement to introduce a new celebratory kit of the Tomcat that 'Builds American' (simple, fewer parts) yet is _accurate_, based on exclusive access to the subject airframes and has modern features like recessed lines and decent fit; they need to be looking out towards 2018-2021 when the A-10 leaves service and have SOMETHING more than another rehash of a fraudulent and very hard to build, last new tool Hog kit. Let me say that again: You cannot put a picture of a grey A-10 on the box art with modern markings but no updates and weapons the jet never used outside of FSD and pretend that it is what it isn't. I consider this to be as bad as the AMT 'F-4G' without the slats. If you could do all of the above, if the tooling design capacity is still resident in the United States, we wouldn't be having these 'Which of the least worst, most expensive options' discussions (which are entertaining I admit). A kid with two twenties in his pocket should be able to purchase any Revell 1/48 scale kit there is. Asking him to pony up three twenties and then twenty five more for a decent cockpit and 20 more for metal landing gear (necessary because of the amount of noseweight ballasting needed) is ridiculous and points to snob factor on a kit which should be tomatoed off the stage for the kinds of flaws that both the HB and the Italeri include.