Gary C

Airextra no 15, USAFE special. I bought a second hand copy a couple years back. It was the quarterly supplement to Aircraft Illustrated. There's no date on it but the content is all mid-late 70's. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AIREXTRA-MAGAZINE-15-B25-MITCHELL-WALTER-MAHURIN-THUNDERBOLT-PILOT-WOLFHOUND/163063189688?hash=item25f752d0b8%3Ag%3AaFoAAMXQvJVRQa9L&_nkw=airextra+&_from=R40&rt=nc&_trksid=p2380057.m4084.l1313.TR3.TRC0.A0.H0.Xairextra.TRS0&redirect=mobile

Five minutes on google shows....they appear to have been bought by a German private equity firm. Article here.... http://www.stimme.de/heilbronn/wirtschaft/2018/Finanzinvestor-will-Modellbau-Hersteller-Revell-uebernehmen;art140955,4011996 Blitz 18-313 started in January this year. The two names signed on their behalf on the Hobbico court documents tie up with this company named in the above article. https://www.quantum-capital-partners.com/en/team.html

It's being auctioned off from Monday. Seems like there's a fair bit of interest. http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2018-03-13/hobbico-hopes-find-buyer-auction-set-march-26.html

It's got an AETC badge on the fin and according to Don Logans book it finished it's days at Sheppard as a ground instructional airframe, so I would guess the code stands for either Sheppard, Texas or Sheppard Trainer. The only other instances of an ST code I can find are C-130's out of Stewart AFB TN, around 1970 time.

Standard lo viz scheme, you can see the upper/lower demarcation line at the bottom of the intake.

Why on earth would you buy a Chinese made kit from a Japanese retailer? Thats just a waste of money. Much, much cheaper to get it from one of the many Chinese ebay stores or wait for it to arrive in the UK. As an example the 48th Hobbyboss MiG-31 is £66 at HLJ before you add shipping, yet is £54 including shipping from China and some UK retailers have it at £45 including shipping. It pays to shop around.

Hornbys troubles long predate MZs collapse. 10 years ago their shares were trading at around £3, they're now 10% of that. At the start of 2011 they were blaming weak performance on the cold winter weather. At the end of 2012 it was the fault of the olympics. Supplier problems, computer upgrades, warehouse moves and so on. It's been a litany of excuses for as long as I can remember culminating in the shotgun to the foot that was the 2015 Black Friday sale. Assuming the current plan gets the go ahead then that will be £35M the company has swallowed in the last 3 years just to stay afloat. At the bottom of it all the reality is a declining market, the business, in the UK at least, just doesn't seem to be there anymore. I don't see kids picking up model trains in the numbers required. European sales aren't likely to save the day, Revell and Italeri appear to be slowing down at best (lots of reissues and new tools being pushed further and further back). Add in the dark brexit shaped clouds and things look pretty bleak I'm afraid.

No, they never had them. The plates were initially added to the block 40s back in about 1994. By the time they expanded the program to other blocks in the late 90's the N was out of service.

Good job, very tidy brings back some memories! I built the Heinz Pontiac when it came out, still got the Thunderbird somewhere along with a load of other Nascars. Might have to go and find them...

Mmm...thank you

Well, you can't blame him. I mean that is a pretty obscure piece of information that never, ever, ever comes up in every single Mustang thread on every forum going since the dawn of time. So well done you for clarifying it, I'm sure he appreciates your expertise. Of course, if you do build a test shot that will probably be used as part of the box illustrations, then it's probably best to build it as is so that you illustrate whats in the box and don't worry about appeasing the Mustang nerds.

When the Model Graphix D came out I bought 5 from HLJ along with a couple of the weapons sets. Thanks to combined shipping and the fact that they were shipped as printed matter (VAT exempt), they came in at about £35 each. £50 is a pretty steep increase, get stung by customs and it's another £10 in VAT and £8 on the handling fee. I think I may well pass for now...it's a nice kit but it's not that nice.

ANG P-51's shipped to Korea were wrapped in the same stuff.

The PIDS is in the later boxings of the Kinetic A/B. As far as I know nobody does an ECIPS pylon in any scale yet although it's the sort of thing Attack Squadron may do.