Hoops

A few more decals on the bottom. I'll let these set and dry before adding the last couple. Alignment was a bit tricky, and I had to watch out for the decals folding under when placing them, but I'm pleasantly surprised with how will they fit together. 20191001_082311 by J Hooper, on Flickr Cheers, Hoops

I only added the two largest and most complicated decals to the bottom so far, but they snugged down nicely and met all the curves fairly well. I cut open around the actuator fairing a bit more to make sure it had plenty of space while positioning. The decals didn't quite extend far enough to compensate for the fuselage curves on the bottom of the circle. As there are some things (actuators for example) that will have be touched up with paint anyway, this gap will simply be added to the list. No big deal. It could have been a bit better, but I'm pretty satisfied with how the fit turned out. 20190930_210526 by J Hooper, on Flickr Cheers, and all for now! Hoops

The decals got here a couple of weeks ago and I took the opportunity to do some work on the Viggen tonight. Concerning the decals themselves, the printing turned out great and the details are amazing. I am not completely satisfied with how two of the colors came out though. The orange for the numbers on the tail is a bit too bright for me. I think it should be darker and a bit more reddish. The dark grey for the mustang and other artwork is not dark enough either. It should be very very close to black. Not quite, but almost. Both of these are close but not quite there in my opinion. I've been decaling a Hasegawa F-14B with some other Wolfpak markings recently (VF-102 from this sheet: 72-101) And they have proven to be stiff, a bit brittle and didn't respond to MicroSol at all. The finally did seem to work with Mr. Mark Softer, but only then with quite a bit of work. For whatever reason, whatever Fantasy Printshop was doing at the time didn't work out so well. With that in mind I embarked on tonight's decal session with some trepidation. Any concerns however, quickly evaporated, as these decals performed wonderfully. The first photo shows the top, nothing challenging here, but it's nice to have this portion complete: 20190930_210442 by J Hooper, on Flickr There is a bit of silvering on a few of the decals, but I'll continue to work on those. I wound up using the Tarangus kit decals for the roundels and the formation lights. The roundels are fine, but I'll find a better source for the formation lights next time around. The color is a bit off and the printing was a bit misaligned.

Great looking build Werner, Do you have any good reference of the camera behind the glass in the nose? I've not been able to come up with much in my internet searches. I have the special hobby kit in 1/72 and would like to add some detail there. Cheers! Hoops

Interesting story and great build! Cheers, and thanks for sharing! Hoops

Beautiful paint work and a very nice build! Cheers!

Thanks Jeff, There are really four options out there for A-10s that are readily available in 1/72 now: Hasegawa, Academy, Italeri and Hobby Boss. Hasegawa: As described above. Of note, the tails have been modified to include the radalt antennas for the LASTE modifications that appeared in the early 90s. To do a pre-LASTE aircraft these would have to be filed off. Personal complaints that I have with the kit: Too many compressor blades on the engine front: way more than on the real aircraft, making them much too narrow. Nose gear well is too deep, which makes the cockpit too shallow and the ejection seat too small. Nose gear well has one height, rather than having a shallower step at the aft end where the nose gear would be mounted. This makes the actual nose gear itself much too tall. It will be fairly well hidden once assembled though. The A-10A kit has no aft wall on the cockpit, although this was added on the sprue for the A-10C. There are lots of details that could be improved, but overall, it's OK. Academy: it is a copy of the Hasegawa kit, but with recessed panel lines. I've matched Academy parts against Hasegawa parts, and they are *almost* interchangeable. I think that one of the fuselages is 1mm longer or something minor like that. That being said, the molds have not been updated for any of the LASTE mods, so it is most appropriate for an early A-10. All other complaints about the Hasegawa kit other than having raised panel lines also apply to the Academy kit. They did modify the molds to add the chaff/flare buckets under the wingtips, but these are really bad in shape. It would be probably be best to just remove them. Italeri (also reboxed by Revell Gmbh): It has been a solid 16 years since I've built this one, but I do have one in my stash though. These written from memory. It does include the details for LASTE modifications, but despite recent boxings having markings for A-10Cs, the kit does not represent any of the changes. Pros: Recessed panel lines, but they are soft and fairly large, comparable to other Italeri kits of that era. Adds the option of opened air brakes Better landing gear detail and proportions Better cockpit dimensions Cons: I think that the nose shape is better on the Hasegawa kit, but the Italeri is not bad. Overall the molds are not very crisp and the fit is not particularly great. Compressor spinners have some weird details Pebbly surface texture Hobby Boss: Very simplified and toy like. I picked up a two seat N/AW with thoughts about kit bashing the applicable two seat parts with one of the other kits. I probably won't even wind up using those, instead going with the Falcon vac-form conversion. I would recommend it only if you are looking for a very easy build to highlight a neat marking scheme or something along those lines. Would it be nice to have a modern, new tooled A-10, kit? Yes it would. I don't think it will happen though, as there are some acceptable offerings out there. All have their advantages and disadvantages, you just have to pick which ones are most important to you I think.

Some great work there, Lots of good ideas that I might borrow to detail my Hasegawa kit in 1/72! Cheers! hoops

Thank you for the kind words! Dirty, deployed aircraft have a certain kind of appeal, but sometimes a bit of color for something different is nice for a change! Cheers!

I just placed the engine nacelles and the horizontal stabs on for this photo, they aren't glued on yet. 20190929_135654 by J Hooper, on Flickr Antenna and platform was added to the top of the right vertical stab, unique to the is test aircraft. The GPS and SATCOM antennas on the top are correct for this aircraft, but it did not have any of the missile plume detectors on the wingtips or tail. Those were left off and the holes filled. Thanks for looking! Cheers, Hoops

On the underside, I opened up all the vents on the lower aft fuselage. The fit of the wingtips was difficult and needed lots of filler and work to smooth out. I opened up the front of the vent just behind the gun muzzle, and did some general light detailing. The towel rack antenna on the bottom is too shallow as molded by Hasegawa, so I extended it a bit until I was happy with how it looked. I boxed in the main gear wells a bit, but didn't get too crazy trying to fix things in any of the gear wells. 20190929_135547 by J Hooper, on Flickr

The instrumentation boom off the nose is very prominent and it would be a shame not to include it in this build. It was scratched from various sizes of Evergreen styrene rod, the very tip being from a unused test probe from the Hasegawa F-14 kits. I left the airflow sensors off, as small as they would break off very easily. Even without them, you still get the effect in 1/72. 20190929_135504 by J Hooper, on Flickr Some other light details that were added: Fill the holes for the PAVE PENNY pylon, and add the four mounting bolt heads Add stall strips on the leading edge of the wings Add the slightly raised platform for all formation lights Add the rubber bumper below the engine nacelles on the side of the fuselage Add the radar warning receivers (small disks) on the corners of the nose and tails

The weapons included in the kit aren't very good, so they were immediately ejected in favor of others from various Hasegawa weapons sets. I had to buy another complete set of laser guided bombs just for this build in order get enough GBU-12s. Here they all are assembled and awaiting paint: 20190929_135250 by J Hooper, on Flickr

The cornerstone of the build is the fact that it has the massive drop tank on centerline as well as all of the weapons, so the tank had to look decent. The tank included in the kit has good shape for the body, but found that the fins were to small to my eye. As a result I took an extra tank from a Hasegawa 1/72 F-111 kit and modified the fins to match my references. To my eye, the fins on the F-111 tanks are too large, and they extend aft past the aft point of the tank itself. It's always easier to remove material than add it, so I cut down and reshaped the fins to match my references. I found that the under fuselage pylons were a bit shallow, so I added a strip of .5mm Styrene sheet to the bottom to make them a bit taller. The modified F-111 tank is on top, and the A-10 kit tank is on the bottom in this image: 20190929_135120 by J Hooper, on Flickr

Good Afternoon, Sometimes you pick an aircraft that you want to model because the markings are interesting, or because there is a interesting bit of history behind it, or you really like the aircraft itself. In this case, I chose this build because of the absolutely ridiculous weapons load that was applied to this aircraft for testing purposes. Normally the A-10 is not cleared to fly with drop tanks and any weapons, but the fine folks at Eglin Air Force Base did some testing in 2013 to clear the aircraft for just that. See the press release here: https://www.eglin.af.mil/News/Article/814477/40th-fts-expands-a-10-fuel-limitations-in-combat/ This picture is what inspired me to do the build: 130814-F-OC707-052 by J Hooper, on Flickr This particular aircraft, being a test bird, has some differences when compared to a normal A-10C, but they are not too significant. For this build I used the Hasegawa A-10C kit, not because it is the best in the scale, but more so because I happened to have one in the stash. Pros: Good shape, reasonable fit in some parts, extra sprue with C model specific parts (the only kit to do so in 1/72) Cons: Raised panel lines, oversimplified details, poor fit in some other parts. Before construction, I rescribed the entire kit, my first time ever doing so. Rather than go nuts and try to correct any misplaced panel lines, I simply copied those that were already on the kit. I wanted to do some detailing with the kit, but didn't want to go crazy and spend too much time on it.

exdraken, Because of travel for work, during the entire months of May, June, and July I was at home for a total of about 10 days, so not much progress was made. The decals are on their way to me now, and will hopefully be here shortly. I've got to get to the local wood shop make a nice base for it. Complete the decals, weather and clear coat. Not much left to do, but I promise to keep you updated. In the mean time I'm rescribing and building a Hasegawa A-10C in 1/72. Cheers! Hoops

Sorry, I realized that I didn't put scale anywhere in the description. It's the 1/72 scale kit, and I'll be using the Wolfpak decals to complete the build when it comes out in August. Cheers! Hoops

I've been hoping for years for a new tool M2000, and looks like somebody is finally doing one. I'm hoping that when the kit is released we'll see some fresh decals as well. Cheers! Hoops

I just asked for a membership in the Facebook group, hopefully I'll get added soon. Cheers and thanks for the tip! Thanks for looking! I wonder if there is anything in "Sinking the Beast: The RAF 1944 Lancaster raids against Tirpitz" Cheers, Hoops

Here's the status now, next will be updates to the to the wings, and the Horizontal stab extensions. 20190726_163816 by J Hooper, on Flickr Cheers, Hoops

Good Evening, I'm much more of a Cold War/Modern aircraft modeller, but a good friend of mine from Sweden wants to build the aforementioned aircraft. He visited the site where it lays in the bogs of northern Sweden and has the Hasegawa "Special Missions" boxing of their Lancaster kit. It was damaged during the Tirpitz raid and the crew made a forced landing in Sweden where all survived. They torched the aircraft as best they could, but the remains of the Lancaster are there to this day. The difficulty is the decals, I can do up the artwork but would need references to base it on. After sitting out for decades, and the crews attempts to destroy the aircraft there is not too much to go on for the nose art. Internet searches just come up with recent photos. Are there any books out there, or archive images of this aircraft that my fellow modellers know of? Cheers, and thanks, Hoops

I have added the stencil decals, but there is not much to see. I've been on travel pretty much constantly since the first day of June, and won't be back home until the end of August. Not much modeling in the mean time. Decals for Petter Gul to be released by Wolfpak for the US IPMS Nationals in August. These will finish out this aircraft. Preview on ARC Cheers, Hoops

I'm pulling for a Mirage F.1AZ, that's what I've been waiting for since the kits were announced years ago. I'm looking forward to building the combo tank/multiple stores carrier as well as the centerline stores carrier. That's not sarcasm, I think it will be a fun challenge. Although somebody will probably release them in resin as well and save everybody the time. Cheers, Hoops

They stopped doing the JATO takeoffs probably a decade ago once the stocks of JATO bottles were used up. No more were manufactured. Cheers, Hoops

You would have to build them from scratch using tube/rod of your choice. The forward firing rockets are the US Navy ASROC booster, nothing in scale. The four pack of aft firing rockets mounted to the fuselage are from the US Navy Standard missile series, but it would honestly be easier to start from scratch than to modify the Hasegawa Standard ARM. Same goes for the downward firing and wing pylon mounted AGM-45 Shrike motors. I'm in the process of converting a Minicraft C-130 kit right now and spent way too much time drawing up a set of 1/144 scale plans for the modified YMC-130H. I hope to write and submit and magazine article for the build once completed. Hoops