Hoops

My vote for the F.1AZ, it is the version I've been waiting for since the original announcement. To support the effort in the mean time I've purchased two other versions, but this is what I'm really waiting for! Cheers, Hoops

Caracal is supposed to be releasing their 1/48 scale FB-111A sheet in 1/72 eventually as well. Cheers, Hoops

Those pods look like the MCARS that was fielded on the MC-130s for a while in the early 2000s. The crews disliked them as they had a whole lot more drag than the traditional pods (as was relayed to me by a pilot). Cheers, Hoops

Open the link and look at the pictures of the actual kit. The ones seen in this thread above are of a 3D printed verification, not even close to being representative of the kit. If you look at the linked sprue shots, they are on par with the F-15 kits. Hoops.

Neat BLM OV-10 seen in the lower corner of one of the pictures as well! Hoops

Very nice build! Cheers and congratulations! Hoops

I lightened the colors inside the panels on the top and bottom and did some light staining with Tamiya Smoke. A clear coat was applied with Future Floor Wax, and it is now ready for decals. For now I'll just be adding stencils. 20190518_151043 by J Hooper, on Flickr 20190518_151011 by J Hooper, on Flickr Thanks for looking, Hoops

This photo, perhaps? https://www.airliners.net/photo/Sweden-Air-Force/Saab-JA37D-Viggen/377751/L A great one to be sure!

I'll be using the Tarangus Kit stencils as they are pretty good, but that's it. Anders Nowotny did this sheet on an ALPS printer for his Red Bolt line way back when. It does not include the mustang logo on the bottom or the sides as initially the actual aircraft didn't have them either. I've heard there was a later second addendum sheet that included these elements, but I've never actually seen it. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/red-bolt-decals-ano-720116-saab-37-jaktviggen--209090 Nothing yet, but I do have hopes we'll see aftermarket decals for this aircraft. Maybe in the fall, good thing I build slow.

Paint progress, here is a photo with the chevrons masked off before applying the top camouflage pattern: 20190515_175703[1] by J Hooper, on Flickr And some updated photos after the basic painting and clean up is complete: 20190517_111846[1] by J Hooper, on Flickr 20190517_111914[1] by J Hooper, on Flickr 20190517_111859[1] by J Hooper, on Flickr It needs some touch up and detail painting still, then a bit of weathering and a clearcoat before starting with decals. Thanks for looking! Cheers, Hoops

It absolutely is right now, but I think that there may be some things that the GWH will do better when released. Cheers, Hoops

I'm not familiar with either one of those kits, but I wouldn't be surprised. Cheers, Hoops

In 1/72 aircraft the Academy A-10 is very strongly "inspired" by the Hasegawa kit to say the least. It does add recessed panel lines though. Same goes for the OV-10. Hoops

Great progress so far! Hoops

Primed now with Badger Stynylrez black: 20190421_152645 by J Hooper, on Flickr The plan is to shoot the very dark grey of the chevrons, mask and paint the camouflage colors. Cheers for now! Hoops

20190421_143526 by J Hooper, on Flickr The fit of the air brakes on the fuselage sides was not very good, and I used sheet styrene and putty to fill. The fuselage vents also needed a bit help. I added the the "fingers" and vortex generators on the exhaust sides as well as thinning the aft edge of the cutouts. Short pieces of wire were added to the drop tank to strengthen the attachment to the bottom of the gun fairing. As molded they don't mate too well, so I sanded the "lugs" off the top of the tank and it works much better now. The bit of filler required between the fore and aft fuselage section is my fault. I was sanding the edge of the spacer to match the forward fuselage, and accidently wound up tapering the aft edges a bit. As a result the two halves didn't wind up matching once assembled. There were a couple of small sink marks on the top of the flaps, but nothing bad. Quickly fixed with a bit of filler.

There were some other tweaks necessary to fix some of the bigger errors on the kit. 20190421_143317 by J Hooper, on Flickr Some of these fixes included: 1. Adding the missing panel line on the front of the nose radome 2. Filling the wedge and sanding of the square off the sides of the exhaust shroud 3. Adding panel lines on the sides of the vertical tail. The line drawings in the kit are wrong and I made the mistake of using those without checking my references first. for that reason, the newly scribed lines were filled in again on the port side. 4. Adding panel lines to the forward pylons 5. Sanding flat the formation light frames on the intakes. I replaced these with a small piece of .12mm sheet. 6. Adding the circular panels on the bottom of the canards. I think these are RADALT antennas. 7. Opening the aft ends of all the fuselage vents. 8. Adding the two lines of five vent holes on the top of the exhaust shroud. 9. Adding the RWR antenna on the tail tip, I just used a hemispherical sprue end from the kit. 10. Fill the square panel on the starboard side of the nose (not present on the JA). 11. Adding the same diamonds on the top of the flaps as below. 20190421_143407 by J Hooper, on Flickr

Good Afternoon, Here's a bit of work in progress with the new tool 1/72 Viggen kit. Released by Tarangus already in the JA version, coming soon from Special Hobby in other versions as well. I will be building this as "Petter Gul" the airshow demonstration aircraft for the Swedish Air Force in 2003. This is how the aircraft will look when completed: Petter Gul by J Hooper, on Flickr But there is a lot of work to get there in the first place. As the underside will prominently the feature the "Mustang" logo, I decided to build this aircraft in flight. The fit of the main gear doors was close but needed some good filling, smoothing and rescribing for affect. The nose gear doors are admirably thin in the kit, so it was not practical to use them for this conversion. I decided it would be much easier to simply use a piece of 1mm thick Evergreen styrene and shape to match the fuselage profile. Photos taken with my mobile phone, so nothing amazing: 20190421_143508 by J Hooper, on Flickr Other modifications visible on the bottom include: 1. Adding the Jet Fuel Starter exhaust between the pylon and the gun pod. 2. Filling the indents for the lower beacon lights (not present on the JA) 3. Adding the small flat antenna just behind the nose cone 4. Smoothing the transition to the lower air brakes 5. Filling the indent behind the main gear doors 6. Adding the diamond plate that connects the two flaps on the JA 7. Adding a tube to accept the clear acrylic rod to display in flight. To position this where I wanted it and minimize impact I shortened the depth of the exhaust.

The Hasegawa kit is very nice and I can highly recommend it. I added turned brass pitots, Eduard PE and some scratchbuilding in the cockpit. I also deepened and smoothed out the intakes a bit as they are rather shallow straight out of the box. Paint was Model Master Acrylics, sealed with Future. For decals stencils are from Platz, the 8th Squadron logo is from the kit, and the serial numbers/crew chief were ALPS printed. After decals, it was given another coat of future and the panel lines highlighted with the Tamiya dark brown panel line highlighter. It was my first time trying it, and I think it will be a good addition to the toolbox. Photos were just taken with my mobile phone, so the quality is not amazing, but I think it gets the job done. Here is the orginal. I hadn't looked at my references for quite a while building the kit, so I missed that his one included the antennas on either side of the vertical tail: IMG_6000 by J Hooper, on Flickr A couple of in progress pics of the cockpit before paint: IMG_6281 by J Hooper, on Flickr IMG_6285 by J Hooper, on Flickr And the aircraft as completed today: 20190421_143913 by J Hooper, on Flickr 20190421_143901 by J Hooper, on Flickr 20190421_143925 by J Hooper, on Flickr 20190421_144000 by J Hooper, on Flickr Cheers and thanks for the look! Hoops

For two kits and a book? That price is not bad in my opinion. I guess I'll be picking this one up! Hoops

In 1/72 the GWH kit is the best F-15E. Hasegawa with the new tooled F-15E sprues (the E39 kit released after 2012) is pretty close. I addresses most of the missing details when updating the aircraft the strike eagle. There are still a few items that are missing, vents panel lines and the shape of the front coaming spring to mind. It is prett close and still a decent kit though. The old tool Academy lags behind both by a good margin, but their new tool (2017) has a some good things going for it. It lacks some of the finesse and detail of the other kits to meet the design requirements for the friction fit. I particularly don't like the exhausts. I'll probably wind up purchasing a few GWH kits, and the couple of Hasegawa F-15Es I already have will be built as F-15B/Ds instead. Cheers, Hoops

For the Hasegawa EF-111 Re-release, if you'd like another decal option other than the prototype, Wolfpak has the "Mirage Killer" from Desert Storm: 72-118 Here: Also available directly from Fantasy Printshop Here: Cheers, Hoops

I'm referring to this antenna/reciever: Photo on Prime Portal: The blade antenna behind the rudder was only on the JA-37 fighters, even the updated AJS-37 didn't recieve them. The lower bracket/brace on the intake is included in the 1/72 scale kit, so I didn't know it would be missing from the 1/48 scale kit. All for now, Hoops

I'm a 1/72 scale builder, so I don't have the 1/48 Tarangus kit in hand. Some of the mistakes were fixed scaling down to 1/72, but some remained. You've already corrected a good number of them, there a few more depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. Missing AOA probe on left nose Missing Jet Fuel Starter exhaust under the fuselage between the fuselage pylons Missing oval vent/drain on the bottom of the exhaust shroud Missing a bunch of panel lines on the vertical stab Missing the RWR antennas on the rear tip of the tail sting above the exhaust At least on the 1/72 scale kit, the forward fuselage pylons are too short in length Missing the small vortex generators on the exhaust nozzle (one each on the sides, two on the bottom cutout) There are a few other little missing panel lines, but those are the things I could come up with off the top of my head. Hoops

This is what I've got: 17684571 by J Hooper, on Flickr 20575309 by J Hooper, on Flickr Cheers, Hoops