Hoops

I'm not on my home computer now so I can't upload any photos, but all the references that I have show natural metal for the interior of the intakes. It fits to the rest of the aircraft as well, none of the other wells or openings are painted white, all bare metal. Cheers, Hoops

It's really going to be hard to top the Hasegawa kit, that one is pretty good. Cheers, Hoops

Decals in 1/72 available from Wolfpak.

Could do a CASA-212 to really reinforce the size difference. The Special Hobby kits are supposed to be really good.

Hooray for Inkscape!

The Navy has never seemed to do much with the AMA pod. For 1993, I would put a captive AIM-9M on one wing (blue body, normal gunmetal seeker section, white rear fins) and an ACMI pod on the other wing (red/orange body, single probe out the front, no other antennas). Looking at pictures of F-16Ns that what almost all of them have. Hoops

There are a lot of small differences on the N/AW compared to a normal A-10 (not withstanding the obvious two seat differences) because it was a modification of a Full Scale Development (FSD) aircraft. 1/48 is not my scale, so I can't speak to the specifics of the Hobby Boss kit, however. I did a lot of work in prepation for the making the conversion in 1/72 scale, including a trip to Edwards AFB and the flight test museum to see the aircraft on display there. After poring over the references for way too long, I generated a set of line drawings in 1/72. I think I can confidently say that they are the most accurate N/AW drawings out there. I'm sure that they are not perfect, but they capture the changes better than anything I've seen. The question is, how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go to make an accurate N/AW? Cheers, Hoops

All true statements! Just keep eyes out for a good deal I guess.

Are they still selling overtrees? That might be another solution...

Italeri is the better kit, which was reboxed by Tamiya and Testors for their respective markets. The Dragon kit is a very different mold with less accurate shapes. That is not say that the Italeri kit is great, but it is much closer. There used to be a good visual description on the YF-23.net website, but it seems to have finally died. It had not been updated in years and a lot of image links were broken. Even the internet Wayback Machine hasn't captured the images. Here is the write up, however: " Italeri was the first company in the world to release a scale model of the YF-23. Considering the lack of information at the time, it was not a bad effort. It was not up to the standard of Hasegawa, it did not have recessed panel lines, but nevertheless it was a start. The tooling actually depicted PAV-1 only; no separate parts were included for PAV-2's distinctive trough and shroud. The decals included markings for PAV-2 nevertheless, but they were pretty basic and not comprehensive enough to do a good job. The kit was then picked up by Testors (nos 657 and 0191) as they had an existing relationship with Italeri. Revell then reissued this tooling some years later (no 4326), followed by Tamiya. It is dimensionally accurate, but will need some refinement to make an accurate model. The really frustrating thing was that none of the decal sheets that came with any release were accurate nor complete. Each one was either missing something or was printed in the wrong colour or shape. Caracal Models have now remedied that problem with a new decal sheet dedicated to the YF-23." "Dragon also released a kit of the YF-23 which was a different tooling, but it had some serious contour innaccuracies and is not worth bothering with. It should be considered as no more than a toy. A picture of the Dragon tooling is included here so that the modeller can learn the difference between the two." I have the Italeri tooling with plans to fix and accurize it eventually. I would like to display next to a Hasegawa F-20 as both very beautiful Northrop prototypes, too many kits and too little time though.

Special Hobby will be releasing the other versions of the Viggen (as well as their own boxing of the JA) beggining spring 2019. The only other fuselage that they'll be releasing is the two seat forward fuselage. Everything else is covered by the different antennas, vents, small intakes and such. Petter Gul (the show bird with the two black chevrons on the upper fuselage) has low vis roundels on the wing undersides. Additionally there were a small number of AJSF-37 Viggens that were modified as to be NATO interoperable that included english language stencils and low vis roundels as part of the SWAFRAP construct. Cheers, Hoops

Most of the parts are there, with the exception of the tail. It would take some work to convert that. The AJ- tail is shorter (above the rudder only), lacks the dog tooth on the leading edge and has the pitot in a different position. Otherwise: 1. Don't add the second set of flap actuators on the bottom (on the sprue with the aft fuselage sides). 2. Use the the shorter fuselage plug 3. Use the drop tank that only has three fins 4. Use the canards that are on the sprue with the lower wing (has one less vortex generator) 5. Different instrument panel, should have a round display in the middle 6. Different centerline pylon and vent arrangement, should be in the kit but I don't have it to look and see which one you would use. This is all based on looking at reviews online that don't have the details or the part numbers readily readable, but the biggest difference remains the tail. Not something a bit of work filing and shaping can't fix though. Cheers, Hoops

Decals for this aircraft coming here: http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/306358-wolfpak-dec-2018-release/ Hoops

I purchased some Forsokcentralen badges from him directly years ago, but still haven't used them yet, the interaction was great. I also have decals for "Q47" that I purchased from him sometime in the early 2000s that I still haven't used either. Both of these have been overtaken by the Moose Republic sheets that are very good if you don't already have them. I tried emailing the address on his old sheet ...@telia.com, but it bounced back immediately. Interestingly enough I found the Petter Gul sheet as "used" and on sale at Kingkit.co.uk late last night. Shipping cost twice as much as the decals themselves, and I'm curious what condition they're going to be in all these years later. We'll see when they get here. I think that there is really a missed oppurtunity by not including any weapons in these kits. It would have been a great chance to get many of those unique Swedish weapons to hang under the wings. Oh, well. Hoops

The Italeri kits (and Revell reboxings in the early 2000s) were of the -39A/B. Additionally the Revell boxings had a slight different sprue arrangement, trading out an insert to provide primarily air to air armament in the form of a few poorly done AMRAAMs. The kits are typical 90s Italeri work, soft details, deep, soft panel lines, mediocre fit and accuracy. The recently released Revell kits are by far the best in 1/72 scale, and they represent the -39C/D versions. I have a C kit that I've started backdating to an "A" but haven't gotten very far on it. I can very strongly recommend it. Cheers, Hoops

Special Hobby stated here: http://www.specialhobby.info/2018/10/standa-hajek-new-paintings-for-sh72384.html that they will be releasing the JA as well in May 2019, Tarangus seems to be early access, but both will market a JA. Hoops

PM Sent

I really want to build "Petter Gul" the early 2000s show bird with the two black chevrons on the top. Any rumors of decals coming out for that one? Cheers, Hoops

I have a feeling that the Special Hobby kits might be a bit less expensive as well. Not by much, but a little bit. I have enough other kits to work on in the meantime that I think I'll wait for the Special Hobby releases.

I don't like the suface detailing on the Platz kit though, panel lines are too heavy. There are a lot of things that it does well, but for me those didn't outweight the finesse of the Hasegawa kit. I have one Platz J that I will probably do out of the box with some neat JMSDF markings, but I will not be getting any others.

The Brown and Sand colors you have listed are correct. I've seen the green color listed as either 34227 or 34424, but I personally believe that 34424 is a much better representation. This is what it would looks like: http://www.colorserver.net/showcolor.asp?fs=34424+33531+30219 Cheers, Hoops

I always wanted one of these as a prime mover for any Russian Bombers, i.e. a tug to pull them around. I'm excited for this release! Hoops

Looking forward to it!

https://phantomphacts.blogspot.com/2013/10/israeli-mods-to-f-4-pylons.html It looks like this helps with some information concerning the longer pylons. Thanks for bringing it up, as this was news to me! Thanks, Hoops

I'll be picking up a few 27UBs and as well as these 30SMs, it's a good time to be somebody interested in Flankers! Hoops