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HE'S AT THE EXTREME RIGHT OF THE FIRST PIC! ALERT ALL TROOPERS! SET BLASTERS TO STUN! DOWN WITH REBEL SCUM! Lovely build and dio, thanks for posting. Cheers, Andre

Well earned! Lovely Lightning. Cheers, Andre

Academy's in-house decals notoriously behave badly even while new. Still, she looks good from here! Cheers, Andre

Well, at least the decals look nice. Cheers, Andre

Then again, it's Tamigawa compared to this abomination. Cheers, Andre

Also, normally USMC RF-4B's flew their mission from land. Wing tanks were practically never carried when flying Phantoms from carriers, the fuel sloshing around in the wing tanks would create all sorts of, eh, 'interesting' CoG effects on launch. Cheers, Andre

If I buy one, at least I'll have something to live out of after my girlfriend evicts me.

At least, that was the proscribed method. During combat over SEA a number of crews forgot to get rid of the centreline tank before popping off a Sparrow in the heat of the moment, which must have led to a fair amount of localised clenching. Cheers, Andre

Then again, $10 for the FM weapons set is less than I paid. Cheers, Andre

I'll so be all over this. If only to keep my Modelsvit Mirage IIIV company! Cheers, Andre

Brilliant!, love the weathering. Cheers, Andre

Me neither.

Great work!

It may have been a struggle, but you can't argue with the end result! Great looking Pregnant Guppy. Cheers, Andre

Smooth, AFAIK. Cheers, Andre

Lovely! Which paints did you use for the camouflage? Cheers, Andre

Nice and colourful! Cheers, Andre

Isn't that everybody's standard modus operandi? Lovely work, gotta love those classic Monogram kits. Cheers, Andre

Thanks!, but so far so crappy. We just had a few decent hours of sun yesterday, but obviously that immediately prompted my girlfriend to enjoy the sunshine at our picknick table. If I would have sent her away with a "Yeah, I kind of need the table for airbrushing, hon", I would probably be in hospital now. Well, at least I could apply the ASK masks. Cheers, Andre

Thanks! I have put some more time in this weekend. Some succulent masking done: Camera bits painted NATO Black, with some chrome pen dots to simulate the lenses: The fit of the clear parts was... interesting. I needed to sand all edges to achieve anything near a decent fit. Funnily enough, the largest and most complex shaped clear camera windows bit (starboard fuselage) gave me the least trouble: Like I said - the fit was, let's say interesting: With that, the fuselage could be closed up - I find this always a major milestone in any build: Obviously, some of the painstakingly fitted clear parts popped right out again. Oh well, at least that's better than having them fall in. Starboard wing fitted!, fit is decent, I still have to sort out the cavity between the leading edge of the wing and the inner wing fences but some wood glue will make short of it, I hope: Cheers, Andre

Very nice. I like this kit as well - the proverbial Oldie But Goodie! Cheers, Andre

A small update on this one as well, I was dissatisfied with the fit of the upper nose so some much needed filler applied and cleaned up: Cheers, Andre

With apologies for my tardiness (work, crappy weather and what regular human beings appear to call "so-cial life") some progress on this one. Aft windows fitted: This one was an older boxing - newer ones have added parts for the jet pipe and the bits between the aft quarterlights. This one did not. So. I fitted a spare Eduard MiG-15 jetpipe in the back end, chucked some lead sheet up front for CG reasons and scratchbuilt a basic triangular shape (depicted just to the left of the nose gear doors in the instructions above) to prevent the dreaded seethrough effect and painted it Dark GullGray. And with that, it was Clamping Time!: "Some filler required": Which cleaned up nicely: Cheers, Andre

Apparently!: Here she is in her current state - tail feathers fitted and some more filling / sanding / rinse / repeat done on the nose part. With a bit of meteorological luck I can spray some metal on her this weekend. If only I knew some people who were meteorologists during their Air Force careers! Cheers, Andre

Rene who? (Funnily enough, my manager tends to call me Rene as a running joke). I have managed a bit of progress, but I must confess having been quite negligent in my BritModeller duties of late - the killing combination of too much work (I must have put in about 50 hours last week all together), social / family obligations and crappy weather which prevented me from doing any airbrushing, since I'm confined to the back yard for that. Anyway, here is where she is as of yet: Cockpit, nose landing gear bay, and jet exhaust fitted and some lead sheet CA'd in the nose for weight. I have just received a mask set for the canopy and clear photo nose panels, hopefully the weather will permit some more airbrush work this Easter weekend. Cheers, Andre