Dennis_C

It's possible of course, though probably observation of anything would be obscured by the solid back wall and engine shaft. Could the seat be simply rotating and just turned out to be facing back in the museum example?

A superinteresting subject! And done very well as a model The only question - why one of the seats is rear looking?

If you shine a torch into one intake - you'll probably see the blades through another, especially if you know it's there

I think this should be attached with rounded side down. In this way it is placed right opposite of the wing intakes and is better seen through the intakes.

Just noted that excellent air-graphics decal sheet for scout/wasp disappeared from big H. Hope they will reprint it!!!

This build is totally different to the other two (Tamiya and SH) because this is Sword! The longer I work with the more improvement options I find Here is some modification made to the exhaust area. On the bottom side there would be a visible pit beneath the exhaust pipe because the chute housing is molded together with fuselage sides. I glued in some rough plastic bit and added filler. After painting and fuselage assembly should look fine. Another improvement area is obviously camera section. First of all here are the cameras: I used original Sword bits as the basis, added lenses from the spare sprues, made camera boxes for large cameras that are seen from the sides and added some holder from wire. That is how this will look like when assembled: BTW camera windows fit was flawless. Now I need to paint all that stuff and move towards fuselage closure too.

As noted in other thread last week was not super productive but this week I'm catching up. I've inserted resin bays into the wings. Will need ti play with dremel a bit more to nicely close but overall does not look like I need too much effort. I've also modified the front gear with resin bits and added hydraulic scissor and landing lamp. Next step is painting interior metallic colors this weekend and fuselage closure hopefully next week.

Last week was almost non productive for me as I travelled twice with quite early wake-ups and late returns home. This week I started to catch up. I did some further sprue cutting to prepare more bits for priming. Here are some parts that I will not attach until the airframe is fully decalled: I've painted gear bays in chromate primer Hobby Color H58 and assembled the wings. Lastly I noted some visible sink marks in front gear doors So far that's the progress. This weekend I plan to paint interiors in metallic colors to move forward with fuselage assembly.

Early Merlin Spit would be the supermegahit for Eduard. There are some good kits on the market, but there is no the ultimate one. Superb kit at modest price would be a bomb.

The bomb load of B-17 is twice lower than that of F-16. And it's for short range missions. And I'm not talking about F-15 here. And BTW B-17 was also fairly empty inside

If these are just sprues I and F from the kit - there are should be couple Sindwinders as well in case anybody has insufficient number of Sidewinders in left over box.

That is incredible model of a rather incredible aircraft. Absolutely fascinating. Couple questions - what are those black plates behind each engine? Does not look like something very aerodynamic. And also do you have any interior photoes from you construction?

Well - some time for re-education and seems bumper was an integral part of the enlarged chute housing on both Streak and Flash. So no reason why anything on the Streak sprues could suggest a future Flash...

Regarding RF-84 - even if SH thinks about it - I do not think anything in current set suggests it except for the bumper. And wasn't bumper retrofitted to some Streaks as well? Sprue A - no unused parts. Most parts would fit Flash too except for fuselage sides of course. Sprue B - unused chute housing, bumper and short tail. All goes to alternative Streak boxes? And this sprue is useless for Flash as it has wings and front gear bay parts which were different on the Flash. Sprue C has only unused ejection seat options. Again other Streak boxes. It contains cockpit parts - partially reusable for Flash, wheels (not reusable), pylons, and projectiles. Sprue D. Tanks, some more pylons and nuclear bomb. So far unused are smaller tanks and a nuke with its pylon. Transparent sprue E works for Flash except for it has no camera windows. So overall conclusion - each sprue has something for a Flash. But each sprue contains much more unusable things. Which to me says "no Flash based on current sprues". If SH would group common parts onto a single sprue... But they clearly avoided this opportunity.

Mirage 5 please!

I wonder how the nose resin part would work. Streak had a deeper fuselage so this resin piece could turn out too short (or too low) for the intake. At the same time it seems that the front gear bay in Jet and Streak was almost the same. Cockpit elements are also quite similar and should look fine in the Streak. Another interesting point - in my resin set all resin was yellow and p/e fret was of steel rather than brass colour. Yours looks newer.

Yes - I like this sandwich approach more than any other design of aftermarket instrument panels. It makes instrument windows look glossy, produces very neat white dials and overall look of the instruments is superbly realistic. Far better than Eduard coloured photoetch (always wrong colour!) and better than decal solutions (especially those with white outline).

Some further cockpit assembly in motion. Put together cockpit tub, gun sight, pedals and i/p. Also added belts to the ejection seat.

I had this problem once in my experience with resin cockpit in Super Sabre that got detached after fuselage was closed... I do not remember how I managed it back to place, but that psychological trauma follows me since then so I always make sure the cockpit is monolith with at least one side of the fuselage. And thank you for warning signs especially with the tail. Dryfit looks fine but I understand that some glue might easily create extra 0.1 mm on each side leading to unpleasant step.

Some painting accomplished over the weekend. But before that I spend quite a lot of nervous hours with my dremel trying to squeeze in Aires resin gear bays. I find result satisfactory although about 0.2 mm still needs to be dremelled from the upper wings side or sanded from the resin bit. I'll do this after I glue in the bays. Cyanacrilate may add another 0.1 mm. I can actually squeeze the wing edges already but that is definitely a wrong way. Also I've brightened cockpit interiors a bit with brush and assembled instrument panel's sandwich. Next steps is gluing in seat belts as well as further assembly of cockpit tub. Two different greens are applied here. Hobby Color H58 as chromate green primer in the bays and vallejo green chromate as cockpit green toned down with grey primer (otherwise it's too bright). I know cockpit green has probably been more towards olive in some photoes but I'm ok the way my green looks like. Green chromate primer is maybe too acidic. I'll try to tone it down with wash and powders.

I think it's based on what's available where you buy stuff such as at local shops or in the web. And what stuff you actully buy. And even that can create wrong impression. After all if you look at sheer number of aircraft kits available at 1/72 on big H - guess what is the biggest boy on the market? AZ/KP with 419 airplane injection kits in 1/72!!! Second is Amodel with 321 kits (Amodel+Sova-M). Not sure if any other brands should be counted in. Third is MPM/SH with 179 kits closely followed by RS model with 175 kits. HobbyBoss/Trumpeter are 193 kits combined so in that case they are the third.

I could buy an Eduard Buchon... Special Hobby is out of production anyway. We have AZ Buchons available but that one is actually crude. And 260,000 Eduard Bf-109 - that is a lot! I wonder how much Spitfires they sold and why not to go with at least early Merlin engined ones???

Some update on the Jet. I added cockpit side walls, sanded some pusher footprints in the intake and exhaust. Exhaust pipe was not fitting very well leaving a visible gap between pipe and outer ring. So I decided to install exhaust sides and putty joint gaps prior to closing the fuselage. I also blanked off the end of intake canal to make sure pedals are not seen in the end of intake. Next step is priming additional parts and painting interior colours. Also I still need to finish main gear bays fitting.

Outer ring unpainted and green deeper inside. And there is even that support stub exactly as molded by Special Hobby. Nice! I knew that

Quite frankly I think your instrument panels already look very well without that constellation.