InFlames

Thanks, guys!

In December, one of the guys in a modelling group I am part of, gave an idea - let's do a "One week wonder" group build - you've got the first week of 2024 to start and finish a kit from your stash. I was up for the challenge and picked up HobbyBoss' easy kit F-84. It's not a bad kit per se and it has a few weak points but for a price for around 5€/$, it's hard to complain. Decals come from Hi-decals and represent one of the 34 of Imperial Iranian Air Force F-84Gs.

Thanks again! I totally agree. Sunset at the peak performance and so much upgrade potential...

Thank you, everyone!

About a year ago, me and my buddy Mitja decided, we should build the same kit from our stash but do it in our own ways - we picked GWH F-14D in 1:72 and picked VF-101 Grim reapers squadron, me going high vis, Mitja low vis. There was some aftermarket used - I used metal pitot tube, resin wheels and burner cans, while Mitja went with wheels and ejection seats. For the purposes of my vignette I also used excellent Reedoak figures. My vignette is called "Last season, baby!" and shows preseason photo shoot of one of the two display aircraft for the last Tomcat airshow season in 2004. Happy New Year!

Yeah, I think you are talking a build from Ugur Kenel. Yeah, I was thinning the parts as well, but couldn't get them to fit without the filler. You could almost see through the cockpit floor. But it was interesting to watch that vid, because he had the same exact issues.

Thank you everyone for you nice comments - glad you like her! I also apologize for the late reply - got covid and was away from PC for a few days... Thank you Dima! Your work was a great motivational start when I started mine - was try to add some mods and improvements but in the end the plastic started defeating me and I only concentrated on the finish, rather than all the minute details. Thank you! It says in the title - Clearprop The complex multipart design of the fuselage creates some rather complicated challenges on how to actually build it - at one moment, I was actually considering sawing the top part in half... Got it described on my webpage - check the signature below.

I was happily patiently waiting for this aircraft, got it still warm after release at Moson and after that followed more than 4 months of arduous work, trying to stick the parts together to look like something and got very close to binning it a few times. But I persevered and here she is.

Great job! I'd only swap the Sidewinders - the ones that you used are early mark and would be found only on early A models.

Beautiful job, mate!

Love it! Especially after seeing it quite a few times flying.

awesome work!

Today marks the 66th anniversary of the launch of Earth's first artificial satellite - Sputnik-1. Red Iron Models 1:24 kit

Amazing model!

Thank you, guys!

My first armor model in ten years and if I am not mistaken, only third in my "modelling career". Zvezda 1:72 - the fit is great and so are the details, it is only a shame that Zvezda doesn't offer the current versions as well (this one is operationally used only by Kazakhstan).

Actually, it's a little more complicated than that as I was considering it. But the front sliding part of the canopy is overlaping the mid section and the way, canopy is made, even by cutting (sawing?) it away, I still couldn't slide it back, but would either have to thin both clear parts paper thin and somehow recreate the framing on the mid portion or, what would be the easiest choice, find somewhere vac replacement... though I wasn't prepared to go that way, at least not this time.

Thanks to everyone! There was some fiddling with the wing to fuselage join, but what troubled me the most was short shot plastic sprue - worst being back gunners bulkhead and fuel tank.

Excellent Tamiya model, which made me a few problems at the start of the build, but luckily, I could remedy the problem. First time using Quinta 3D cockpit decals only to realize, that there is no option of open cockpit. Oh well, at least the canopy has the clearest clear plastic I have ever seen in a model.

A good start would be here - the Order of battle - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_order_of_battle#Carrier_Strike_Force Then it's easy - just image search for specific squadrons and you should get plenty of results. If you check my page, you'll find a complete VB-6 list in the SBD article. Hope this helps. yeah, the holes are a bit too small, but I'd say that's the major downfall of the kit. Don't know what the inbox reviews said, but this is one of the best WW2 kits I have built so far.

Flyhawk's decal sheet includes numbers and letters giving you an option to build almost any SBD that flew during the Battle of Midway.

I first attached the upper wire between the mast and the tail. Then I superglued the vertical line to the fuselage and when it dried, I (with the help of a 3rd hand tool) guided the wire over the top one with the self closing tweezers and started to "lower" it on the other side of the fuselage, thus creating sag on the main line. When I was satisfied with the result, I superglued it and removed the remainder of the wire.

Thanks to everyone! Markus, they are indeed a kit feature. I was a bit worried at the start of the build, as I still had vivid recollections of disappearing raised rivets on the kits from the '80s, but Flyhawk's engineering of the kit is such, that the fit is great and the danger of eliminating those due seams clean up is minimal.

Second addition to my Battle of Midway 80th anniversary build. After some excellent 1:700 ships (and supposedly 1:72 armor), Flyhawk released their first 1:72 aircraft and they nailed it the first time. There are a few minor things like open dive flaps (upper part should be closed), wrong stencils font and supposedly slightly wrong shape of the upper cowling transition towards the windshield, this is still an excellent first effort and just yesterday SBD-2 was announced. The model represents Richard Best's aircraft just before flying to his first mission of the day, when his bomb doomed the Akagi carrier. Mostly out of the box model, with just PE seatbelts added from a generic set.

Once again, thank you for your nice comments!