Phantome

Lovely work! Curious... what paints did you use?

Airfix kits aren't exactly shake 'n bake you know...

Also, worth pointing out the sole annoyance of the Hasegawa kit: it's not designed for an open cockpit. However, I suspect it should not be too difficult to do so with some minimal modifications (the canopy is, thankfully, a two piece, just nothing in place to keep it open)

I have not had the pleasure of building the Hasegawa kit but it looks great in the box and basically comes with a full European Weapons Set. Get it directly from Japan and it should be around £25-30 which is about a tenner less than the UK price. The original Revell kit is one of their poorest efforts. Bad fit, huge wing seams and surface detail is a bit plain (no rivets, lots of flash). It does not look nearly as good as their Tornado. That said, the decal sheet is impressive and probably worth the price of the kit alone if it were aftermarket! Has markings for all initial Typhoon users. I suspect if you have the patience to build it up while resisting the urge to bin it, it looks nice in the end... alas I didn't. I cannot comment on Revell's second kit as I have not bought it. Avoid the Italeri... that's all I'm sayin'...

Hello, Quick question: can anyone enlighten me with the story of USAAF/USN green seat harnesses? I notice that all the Eduard photoetch seatbelts have half of them in beige and the other half in green but I have never seen pictures of any US aircraft with green harnesses during the war though I have read that they were used late in the war (1945). Can anyone shed more light on this story? Around what time did this become commonplace? Did all aircraft switch to green or just certain manufacturers? From the looks of it, methinks Eduard should have gone for mostly tan seatbelts on their sets, and just offered one or two green.

Could totally take out an M1A2 SEP TUSK. No question.

Good luck with that. Sadly Wolfpak seems to force you into paying £15 for a decal sheet with one subject that is interesting and 5 other planes that you have no intention of ever building. It's a shame that they don't concentrate on same-subject sheets at more affordable prices. Their research is top notch though, gotta give them that.

That they're not as good as the older Hasegawa kits.

I guess that's why they avoided doing a Ki-61.... ... oh wait

Looking at the sprues my main complaint is that there's only 2 fuel tanks. This is unfortunate, since Gulf War birds typically carried all three. Does anyone know from looking at it whether it can be turned into a Gulf War bird?

The Fujimi looks fabulous in the box, I have no built one yet. I have also had the Italeri in my hands and it looked great too, though detail was less crisp. But look around and both finished builds look the part so you can't go wrong. The Fujimi A-6E TRAM boxing is very frequently found on eBay, if you're lucky you can get it for £15 or so (as I did a year or so back) but mostly goes for around £20-25... which actually is not a bad price given it's size and quality. The A-6A and KA-6 boxings are rarer and go for anywhere around £20-35

Sell a finished one on eBay and let the market decide. I have not seen many offers of commissions mostly because people would want a guarantee of what they'll get and on eBay anyone can claim to make "professional builds". Already built models barely sell, and if they do, not much above the kit price. On the other hand, *really* well built models can go for £50-100 or more. Seems there's no middle ground...

I feel your pain. I've been complaining about the lack of marketing acumen by many (most) modelling firms, but for some reason modellers on forums seem to complain endlessly about kit engineering while simultaneously thinking their marketing people are geniuses

I hate to pour cold water over this but there's a few points that I think you should really consider first before jumping into decal making (which I have considered myself). 1) The decal industry is the product of people being very dedicated to modelling and wanting to add value and fill niches. It is not exactly a hugely profitable one: margins and low and if you are profitable, it's probably just to finance the next sheet rather than expecting a Ferrari anytime soon. Many decal companies fold quite quickly, probably because most of the owners aren't rich and therefore aren't prepared to take even minor losses; the more established ones like Microscale benefit from the fact that they sell other modelling supplies besides decals and which makes them profitable. Many decal "companies" are simply one-man outfits which at most get research assistance from others on an ad hoc basis. They do it for the love of modelling, not out of financial reasons. Aside from the fact that your dad has a modelling company, how into modelling are you actually? I ask because you clearly just joined this site and these are your first posts, and this seems to be a question that would be asked after years of modelling and knowing the industry. 2) Decal companies acquire reputations for accuracy. Look around this forum and you'll often find threads of "are X company's decals are accurate?" and you'd be surprised at how many of them don't (there's a recent thread on Kit's World which was not very flattering, and Aeromaster - which was once one of the bigger ones around before they too went the way of the dinosaurs- was also known as "Errormaster"). On the other hand, many of the ones with the best reputation are those that are focus on particular subjects (ej: Begemot with modern Russian aircraft, CAM on US Navy aircraft). When you say something like "I'm looking to set my goals high and push to achieve them", this actually seems like the exact opposite strategy of how to approach decal making: start small, focus on a particular subject, get a good reputation, and gradually expand your reach. Remember: the grand majority of modellers don't buy third party decals. This is a niche industry for a small subset of the modelling market, one that is going to be highly critical of poor quality and shoddy research. 3) Modellers don't just want more [insert country] decals. They want subjects that haven't been approached. Again, this is something that comes after years of modelling as well as historical interest in the subject matter and realizing "why are there no Bosnia/Kosovo F-15 markings in the market"? "Why are there no hi-viz F-16 stencils?" "why can't I find the 'Jumpin' Jacques' P-51 in 1/72 scale?". We really don't need another 'Big Beautiful Doll', or Spangdahlem Viper, trust me. Anyway, again sorry for being a Negative Nancy. Decal making is a cottage industry that runs on love and dedication of the subject matter, not entrepreneurial acumen and infinite ambition.

Not sure why you didn't mention it, and nobody has spotted it either but... that's VERY impressive rivet work!