Phantome

Camouflage... blasphemy!!! Just kidding, great job!

Academy kits tend to fluctuate in terms of availability. A few years ago there were hardly any F-84s and I remember jumping with joy when I nabbed one on eBay at a decent price. Right now there are like 3-4 of them at any given time (meanwhile, the previously easy to find Tamiya is scarce) The other bit of good news is that if they re release it, it will likely be with nice Cartograf decals. Patience

The lack of decent early P-38s is one of the most frustrating to me. Every new P-38 kit seems to be a H/L. Hobby Boss would have nailed it if they had done early variants, even as an easy to assemble kit but no... I'm not holding my breath for Tamiya to downsize. Perhaps Airfix might bless us with a modern version of their old classic (one of the first kits I ever built)

Yet another in a long line of Revell disappointments in terms of their decal offerings.

Has anybody bought the new boxing? I'm curious if there are other decal options aside from the one on the cover (and whether hopefully the sprues are not black)

Either you are very careful with paint fumes or you are taking Covid preparedness to level: APOCALYPSE

Nice job with the riveting. If only Zvezda had bothered with that from the start...

Here's some pictures of a finished Academy A build. You can't objectively say that the RAM panels ruin it in any way: https://intscalemodeller.com/viewtopic.php?t=22523

The Academy has many pros over the Hasegawa (which I have built) 1) As you mentioned, the open bomb bays and weapons. This is... pretty important if you ask me. 2) Superior cockpit detail (though Hase's is not bad) 3) Hasegawa's A version has a very noticeable join in the inner middle of the fins which is not a panel line that exists in real life. It is incredibly tricky to sand off because the fins have curvature. Not sure if the B version has this flaw. 4) The Academy is about £2-3 cheaper from the Asian sellers. 5) An advantage that the Hase had was that it included the RAM panels as decals. The original Academy boxing didn't but it's newer boxing ("7 nations") does. And they're Cartograf. Finally, the raised RAM detailing is incredibly subtle (photos tend to over-enhance it) and I don't think it looks particularly inferior to Hasegawa's panel lines RAM detailing which one can argue is also unrealistic. I will give this to Hase though, and it's its only advantage IMHO.

Wow, that's very interesting. However, I can't seem to find any reference to that paint aside from mentions of "Coroguard" (different spelling) which is apparently the grey in the middle of airliner wings. It is a much lighter grey. Also, the cockpit color does not look at all like Medium Sea Grey. It's much closer to Dark Sea Grey but MSG is way too light. If anyone can find a sample of Corogard EC843, please link!

Edit: nevermind

Can't wait to see the £40 price tag

The Academy F-35A actually has slightly raised RAM panels though not nearly as obnoxious as Italeri and Orange Hobby. Overall it is far superior to the Hasegawa version and I suspect this one will be too

The payment of license fees is all the more egregious when you consider that 1) These planes were designed with taxpayer money 2) These planes were built with taxpayer money. That's modern hypercapitalism for ya. I'm surprised BAE Systems hasn't joined in on the extortion scheme. Can't wait to build my first BAE Systems Spitfire Mk I....