11bravo

Far as I can tell, their were three shades of OD used on Vietnam Hueys. The first was the very early dark, glossy OD. That went away by 66 or so. It was replaced by the common brownish-tinted OD that most Vietnam Hueys wore. This did fade over time and you can often see Hueys with darker OD replacement components. Lastly, at end of war, we started to see a much darker, greener shade being applied. It was seen on some US Army helos but was much more common on very late war VNAF Hueys. This was a precursor to the CARC "helo drab" that was introduced in the early 80's.

Hi folks, I'll be starting a 1/32nd F-4C Phantom build shortly. I'll be adding the ALQ-71 ECM pod. Wondering if anyone has some good quality photos of this pod? I haven't had much luck finding anything online. Regards, John

I like the mutant three-armed pilots. It's fresh and exciting! Hope more manufacturers take up these subjects.

A bit surprised by the pilots they selected. One guy has the single piece flight suit which I don't think came out until post-Vietnam. The other guy has the two piece nomex flight suit which was long gone by the 80's. Bottom line is that for a US Army Huey, no matter what era it's from, only one crew figure will be usable.

SMH.... This is the legacy of a culture whose only priority was to bend over backwards to cut costs and get $ back to shareholders. Engineers were laid off in droves and the ones who remained were marginalized. R&D budgets were hacked away. The entire 787 production line was moved to SC, a state with minimal skilled labor and whose only attribute was that it was rabidly anti-union (ie - dirt cheap labor). Muilenberg and the last 3 CEO's before him whored out the company to make shareholders (and themselves) rich. Disgusting.

Last I checked the AMS set was OOS at Spruebros. That being said, Harold of AMS frequents Large Scale Planes and he let it be known that he can still pop out a set of these on request. He can be reached at: hairold(at)frontier(dot)com I went this route and had the seats within two weeks. Good guy to deal with and the quality of the product is outstanding. All that being said - does anyone have some color pictures of a USAF spec Mk 5 seat? I've found nothing on the web. TIA, John

Yeah, because those folks have such an extensive background designing and building cutting edge, LO aircraft. What could possibly go wrong?

Title pretty much says it all. Looking for pictures of this jet when it was assigned to the 8th TFW (Wolfpack) at Ubon RTAB in '67. I've looked online pretty extensively and have only found one decent color picture (posted on the Piacciani website). I plan on building this jet as it looked later that year, using the awesome Fundekal's Operation Bolo decal set. From the amazing instruction booklet, you can see probably a dozen different colors on this jet. Just hoping to get some photographic references for my build. Any help is much appreciated!

Pretty sure in this case TBM = Theater Ballistic Missile. Not sure I'm a big fan of the Patriot system. In these days where any electronic emissions can be quickly geolocated and targeted, having a large, fixed SAM site may be a bit risky.

I know 2 current F-35 pilots. Both say that it's a very maneuverable, powerful jet. They rated it superior to an F-18 in everything except very slow speed, high AoA fights and about the equal of a late block F-16. Need to keep in mind that other jets might be much more maneuverable in airshow configuration but load them down with eternal missiles, fuel tanks, ecm pods, targeting pods, etc and that advantage is quickly lost, compared to an F-35 which carries everything internally. I think you are misinformed or just biased because it's not a European product that was selected. Also, you conveniently forgot to mention that since it's the only jet in the competition that is LO, if employed correctly, it should be able to take the shot without ever being seen by it's adversary, let alone having to get into a dogfight. And, uh..yes, I've seen the F-35 at multiple airshows. Happy modeling to you as well!

"you know"? How do "you know"? Show me some real data not just "it's gotta be true because I read it on the internet".

Had a very unusual visitor to sleepy Otis ANGB on Cape Cod (USA) - an E-4B Nightwatch. Thought I was seeing things when I noticed a 747 low over the trees (couldn't get a picture, sorry). It spent over an hour doing touch and goes at Otis, then took a leisurely tour of MA, flying up the cost at 3,000' before heading inland north of Plymouth and taking a meandering route at the same altitude and finally landing at Hanscom AFB in Bedford, MA. Flight Aware on my phone shows it as Rocky 25, which launched out of Offutt AFB.

From what I understand from a bud who works on these helos, the RTM322 had significant deficiencies with regard to TBO, fuel burn and general operating costs. With regard to weaponry, the US is equipping it's Apaches with the Spike NLOS system. Gives it a major range increase over both Hellfire and Brimstone.

Nice subject, I'd always wanted to build one of those "last Phantoms" as well. Just wished they had used the Pave Tack pod over there instead of just cluster munitions. Would have made for a very unique looking F-4.

Thank you Richard. Anyone ever had any issues ordering from this company?

Anyone know of a source for Live Resin sets in the US? Sprue Brothers doesn't have the one I'm looking for and through Google, it seems that my only option is an E-Bay seller in Hong Kong. Anything else out there?

Great work so far! Still amazes me on how tight the cockpit was for two guys. Truly the Mosquito was an amazing machine.

Hi Alan. Very nice build so far, I'll be following closely. With regard to what CC Mosquito crews wore - from all I've read, with the radiators so close to the cockpit, it got extremely warm inside. As such, for low level work, it was rare to see leather jackets and the heavy flying boots. I'm not an RAF uniform expert but it seems that they often just flew in their standard issue "ground" uniform, plus life preserver, etc. Hope this helps. John

The H was designed to improve on performance compared to the D/K. As such, I would be nearly certain that they would have continued to putty and paint the wings. Given that any F-51 you see in overall aluminum was painted during overhaul (along with the black cockpit), I also think it's likely that H's came off the assembly line in NMF (except for the wings). Whatever happened to them afterwards is anyone's guess. Look at pics of H models. If you can make out the slightly darker stainless steel panel behind the exhausts, the aircraft is NMF. When they painted them aluminum, they overpainted that panel as well. It's about the only way you can tell them apart from B&W pictures.

I second ordering direct from Jeffery. Fantastic service and his quality is second to none. I'm looking forward to seeing this build as well, good luck!

A very good reference on Old's F-4 (and others from the same unit during Bolo) can be found on the newly released Op Bolo decals from Fundekals. https://www.hobbyzone.biz/fundekals/docs/fun_32011.pdf The instructions are a mini-reference book! Well worth downloading and saving for anyone interested in early F-4C's. Lot of new info provided that wasn't known before.

Just wanted to second the comments on your two Corsair books. I used both for my 32nd F4U-1D build and they were absolutely invaluable. Well worth the very reasonable price. I hope you will be doing other "deep dives" like this on other WW2 aircraft Dana!

Another noob question - in this pic, the worn area on the seat pan almost looks to be wood. Was the -47's seat partially wood or am I just looking at weathered aluminum?

Just keep in mind that those early Phoenix shots were carefully staged and "enhanced" to ensure the best possible results. They were then used extensively for PR purposes to keep the F-14 safe from possible budget cuts / cancellation.

Not at all. Plenty of pics out there of V-22's flying into unprepared LZ's.