PATRICK FROM THE SANDS

Thank you All! I built these kits sometimes ago and I think that there are still the best on the market for an F-84G...but not the cheapest! As I said, I put a lot of goodies (AIRES etc...) inside but, at that scale, the model can be easily built OOB, with a very good result. Highly recommended.

Hello Everybody! I showed you in a previous post a Tamiya F-84G I have saved from my bin after a moment of rage... So here is his brother, same fabricant, with a lot of aftermarket inside to make this kit more accurate and attractive. Markings reflect the colorful, well known and well documented FS-454, the 58th FBW CO bird. I used the Aeromaster decals sheet 72-170 "Thunderjets over Korea" rather than the Kit decals which I found too thick. However, I struggled with the Aeromaster product which has some inconsistencies and was not so easy to apply. I didn't put too much weathering, as it is the Boss Bird! Here is the result: And the little dio: The tractor comes from aftermarket with a lot of enhancements, the ladder is scratch built: And to finish, a family photo: Thank you for watching!

Thank you All! My quest to find some photos of this particular aircraft is not over, I still have doubts about its overall decoration. As an example, not sure that the wingtips tanks fin were painted in yellow???

Absolutely superb! certainly the best Corsait I saw in that scale...Bravo!

Hello! Today's kit has an history as it is a survivor of my trash bin: I started to build the Tamiya excellent F-84G but, to improve a little bit it, I had the silly idea to adapt an old French resin aftermarket product (for the Heller kit). The result was disastrous and catastrophic, as it didn't fit at all and as a result, I finally broke in two parts the fuselage. Rage rage rage! I threw the whole stuff in the bin but, after calming down, considering the price and not wanting to invest in another one (shipping cost is a killer) I decided to rebuild it. I just dropped the flaps and ailerons, add a vacform canopy and enhanced the wheel wells. Painting was done using various shades of ALCLAD II. I faced another problem with the Aeromaster sheet CH 72-02, the decals have badly reacted to the decal set softener. So I finally painted the fin yellow and added black stripes. Curiously I didn't find any photos of FS-460 even is Osprey Frontline Color 3 so I can't tell about the accuracy of the Aeromaster sheet. By looking to pictures of aircraft of the 49th FBG, I didn't find any evidence of aircraft wearing stripes on the horizontal stabilizers so I didn't put them, as indicated in the Aeromaster instructions. If anybody has some photos of FS-460, I will be very happy to see them to enhance my kit! Photos: ...and, as usual, the little diorama: That's it! Thank you for looking, critics most welcomed!

Hello Kits Lovers! Here is the second Shooting Star I built to complement my USAF saga: The F-80C from Sword. Not a bad kit, overall accurate when compared to the Squadron Signal drawings. I just improved the wheel wells, cockpit details which are a little bit scarce and put the gun camera pods in each wing as showed in the photos of the real bird (ref. Osprey Frontline color 5). NMF was done using different shades of ALCALD II, markings show a F-80C from the 36th FBS and come from the XTRA decal sheet 72120. I painted in red the air intakes and add each tooth of the sharkmouth, for a better result. The only caveat is the blue color of the national insignia, not dark enough to my opinion... Here are the photos: The real bird: Mine: And to compare with the Airfix kit which was Bare Metal foiled: ... FT-748 is more realistic to my opinion... And to finish a little diorama: I spent a lot of time (much much more time than on the aircraft!) to modify a Heller CCKW-353 GMC truck into a M-27 Bomb carrier. Based on pictures, I scratch built with some difficulties the rear part of that truck, not being a car/truck/armor modeler. Respecting the overall aspect and dimensions of the M-27 was quite challenging, given the few documents I found on Internet...the little guys are uglily painted, not being specialist! That it for this post! Hope you will enjoy it!

Hello Fellow Modelers! Here is a trial I made on an old Airfix kit I didn't want to get rid off: I entirely covered it with some self-adherent bare metal foils, expecting some kinds of results... After sanding, preparing the kit and thoroughly cleaning the surfaces, it took me quite a long time (and efforts) to cut all foils respecting (almost) panels, gluing them in different directions to change the NMF shade of silver. I did also some improvements to this very basic kit (cockpit, wheel wells, airbrakes etc...). Marking represents a colorful 8th FBG CO aircraft as seen in page 102 of Osprey "frontline color Nbr 5". Decals are coming from the surplus box as well as the Misawa tanks, not provided by Airfix. I will NOT do it again, too time consuming and the final result is not convincing at all that scale... too super shiny! Paints on the market today produce a much better and realistic NMF effect. Here are the photos: Thanks for looking!

Superb! can't believe it is 1/72eme as it looks stunning!

superb! very convincing for that scale!

Absolutely stunning! great Corsair!

Simply beautiful!

Hello Terry! Thank you for your kind words! About the wheel wells, I completely removed the original one from the wings, including the extrados. It is not too difficult to do because the plastic is soft and not so thick. Then I glued on the upper part of the wing (the extrados) a thin plate of Evergreen (the thinnest one) and sand it. Like this I have a wheel well with the correct shape and depth viewed from the intrados. For the fuselage part, I didn't do any surgery, the depth is correct for the wheels to fit inside. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of this, and I don't know if my explanations are clear enough... BTW, I have also the Sword T-38 kit 1/72, the WW are even worst! But this is not the most difficult work to do on this kit, I spent hours to figure out and scratch both canopies folding mechanism, which as I said in the post quite complex. It was quite challenging! Happy modeling!

Hello Everybody! Continuing my USAF jets saga, here is the little F-5B from Italeri. Not a new kit, but quite decent. Two big issues I tried to tackle: - The wings are very thin (like the real bird) so the wheel wells are not deep enough: What I did was totally removing the whole wheel wells from each wings, leaving a large hole, glued in the extrados a thin plate of evergreen and re-construct the WW with the correct depth; after this the landing gear were installed but needs dramatically to be detailed (both main and nose); -the cockpit, a known issue in all Italeri kits at that scale: I did a new one almost from scratch, the most challenging parts are the separation between pilots and the mechanism to raise the canopies which is very complex and obviously oversimplified by Italeri. As I like camouflage "off the beaten tracks". I decided to represent an F-5B from the 405th TTW sporting an unusual version of the SEA for the F-5, the FS 30219 Dark Tan been replaced by a light beige color, but not everywhere. Also, the yellow band on the top of the fin is not completely painted. Unfortunately I have only one photo of the aircraft, right side: The 405th TTW bagde is home made, names on the canopies are fake because too small to read. So here is my version: Hope you will enjoy it! Have Fun SAFELY!

Nice build, however the French roundels seem too wide to me. The blue shade and weathering are top class!

Well done AIM and your work on the stuff is Top Class! I recently bought a USAF Tractor from them, 3D printed and the kit was firmly attached with so many resin tentacles to its basement, quite a challenge to remove without damaging the main part. I remember doing this access ladder from scratch for my Italeri SR, not so easy to do. Could be interesting to compare it to the AIM one! If I may, there are two additional wires connecting the base horizontal legs, which seems to miss in your build but again the rest is brillant!