LopEaredGaloot

Mike, Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the less convinced I am that anything will save the HB 111 family now, short of reverting to mid-90s pricing like they were Trumpeter. Which will never happen because there is a legitimate 50-70 bucks (Hasegawa F-14 level) of plastic stuffed in that box about a 1/3rd of which is unnecessary and all of which is going to seem an exhorbitant amount to be buying upgrades for while anything which comes out for it is likely going to be able to fit the Academy as well. Where a lot of this is _individually cheap_ ($5 better wheels, $15 multiwall bombbay + doors, $15 Pave Tack + GBU-10Es, 15$ AXQ-14 + GBU-15, $15 2+2 SRAM/B-61, 12$ BRUs and EW pylons with ALQ-87/131, $20 Vulcan insert, door fairing + AIM-9). All of it largely sourceable from the HB itself or other existing 48th kits will minimize mastering costs, so that you are going to be looking at a 'Doctor in the house' condition where the resin fixes and a 25 dollar Academy kit are a good enough solution to everything but the wings and perhaps the M61 module/fairings. At which point, a lot of people are going to look at themselves and realize they'd just as soon avoid the 'privilege' of dropping and painting the high lifts if they can get a kit for half or less the cost of the HB using a mix and match approach to what they choose to upgrade. About the only thing missing is the Black Box cockpits and who knows but that they won't be reissued under Squadron label (almost all their cockpit sets are sold out for Christmas so they should be busy repopping). If you can just get a decent, automated, order handling scheme with fast delivery, folks like the good Doctor will make a killing, cannibalizing the HB. Because you _do not need_ Stephen Thrum's level of wheel well detail as a single-cast piece when the (say) bombbay is filled with nukes or guns and missiles. Anything at all will help the Academy kit. Including HB parts. The Academy, when you know what you're doing- http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Fea1...111_Gok/00.shtm The HB kit when you know what has to be fixed, just to get started- http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/details/...il_sq9642.shtml LEG

Will, No. Sorry to be so blunt but if you are after a straight A, what it comes down to is your needing to amass a whole 'nother bunch of parts, including but not limited to Scaledown Wheels and Verlinden EW greeblies/cockpit (yes, I know it's supposedly a 111F) as well as DMold or CE intakes, Aires TF30 burner tubes and BRU-3 from an Academy or Zhengdefu donor kit if not Mr. Thrum. And finally a Hasegawa Weapons Set C for the ALQ-87 pods (in fact, the Academy 111E gives you these, too, they just aren't really well detailed...). http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/kits/aca...1689_parts2.jpg http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/kits/aca...1689_parts4.jpg i.e. You are better off starting with a 25 dollar 48th kit that at least saves you 40 bucks in bomb racks while you add 60+ in other stuff. It will still be cheaper than the Hobby Boss. If you just want to make your EF-111A as nice as possible, the HB, with it's bug-eyed windscreen and uncertain fit of the football tail and canoe plus heat exchanger bits is a step backwards and into the unknown respectively. If you already have the Paragon or especially Scaledown flaps and slats, you are already invested at 90% of the price point of the HB and it would be a crying shame to waste all of that resin, not least because it has better shape and assembly (the flaps have a bulge and the slat tracks should not go all the way through the wing, both of which details HB missed). The Academy kits are _nice_. They have near Hasegawa panel line quality and they more or less give you what you need for each variant, if nothing 'extra' (bombbay, Pave Tack & LGB, proper tanks and SRAM/B61). That's 90% of the problem with the HB kit. They are playing to a filled market niche where they are not a noticeable step up in anything but the high lift area of the wings. And they are charging 4 times what you can get the older kits off of EBay for. At least wait for the variant you like to come out in the hopes that HB will fix or improve the known issues. LEG

Joel, BRU-55 CVER http://www.airforceworld.com/fighter/gfx/f...18e_takeoff.jpg AMRAAM Multirail http://www.zap16.com/zapnew/wp-content/upl...ing-500x333.jpg http://images.brisbanetimes.com.au/2009/07...18a-600x400.jpg http://quicklink.all.googlepages.com/f18_08.jpg You're right of course, if the Tamiya F-14 is anything to go by, the Trumpeter F/A-18E will be 10+ years in release before they even consider an update and so you want to think out a few years into the future in terms of keeping the kit as current at midpoint as it is today. Which means that you need to consider the kinds of ordnance that cheap+numerous+lightweight works in todays mission environment in SWA chasing insurgents. While also acknowledging that, in addition to plugging the gaping hole left by the F-14's departure without replacement in the FADF role, sooner or later you are going to see an all F-35C + F/A-18E/F deckload which means that the new Hornet will finally stop handholding the old one forward into the deep littoral and start supporting stealth tactics by acting as a big-weapon suppression + counterair platform. With GBU-39, you don't have to bring the stealth strikers right over the target, your BRL can be 30nm or more out, but since an S-400 can reach 60nm, even on an agile fighter with reduced signatures, you have to think about rollback with a lofted smart-ARM (AARGM) out to 70nm or more, just to stay in the game. While having a 200nm powered decoy also helps. Now throw in 12 threat Su-30 airframes and start counting your pylons. Even with netcentrics to halve the effective pole distances, something's gonna come up short if you don't multirack or rail up the middle pylons at least. Given all the drag penalties they paid in the aerodynamic bandaids for the outer wingpanel issues (KPP was 393nm, achieved was 363nm, that originally -promised- was 550nm, OPEVAL is a pass:fail experience based on key performance parameters...) the jet needs all the gas it can take to reach these incredibly deep, 12-15 hour mission radii, like OEF presented. And if the inner wings are jugged, there may still be separation issues with certain ordnance that can really use the 1760 interface in the rack. 'No conical-tail 500lbers' sounds an awful lot like GBU-38 to me. OTOH, if you are doing low-radius CAS, MAS or NTISR, (which is now effectively if not officially the Navy's role) with effective tanking available; then there is also the question: why parent load the pylon if you can double up? 3 12 jet squadrons is a very low total sortie count compared to the Roosevelt load of only 15 years ago and getting up enough orbits to effectively cover a country will make a huge difference in nightly allied body counts on CNN. But that in turn also means lone jets have to be able to drop enough ordnance to keep an engaged squad in the fight until more help can get there without undue exposure themselves. Finally, there will only be 183 Raptors and none of them are carrier capable which means both services are transitioning from the AIM-120C to the dual-pulse -120D, with some very visible proportional length changes between the two 80km MRM and 180km LRM (ERAAM by any other name...) variants. http://www.aereo.jor.br/wp-content/uploads...5/aim-120-2.jpg http://www.f-22raptor.com/pix/photos/news/060422_02.jpg http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-10860.html Now I cannot confirm that this extended section ahead of the midwings is more motor, different IMU or just testbed telemetry gear that they have jammed in. Certainly it is suspicious on any internal weapons bay jet for which the existing missile carriage box is already tight. Heck, it might even be an optical illusion. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile...20-untitled.jpg But what is important is that it has clipped controls for certain which means the closer you get the modeler to an 'AIM-120C' starting point with 32nd scale wing facets, the better off he is. Obviously, with the large proportion of 18F models in the budget to buy out the Tomcat Community's vote back in the early days of the Super Bug program; the best jet for any kind of FORCAP or OCA mission is going to be a late lot twin stick with that massive AESA scan volume and the back seater gizmology management advantages. But there will still be a sizeable compliment of early E's ondeck and netcentrics can effectively make every one of them a silent shooter for these kinds of weapons, using the stood off fighter controller to act as midcourse provider. Given only that everyone plays smart and has the longer spear to hit the enemy from unfavorable aspects outside their scan cone's effective counterdetection coverage. The same goes for intercepting the new generation supercruise or mixed profile AShM when we just are not certain how Standard and ESSM will perform at low level on these targets. The more compass points you cover with mixed sections (and late E-2E APS-18 lookdown), the more you can put shots into geometry, even if every platform is not AESA equipped. 24:7 inshore. And so you are back to giving even just an E the kinds of mission loadout that you would expect on a much later time period F, acting as a spare set of pylons and a sortie if not force multiplication aid. Which is how Trumpeter should have justified their approach to the model's ordnance. Some for today. Some for tomorrow. Keep the kit flexible and yet current as much as you can. LEG

Bandwagon 106, There is plenty wrong with the weapons loads, as usual about evenly split between ordnance which shouldn't be there, ordnance which is the wrong type or in the wrong numbers and 'in a new category', ordnance which is in dire need of other ordnance/racks/pods to look right. AIM-120B should be C and ideally, there should be seven, not four of them. AMRAAM has been solely C-model produced both here and in Europe since about 1997. There are no BRU-55 CVER which means multicarriage on a single pylon is out. There is no correct AAS-46 NHII or ASQ-228 ATFLIR, the included AAS-25 LANTIRN (F-14) pod doesn't cut it and as the USN uses MSI to track targets, even in A2A, there should always be a pod onboard. Now that RWR and Jammers are derigeur, 4th generation targeting pods are the new 'don't leave home without them' avionics item and supposedly every Super Bug rolls out the factory doors with one on the port fuselage shoulder station. AGM-84E is a done deal (retired/remanned into the later long span version in the mid-90s) and AGM-84H/K still needs an AWW-11/13 pod as the Navy prefers MITL. No SHARPS pod. The ALQ-131 is an Air Force Only jammer. The MER and TER are generally Air Force Only racks, at least on deployment. GBU-22 is not even used by the U.S. services. No AGM-65E/F. No LAU-115/LAU-127 for multicarriage of AIM-120. You don't get cool ordnance like GBU-38 or GBU-16. The APG-79 is only just now coming online and is only a 2-seat, late lot, sensor because of the fuselage design and weapons station controls issue. Maybe if India orders some this will change but I doubt if it will effect the already built jets. There is no HARM even though it's shown on the boxart and desperately necessary to the Hornet's still largely conventional signature in the flank and RQ zones. This is fraud. No D-704 pod or sufficient tanks to form a tanker variant, even though this is a primary (and very expensive) single-seat platform mission set for the Hornet II in dragging legacy models 'from the sea forward' into deep inland targets, now that the S-3 is gone. Ideally, you would want to have at least two basic loadouts of pure air to air and pure air to mud with some 'swing in the middle' mixing to allow for self-escort recce and SEAD. With at least two tanks inboard because the jet is a drag pig and the radii are a lot farther than originally 'one on the center' KPP required. HARMs, JSOW and even ITALD go well together. SEAD. Maverick, GBU-38 and GBU-12 or even 16 go well together. OBAS/X-CAS. HARM, X3 AMRAAM and SHARPS makes sense. Recce. X5 AMRAAM and HARM make sense. MiGCAP/TARCAP Sweep. X7 AMRAAM and three tanks. FORCAP Fleet Air Defense. X2 or X4 480 gallon tanks and D-704 pod. As forward or overhead tanking options. Note that ALL of these missions will have at least some air to air and many will also have some overlap in mud pounding ordnance. So it's not that there is too much to include in the box. Yet instead, we get a basic standoff/interdiction loadout with heavy weight JDAM and SLAM-ER which doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense for a single seater and is visually ugly (in combination with tanks especially) as well. I don't know about Europe but in the U.S., street price is 220 bucks and the hobby shops are pretty much sticking to that or a little more. You can get it for a 'mere' 150 online. The kit needed a lot more than what it provided to justify that kind of price. Kind've like the Eurofighter (which is also short ordnance in a couple key areas). LEG

Hi Barrovian, Thanks for that. I think the original Swedish version, as applied to their recce Viggens etc. was 'BOX-100'. I have seen references to the German version being called out as 'BOZ-101'. And so it would make sense (particularly if the size/shape of the EXCM were unique as they are between USAF and USN period jets) that these are export model series enumerators, to differentiate national EW suites. Either way, it would behoove potential HB builders to really look at this buildup- http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal6..._Tarran/00.shtm And this kit review- http://kits.kitreview.com/images/italeri2648reviewme_7.jpg Because it really looks to me like even a gear down, lid up, jet is going to benefit from a 20-30 dollar Italeri kit donating at least the doubled up Skyshadow pod if not the canopy as well and some weapons. Kind've a shame really for us Americans (Italeri Tornados are both scarce and expensive here) but I understand you can't swing a dead cat without hitting Italeri product in Europe so perhaps there is an EBay market for built up spare Skyshadows...eh? ;-] I really wish that HB had included the French (?) VER-2 racks and some BL.755 or Mk.13/18 stores as the early RAF Tornados used this loadout in a lot of publicity shots and it looks really good with 8 bombs underneath. I believe it was also a valid warload as late as Granby when it was used (with radar fuses) to toss bomb Iraqi Air Defenses while the roadrunners went in with JP.233. Unfortunately, the only kit that I believe has this option out of the box is the original Airfix release (the one with the ALARMs) and it's exceedingly hard to come up with here. LEG

Hi Sergey, Thanks for the pics. Hate to say this (because I have one too and have simply been too busy glomming my 111 to notice) but the entire nose looks misproportioned. It's hard to say for sure because of the great honking IFR probe on the starboard side but these- http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/Pa...27b6d9472ce45ba http://www.airliners.net/photo/Germany---A...27b6d9472ce45ba http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/Pa...27b6d9472ce45ba Indicate to me that the entire sill line slopes too much and indeed curves downwards under the windscreen, burying the latter entirely too deeply in the fuselage rather than letting it rest atop it. I'm not but about half convinced that his makes the nose too shallow and/or puts off the radome waterline but even with the mass of tape, it looks to me like the radome is too stretched for it's size and that the taper begins too early on the top and too shallow on the bottom. Probably the biggest cue that something is off somewhere is looking at the amount of space between the windscreen fairing (in the fuselage) and the canted panelline for the radar set which connects with the BK27 muzzle cutout. There is way too little space between that line and the windscreen on the upper fuselage- http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/Pa...27b6d9472ce45ba Probably the key to sheep-gutting this interpretation is the line of the inlets and how they 'lay' against the fuselage but using these two examples- http://picasaweb.google.com/sergey.archako...327402827106850 http://picasaweb.google.com/sergey.archako...327435873401090 It also appears like the entire front end is too wide through the inlet shoulders in comparison with these shots- http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/Pa...-GR4/1429975/L/ http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/Pa...do-GR4/1619293/ http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/Pa...-GR4/1483639/L/ http://www.airforceworld.com/fighter/gfx/xuanfeng_5.jpg Just looking at the profil ruling curve and the shape of the sharp edged part of the fuselage as well as the width and curves of the intakes themselves, something looks awfully chunky in there. Could be wrong, hope I am, this aircraft isn't as much my thang. But the obvious question for me, to any who have a spare Italeri kit lurking in their closet, is how much lays up nicely together and if there is something totally wretched going on here, is it a function of bringing a canopy and a windscreen and some stabs over. Or sending the wings with all those LES/TEF bits back across to the Italian kit? I guess what I'm really asking is if someone can do a side by hip photo comparison. Also, is it just me or does the MW-1 look a little shallow? http://www.sirviper.com/fighters/tornado/luftwaffe.jpg http://www.airforceworld.com/fighter/gfx/tornado_ids_1.jpg http://www.vectorsite.net/twbomb_02_10.jpg Given the ECM fit (and the fact that I love the German Lizard scheme) I'm thinking this kit will end up being an MW-1 platform while the ALARMs and FLIR will be ported to my Italeri kit, just as soon as I unpack the box which it's hiding in... ;-] Kinda reminds me of the old Monogram 72nd kit. Neither a fox nor a rabbit. LEG

Silverburn, I like the boxart. In fact if they had sold it as was originally shown- http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/3109/garyan..._fe857509_L.jpg They could not have offered it here in the States because it would have been deemed fraud (see the old AMT 'F-4G' which was a hardwing jet with someone else' slat-buildup on the boxart. They yanked that sucker off the shelves in a heartbeat then spent 10+ years selling it in bargain bins at half off or less...). As you can see here (almost at the bottom)- http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index....p;#entry1726951 It is possible to get some air to mud stuff from the Trumpeter kit and my understanding from the Cybermodeler review of the single seater is that their A2A stuff is '2 missiles shy of a load...'. Find someone who needs either AMRAAM or Meteor and do a trade perhaps? My problem with the 1/48th kit is that it's all basically the kind of million dollar (Storm Shadow/KEPD-350) round stuff that you expend all of half a dozen warshots blowing up some backwater's sole SAM site with before you go back to 'ye olde LGB'. Iraq has proven that precision is good but cheap is better and while that means GBU-12/38/49 for us, for you folks that basically comes down to the decidely meaner looking CPU-123B (if there are any kits left) or GBU-16, along with LITENING AT to replace the TIALD for both services. Mind you, a triplet or two of Brimstone or AASM (which I guess the Germans are due to pick up) wouldn't go amiss, especially if it came with the inner wing pylon and the large (Tornado?) subsonic tanks that they have supposedly been working on in lieu of CFT. Would make for an interesting 'StriPhoon' loadout, that's for sure. Looking forward to seeing your buildup. LEG P.S. Was supposed to get one of these from Great Models. Anybody know of someone that has these in the States yet? Thanks.

Thanks Matt, I must say I take a slightly opposed view from yours while agreeing on your main point about the lack of Snakeeye retarded weapons and proper BRU racks. Jim Rotramel's weapons load pages have been up on Hyperscale since 2003- http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/f111indetailjr_8.htm And I believe before then on F-111.net- http://www.f-111.net/models/weaponsloads/index.htm With He and Bondo Phil as well as a horde of books out there, there is no excuse for not knowing what goes where, by exact date and configuration, for the entire history of the type. And who to call 'if you have any other questions'. The other thing for me is that the 111A is, admittedly, not the greatest of vanilla airframe aircraft. Really, the only things it has going for it is the fact that it carried a LOT of bombs, operationally. And it used the weapons bays for live ordnance, in anger. The latter is the real complaint here because it is the one thing which fixing on the Academy meant master grade scratchbuilding skills as you basically had to 'convert' the entire forward fuselage, after assembly. Anyone that has built one of the Academy kits knows how much fun getting those main fuselage pancake pieces to stiffen up is. You basically have to use internal bracing like on a vac kit or the roof she is a comin' down. And when it comes time to mate the forward end to the forward fuselage; getting rid of the resulting transverse seam (ridge) is especially hard if both sides of the join are not perfectly aligned. Now imagine that you've got the kit together with all the innards in place and all the bracing is CA'd within an inch of it's life. And you decide you wish to insert a bomb bay. Guess what you have to do? That's right, _cut both sides of both joins_. Right down the bottom middle seam. It is the C-Section of F-111 modeling. And the F-111 is all about that weapons bay. A lot of design penalties accrued, including boat tail drag issues and the side by side cockpit and frontal profile area which added 20% to the required internal fuel load, were paid solely to get that bay. The Tornado doesn't have it. The Su-24 doesn't have it. And both of those are appr. 60,000lb gross weight machines instead of 100,000lbs. And the reason is, as the Cold War historians here should well know, that the F-111 came about in the Cold War when the last 50-100nm to target were expected to be supersonic all the way in and out to deliver canned sunlight at the end of a 700-1,000nm radius. For the 'Vark, this decision came about as a function of the October Crisis and the U.S. unilateral decision to 'stop supporting' IRBM/MRBM complexes in Turkey, Italy and the UK. When the RAF retired the Thor less than four years after it's debut- http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/theater/thor.htm Which in turn caused the USAFE chiefs to look at fleets of obsolescent F-84F, F-100F and even the latest century series F-105D as their residual nuclear delivery platforms. And cringe. Because (in Great Britain alone) they had just traded 60 surefire launchers that could put rounds unstoppably in-air within 20 minutes of launch notification and 45 minutes of Moscow from hidden hardstands. For jets that needed every inch of a pretargeted 10,000ft runway and were upwards of 2hrs from target, even in Europe, this was unacceptably risky. The TFX was thus originally a pure nuclear strike airframe for which variable geometry- http://www.palba.cz/forumfoto/albums/userp...86/f111a-11.jpg was seen as the way to get the jets off of pretargeted MOBs and onto 3,500ft stretches of secondary civilian and possibly even 'rough' fields unlike the RA-5C and TSR-2. As much as any FB, that is the spec to which the F-111A was built to. Wholely, solely and only. The rest, including the external stores of a 'tactical' bomber whose mission radius requirement was on the order of a B-58, is just the result of a McNamara/USAF fight over standardization and the desire not to kill a nuclear oriented strike aircraft program in an era of multirole conventional mission diversity. But the bay was always there and it was always full in Southeast Asia and this distinguishes the 111A from every other 'Vark Variant and indeed most of the Century Series. Ignoring the weapons bay is ignoring what every F-111s lineage is based on. So here comes Hobby Boss with a kit that does what it needs to to represent the design of the airframe but is ultimately still no better than the Academy because the bay is empty. And they make us look like a bunch of numpty's for buying into that at 100 bucks a pop. With none of the appropriate B28/43/57/61 nukes (Testors F-117, OOP. Belcher Bits F-104, resin) readily available for the grey and white prototype scheme- http://www.zap16.com/zapnew/wp-content/upl...saf_63-9766.jpg https://commerce.mysecuresites.com/home/Col...11a39772top.jpg And the SEA pattern dominated by the immediately visible, EXTERNAL, features of the M61 fairing- http://ourbaytown.com/baytownbert//Takhli_...nd/target0.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:F-111As_...Lancer_1968.jpg http://www.f-111.net/models/weaponsbay/image004.jpg You are still left with a pretty big scratchbuilding effort involving all kinds of compound curves and large-block internal shapes. Thus what HB have done in trying to set up a basic kit for every future variant is in fact create an unsellable hybrid that will doom every one of them, just like Academy's generic, 'one box fits all' sales approach did. Yes, I too can remember the days of 43 dollar Academy switchblades. And the reason is ultimately the weapons fit. Obviously: 111A X24 Mk.82LDGP X16 Mk.82HDGP X12 M117R X16 SUU-30B/B X2 ALQ-87 X2 B43/57/61 X1 AIM-9B X1 M61 Is a lot of weapons to fit in the box. And that is what makes it cool enough to buy as a 'diorama on a contest table' potential model- http://www.takhli.org/gallery/byrd/f111_load.jpg http://img248.imageshack.us/i/f111bombload02lk6qs6.jpg/ While it would also provide a lot of spare ordnance for other 60s period jets as incentive to buy a very expensive bomb truck. What's more, if done as one large and four half sprues (as is the case now) with the BRUs and Mk.82 slicks getting the majority of the big ordnance tree, what it would have allowed is for the other variants to retain the Mk.82 slicks as a baseline option and switch out 2 or more of the smaller sprues for: 111D/E X12 Mk82/BSU-49 X12 BLU-107 Durandal X2 AIM-9P (shoulder) X2 AIM-9P (CATM) X1 ALQ-119 X2 SUU-20 111F X4 GBU-10E/B X4 GBU-24 X2 GBU-15 V1/2 X2 GBU-15 V21/22 X1 AXQ-14 X2 AIM-9L/M (underwing rails) X1 ALQ-131 X2 SUU-21 So that each jet could have a valid and interesting weapons load, forcing the public to buy more. As is, the majority of the initial sales will depend on a drooping interest in the mutt 111A, none of whose ordnance is all that inspiring because it is 90% incorrect. And for those who can afford the baseline kit, the temptation will be to use its TP-II inlet and Pave Tack parts to go straight onto a 111F smart bomber no matter what. All of which will leave no reason for secondary, long-wing variant, sales such as might interest the UKers- http://www.f-111.net/articles/AIR_International/cutaway.jpg These being the only ones which are appropriate for the likes of 600 gallon tanks, Popeyes, ASW-55 datalink, Harpoon, SRAM and B83. i.e. Basically, they've done exactly what Academy did in a more expensive format. Creating a generic weapons load on an incomplete kit whose pricepoint will kill sales, even to those that can afford them (I can only because I gave up a 32nd scale F-100 and Tu-22M2, earlier this year). http://www.aviationarthangar.com/avarthacolab.html Everyone, thanks for the welcome, I'm tired so I won't bore the rest of you with more random thoughts. If I didn't respond, it doesn't mean I didn't read and appreciate your replies. LEG

Jon Bryon, I guess I just like stuff that goes boom. :-] Having just started building the thing, I don't have a lot of construction review comments at the moment and I won't have a complete buildup until I find a cheap Verlinden set (which I'm told has the ECM pylon, 'Winder shoulder rails and a slightly better cockpit), a 2 Bobs sheet and get my Scaledown and Hasegawa weapons set shipments. All told about 120 bucks, assuming I don't get an Academy kit and do a little impromptu surgery on the escape capsule to fix the canopy issue as well. As for the real aircraft, unfortunately there was a war on and there just wasn't time or often ready airframes to do much training as there had been with 'clobber college' and the various in-country training programs of WWII and Korea (which were, ironically given the TFX spec, often weather driven). I'm honestly not sure what the pure strike side of the community was like but I know that they were taking novice F-4 crews up North straight out of squadron training with as little as 1 crew familiarization flight and while they tried to always pair an old hand with a young buck, it didn't always get done. It didn't help that they were pulling crews from behind desks and out of training pipes for all kinds of other missions but it was the mission loads that led to predictably ugly results as especially with the Fluid Four tactics being flown, #4 (section two wingman, least experienced in the flight) in the F-4 community routinely got whip snaked out of the division turns and then sniped as he limped home, short of gas and generally lost. Statistically suffering the highest casualties of all the SEA element positions and all because the USAF wouldn't undertake the kind of training that led to the USN success with Loose Deuce and smaller individual elements. The 111s were a different breed however, both because they were under the spotlight for being such massively expensive airframes and because of 'the big mystery' of the wing failures during the early deployments- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...42639-1,00.html But it should also be noted that, because of the publicity and the demanding nature of the mission, they were something like the F-117 of their day and as such tended to attract high-time, handpicked crews (17 year veteran pilot for example) anyway. Hence they came to the fight a lot better trained on their specific platform and didn't probably need as much training, which is what a clean airframe would be about on a busy combat theater flight schedule. Given they also generally planned and executed their own missions with their own schedules, it meant that the bird had to be checked out and armed well before they were ready to go too. Opsec was a joke back then and while everyone tried to be as private with the details of their mission as they could be, the 111 crews were particularly religious to the extent that it was often hard to determine exactly where a missing aircraft had disappeared at. They only had to hit the tanker once per mission if that and this was often their sole point of contact during the flight. With unpredictability of route and times their only real defense, as jets began to disappear, they got very paranoid of the Vietnamese airstaff that worked in the planning cells alongside us but more importantly, as jets were lost, the number available for any given night's frag order inevitably dropped too. I frankly don't know what happened with the force in the bombing halt interval between C Lancer and the end of Freedom Train but when they came back in Octoberish 1972 for the end of Linebacker, the 111s worked hard to get past their bad karma rumors and develop a solid reputation as on-time/on-target special mission force, flying some 4,000 sorties until about mid '73 when they went home again. With that kind of mission load and again, a relatively small deployed force, I don't see room for much non-mission related check flights or training. The 111 is a warplane, SEA wasn't a police action. While I understand that it's lines are exceptionally clean and swoopy in the air, with all the flaps and and slats hanging and the nose avionics bay/weapons bay doors open, it's not going to win any beauty contest as a Hobby Boss buildup. So why not hang the ordnance that will make it look like what it does? HB have unfortunately rendered this an economics question and there isn't a polite answer. LEG

1. It's a giant box. Noticeably heavier than the Tornado and so packed with sprues that you will be lucky to get them all back inside once removed. I had a devil of a time getting the damn lid off. Think Dragon Armor. I understand now why Lucky Models had to up their shipping rates from 16 to 35 bucks though I still don't believe it's worth even the 70-80 dollars, that you can get it shipped in from over seas for. 2. You get a massive bomb bay which is a multipart buildup in it's own right. And absolutely nothing to put in it that is appropriate to the 111A. No nukes. No AIM-9s. No Vulcan. To make a decal appropriate, period, F-111A; you need AIM-9B and a trapeze (Scaledown has had one 'in the works' for years but I will probably just rob an Italeri F-22 kit of a LAU-142 AVEL and hope it's fudgeably close) and an M61 Vulcan 20mm package. http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/f111indetailjr_7.htm Jim Rotramel's pictures give you an idea of the sealed, modular, appearance of the weapon most of which was the monster, 2,000rd, ammunition magazine. It should be visible on any F-111A with the doors open as most kept it installed right up through the 80s. Due to the external fairing, this cannot be 'assumed' with closed weapons bay doors on a SEA jet and because the kit is not really set up for an airborne presentation and the weapons bay doors were nearly always open on the ground, even the inner details cannot be avoided. The one valid exception to the second rule would be if forward mounted ECM pods are loaded. More on this in a minute. There are no less than four AIM-9Bs and all of them are worthless as the canards are all oversized, and highly swept with the guidance CCU unit closer in shape to an AIM-9D in configuration than the long, straight sided, cylinder of the AIM-9B with simple, right-triangular, canards that flew in Vietnam. It would have been better if Hobby Boss had concentrated on getting us some decent AIM-9Ps for the also absent upper pylon launch rails. To my knowledge, even the later life 111A did not carry AIM-9s underwing as the 111F did because they did not use the long-span GBU that made it necessary. These post-Vietnam weapons did come in two basic flavors: An AIM-9J look alike warshot and an AIM-9E lookalike CATM. Often without tail rollerons in the tailfins and with highly swept canard trailing edges. http://fly.492bolars.com/F-111F-Cliffa-Tai...-full;init:.bmp As is, you really need the Hasegawa Weapons Set C to replace what is there and some good photos of the upper shoulder rail launcher to scratch build the adaptor as well. That these must be considered MAJOR MISTAKES on the part of Hobby Boss can best be illustrated by the fact that, without them, you cannot make an F-111A with the supplied Vietnam era decals. i.e. The kit is no better than the Academy which can be found on EBay for 25 dollars or so. 3. The MERs are not BRU-3, this means a trip to Scaledown/Ozmods- http://www.layuqwam.com.au/Ozmods/Scale.html And 23 bucks for proper BRUs (bigger, heftier, versions of MER, still six-weapon capable...) though these are still the A not B versions they need to be. 4. Markings are for a gull over white prototype jet and a '1973' jet out of Vietnam. I thought we were all in Thailand doing Constant Guard by then but anyway it is very disappointing not to see Combat Lancer/Reaper and LB-II markings. It also makes it particularly important to get some BRUs as the early CL deployments were the only time that standard MERs were used. BRU are to MER what Arnold Schwarzenegger is to Pee Wee Herman. 5. TERs were never used operationally to my knowledge. They show up in a company propoganda film for an FB-111A with all pylons mounted droping M117s but that's it. 6. BOMBS. Mostly wrong and not enough!! In Vietnam, the F-111 could ONLY drop unguided ordnance. The difference being that, 'skiing the karst' at 450 knots, it could get in and get out before the Vietnamese could even dowse their street lights while dropping from an altitude where those weapons didn't have time to develop ballistic inaccuracies that F-4C's and 105D's dealt with. http://www.456fis.org/THE%20F111/f111_bomb.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...opping_MK82.jpg IMO, the second worst issue with the kit is that it doesn't truly represent a period F-111A's external weapons loads. Anything headed up North is not going to be dropping unretarded ordnance from the +1,500ft or so it takes to fully clear the frag and blast. Anything doing Trail work over in Laos is going to be dropping on a flare or radio beacon which means it will be carrying a lot of ordnance to make up for the miss distance even as it flies higher to stay out of the AAA and the terrain. As indeed, the new F-111 Walkaround includes a couple shots of an F-111A at Takhli with Mk.82 X24 spread across both inner and outboard wing pylons. Which means you really need to come up with a minimum of TWO Hasegawa Weapons Set As- http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/ISL/.../Hase_X48-1.htm Since the above only includes 6 and 12 total of each and you will likely want to have a homogenous looking loadout even of slicks, that means another 34 bucks in added munitions sets to really do the kit justice. The Walkaround also has another shot of X12 M117R with the Snakeye mechanical retarder fin grouping shown here- http://www.b-57canberra.org/images/064.JPG Which is not available _anywhere_. Why Hobby Boss, didn't you pay attention to this? It should be noted here that Mk.82 Snakes will likely impose a carriage limit of 16 weapons in slant four configuration and mediaum sweep due to the +/-520 knot limitation on the mechanical tails. I don't actually believe that the jet will be dropping any weapon not a nuke from full sweep because of clearance issues and handling qualities. An alternative (which also isn't supplied by anyone) is the CBU-52/58 cluster bomb which was great for hosing down SAM and AAA sites and could also make a mess of flightlines and roads. Cluster bombs are automatically 'high drag' configured and carried I believe in a flat four configuration because of their large size. Of note however is that these weapons were based on the SUU-30B/A casing which looks NOTHING like the bloated watermelon shape in the Hasegawa weapons sets or the Monogram A-10. Unfortunately, you only get six of them in the Weapons Set so you will still need more than one. Later 1980s loads- http://softek.ibelgique.com/images/f111/f111_1.jpg http://www.vojsko.net/photo/letecka/bitevni/f-111_12.jpg Should also include the BSU-49 ballute retarder which can be dropped much faster and is, in many ways, the ideal F-111A weapon (yes, I know this is a 111F but the A was rated to carry it). There are none now available in plastic outside the Hobby Boss Tornado and not nearly enough there. Ozmods has them in resin but they are expensive. 7. ECM. As shown here- http://www.f-111.net/models/inlets/IN001a.jpg The F-111A carried a pair of ALQ-87 (ne QRC-160) pods. These could either be the same as shown or in split configured mods with one pod having blades and the other buttons on the lower side. In any case, you get ONE ALQ-87 pod in the box. And absolutely no pylon to mount it to the jet with. http://www.f-111.net/models/ECM/index.htm This is totally unacceptable, IMO. Because the stores loading diagrams SHOW the pod on the aft station mount. Yet I see neither instruction diagram nor plastic to support this. Also included are tail boom appliques (E13/14) with coverplated ALE-40 series expendable countermeasures. I could be wrong on this but I'm pretty sure the 111A used a roving system of cuttable chaff in the tail booms before the ALQ-137 was installed. Not individual buckets and certainly not in SEA. 8. Weapons Instructions. The entire, strangely laid out, multifold, instruction manual is non-intuitive because it requires you to read and flip pages but in terms of weaponeering diagrams especially, it includes only one page detailing assembly of about half the pods and weapons in the kit. Along with a Hasegawa style loading diagram on the last page which is completely fictional. You would think it would be nice to have something that referenced exactly how to mount the MER or TER to the pylons, wouldn't you? Apparently not. You would think that HB would show SIX Mk.82s mounted on stations 2-3-5-6, since their boxart does, wouldn't you? You would think that TERs would not be listed for both inboard and midwing (actually outboard since stations 1 and 7 were so rarely used) pylons while MERs are shown cleared only to the INNER pylon wouldn't you? When loaded for speed rather than bear, the BRU is ALWAYS put on the outboard station so that the wings can sweep fully. I'm pretty sure fuel tanks would also normally only be outboard, if carried. 9. TF30s I have no idea if they are the right P-xx number but my heavens they are beautiful. And completely invisible when installed. I have no problem with Hobby Boss including engines in a kit. But I do wish they would: A. Include extra exhaust nozzles so that, even when inaccurate because the nozzle stays on the airframe, you don't lose the ability to display them off the jet. B. Include a stand, cart or _open engine doors_ to let them be displayed properly instead of assembled and then tossed aside. As is, you get a full engine + EMAD yet the burner ring and after turbine stage is still mounted too far aft and these two, 18 part, collections of details are, tragically and entirely, locked away inside the assembled airframe. EVALUATION: It's a beautiful looking kit for a model clearly intended to be displayed in a 'museum' type format with a base and evyerthing open and/or hanging. In this, HB vastly exceeds the capabilities of the rather vanilla Academy kits if not the assembly skills of most modelers. It is just a shame that, given this approach, HB made so many accuracy mistakes. For like the early F-15B DRF/AFCD Strike Eagle demonstrator; the F-111A was always a dumb bomb/smart airplane system and 90% of the munitions and racks it needs to look good in the role are either missing or inappropriate. You cannot build the jet any way but wings-forward, on the ground, without massive modification to the wing seals among other things and as there are also no pilots which means that getting things right in the way of hanging ordnance and power-off = open weapons bays was crucial. Hobby Boss failed here and along with the windscreen issue covered elsewhere, it really drags down the quality of the model. IMO, the jet cannot be built as a SEA -combat- F-111A because the markings do not support the on-airframe ordnance and racks as supplied. With the Pave Tack and late model ECM + underwing AIM-9 launch rails included, it actually comes closer to being a 111F and while the Afterburner Decals for an LN coded Libya Raider are no longer readily available, Xtradecal's X48-006 USAFE sheet can still be found with at least the right tail codes for the Lakenheath birds. If you do a 111F, you theoretically only need the Weapons Set D for the GBU-24s. If want to do a cool looking Vietnam period 111A, IMO you need at least 2 Weps As (and/or 1-2 Scaledown sets for the BRUs), 1 Weaps B and 1 Weps C to cover the incomplete bombs, absent ECM and incorrect AAM. As well as the scratch building skills to fabricate the M61 installation and fairing, trapeze and/or shoulder mount AAM rails. The F option still won't be an easy mod because the Pave Tack, while complete with it's cradle, does not come with the cutouts in the weapons bay doors. http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/images/f1117jr_3.jpg Yet since you are given a closed-door alternate option (again inappropriate for most 111As on the ground) you at least have some wiggle room to experiment with doing an F. My AVQ-26 is destined for an SJ-coded Phantom so I am stuck with doing the A. CONCLUSION: Here's hoping that 2Bobs will rerelease their Combat Lancer sheets and make doing a period '68 jet (with MER, not BRU) a more generally appropriate option for a 111A. I would also like to see a Christmas Period jet from '72. I hope that Mr. Thrum of Scaledown will both fabricate a cheap and easy M61 fairing (two pieces) plus insert (three basic, if large parts) and an AIM-9B with trapeze (four parts) plus a set of ECM pods and belly pylons. Four sets for around 7-10 bucks each would quickly bring this jet up to spec as a basic A, whatever you did to solve for the droppable ordnance. It also frees us from the Hasegawa racket. That aftermarket anything should not be necessary in a 100 dollar kit bears repeating. While on the subject, let it also be said that Scaledown could really benefit from _FINDING A U.S./BRITISH RETAIL DISTRIBUTOR_ to increase the visibility and availability of their super 111 detail sets now that there is another new kit to show them off with. At the least, they need to automate their order system. We don't need to wait on and most likely cannot afford a 90 dollar weapons bay to the level of Mr. Thrum's MLG bay and the Hobby Boss included details are good enough for most, IMO. But unlike the MLG bay which is basically covered by a great plate of a door and thus more or less invisible, the weapons bay is also currently a yawning chasm of emptiness that begs to be filled with a decent looking and period-correct pair of weapons so that the HB kit can finally be built for the one war in which the Alpha model 'Vark really contributed. LEG

Nice. Too bad that they seek to isolate variants by weapons loads as particularly the IDFAF have both indigenous 'Lizard'- http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/lizard...r-israel-03921/ And a large purchase of American Paveway II ordnance on the way- http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/israel...b-stocks-03590/ To replenish _existing_ stockpiles. That said, the only thing that is really interesting to me are the GBU-39. I want some for the Hasegawa F-22A- http://www.armadainternational.com/03-6/article-full.cfm (photo two thirds of the way down) and without the BRU-61, the weapon is useless. I remember a big brouhahah awhile back when it was discovered that the latest 'U.S. phosphate' bombs were being used on the poor Palestinians and a major European firm had to be contacted to run lab tests to prove it. I wondered then if the Israeli's had got hold of early series production GBU-39 to act as digger weapons on the subterranean tunnels that rat warren the Occupieds (the 'phosphate', if it's the chemical I think it is, acts as a blast retarder, lowering total shock impulse and raising heat which is a good thing when you are pounding away on the foundations of some very large buildings). In any case, even the jets with the 1760 adaptors on all CFT pylons still need the BRU-61 release controller to properly interface with the SDB and it would be very nice to see it, hidden somewhere among the sprues. http://hashmonean.com/2008/09/15/israels-g...-to-iran-video/ http://images.xooob.com/20090104/1231393978750.jpg LEG