paulsbrown

Badass!

Yes, should've said it's the Trumpeter. It went together pretty good, the intakes needed a bit of sandpaper but not much else.

They were Airwaves Mk 16s that I did a little work to.

I was at an airshow at Seymour-Johnson AFB a few years ago and really liked seeing the T-38C with it's Navy Gloss Gray and Aircraft Gray camouflage. When I saw that it had duct tape over the various hatches I thought it would make a fun addition to a nice scheme. I added some new Martin Baker MK 16 seats that came with the aircraft's upgrade and some silver decal strips for the Alabama Chrome. Caracal decals were excellent replacements for the kit's awful ones supplied and the Caracal paint and decal guide provided great references. A bonus was they also included decals for the upgraded seats.

I'll have a look at the topic you started, thanks! I wish you had too, I'd love to see this scheme in a big, detailed 1/32 scale.

I've seen the Tamiya and it's quite a kit. I'm glad I made this one with the kits in the stash but would be happier if it had all the quality of the Tamiya for close up viewing! At the time I wanted something less complicated than the expensive Hasegawa or Hobbyboss kits and had Monogram and Italeri on the shelves. I couldn't face the sanding and rescribing the Monogram was going to require so I chose the Italeri as the main kit for the wings and fuselage. I liked the low parts on the Italeri but found it was too simplified in a lot of areas so I used some much better detailed Monogram parts for the cockpit, landing gear struts, etc. I'll soon reward my frugality with the Tamiya as a 1972 VF-1 which has always been a favorite.

Thanks everyone! I read somewhere that it caused a security commotion when it first landed, can anyone corroborate this?

Yes, Sol and the Academy kit, it needs a wash. I had a standard camouflage Su-27 which would've shown the silhouette better than the 710 but it's undergoing a repaint/repair.

This was a stash clearer, using my Italeri and Monogram kits up to feel better about buying the Tamiyas, AMK.... I've always liked this scheme, there's only a handful of photos that I could find including some flying and I have no idea how long the scheme was used. The Italeri fuselage was the base with a lot of the Monogram parts such as landing gear, vertical stabilizers, cockpit details. Aires wheels, Quickboost seats and pitot. Decals are from Two Bobs and Fightertown. Both had good references and Two Bobs has notes from the fellow who came up with the scheme. Colors were Light grey, ghost grey and medium grey and an off white.

Love it, do another Red Eagle.

Thanks everyone. Here's one of the reference photos I found that showed the fluid stains running down the fuselage. The engine nacelles also got pretty messy on some aircraft.

Here's my 1/48 MV-22 Osprey, Italeri is the only one in this scale but I always thought with a little work it could be made into an operational aircraft. I found some photos of USMC aircraft in theatre that were very dirty and that was what made me put it on the workbench. A little work here and there became a lot more. I reshaped the hump on the wing center, dropped flaps, moved the rudders, improved the cockpit, added seat belts, built bulkheads, life raft, chaff/flare dispensers, hand holds, opened the side door, and remade the windscreen wipers to name a few. Xtradecals make a couple of decal sheets that were essential, tons of stenciling, vents and things with some nice schemes. I was starting to make the rear door gun mount but think I'll get the Black Dog CV-22 set which includes it and also some nice dropped flaps that I'll replace my crudely cut ones with. I can't believe it will be long before a new 1/48 Osprey comes out and wanted to relieve my stash of this big box before that time comes. I had a lot of issues that didn't quite go right so it's one of my models that 'looks better at a distance'. I'm glad I did it and it looks great next to my F-18F and AV-8B on the shelf.

As a kid I built a Kiev class carrier with Forgers on it, bright green and orange deck, bright blue and green planes, quite colorful compared to the usual variation of greys of all other navies. I agree about the Forger’s green underside, never heard that explained.

Yeah, they always smelled awful but it was always just pure chemical and I remember them evaporating super fast which doesn't seem to happen either now.

They were in good company!