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Hi all, Here are the finsihed pics of my Maintrack 1/72 Vacuform XF-88B VooDoo build. It held (maybe still holds) the record for the fasted propeller engine aircraft, once hitting Mach 1.2 in a vertical dive with the jet engines turned off. As far as I know, the Maintrack version is the only way to be to an XF-88B in 1/72 scale, although you could modify an Anigrand XF-88 kit... Build thread Here: Build Thread Well -- fudge! Looks like the star and bar (above) slipped on me and I didn't catch it before the clear coat. As they say "you never see the one that gets you..."! I tried to do a very slight amount of weathering on the BMF. I still haven't found the best way to do this, but I keep experimenting. I just didn't want it to be too pristine, but it's a tough problem. Hope you find it interesting, Ed

And now I deal with one I've been putting off for years, the Maintrack 1/72 vac u-form XF-88B Voodoo. I have several variants of Voodoo's in the collection, but this most bizarre one has heretofore eluded me. I have built the Anigrand 1/82 XF-88/XFF-88A resin kit, and it's very nice. However the prop/jet combo aircraft have a certain siren song of their own. But, enough chit-chat. For those who do not know what an XF-88B is, glance at the bottom aircraft nose on this copy of the Maintrack sheet: It's basically an XF-88 with this nose, a few more scoops, afterburners and a few other mods thrown in. As far as I know, this kit is the only game in town for this aircraft in this scale. I used to live in the approach pattern to one of the Langley AFB runways when this aircraft was being tested there. I wish I could say that I remembered seeing it fly, or setting at an open house, but I can't. Maybe it was too secret, or maybe I was just in school while it was flying. Oh well... As for the kit itself, it consists, as you would imagine, of vac u-formed sheets, decal, vac u form, canopy, nicely molded metal parts. The most important part, the four-bladed turbo-propeller is always broken in these kits, and mine was no exception. However, a little drill work, a tiny piece of wire and some CA, and the single broken blade was soon reunited with it's siblings. And, as you would imagine, the vac u-formed parts are all treated like on any other vac kit, traced around on the sheet, scribed around, then separated from the sheet and sanded to depth/fit. As this has been covered elsewhere by far more qualified modelers than I, the process will not be repeated here in any detail. While I normally do a lot of things and assemblies simultaneously when building a vac u-form model, I'll try to present this sing-a-long with a more logical sequence! Let's just say I began with the part above on the right... After sawing in half a perfectly good pair of XF-88 fuselage halves, for the purpose of joining the correct nose later on, I had to first change out the engine outlets, to the afterburner version of the "A" and "B" models. Section "A" above was removed from the right fuselage half, and the necessary "cut" line was marked then sawn on the vac u formed modified part provided. In the pic below, line "A - B" represents the fuse center line, which lines up fairly well with the right side of the aircraft, while the cut for the left portion has yet to be made: Next, reinforcing strips and a bulkhead have been added to one fuse half, while the "afterburner" cutout has been done on the left side of the fuse: After assembling the rear fuse halves, it became apparent that my first cut for the new afterburner mods was not correct, so some shims were added from appropriately-size plastic card. The good thing to remember about vac models is that you can usually always add or remove more plastic to get things to fit. Obviously not true if you destroy the only canopy or other hard to replace part! At the end of all that, some major gaps were left in the area of the tailpipe fairings, which I filled with pieces of plastic straw: They were cut oversized, glued in with liquid cement, then trimmed to size with a razor knife, after drying. Next, a little Bondo spot putty helps smooth things over: Well, that's it for this installment. Follow along if you have the stomach for it -- it's not likely to be pretty! Ed