WiP 2 - Dragon 1/144 F/A-18 E VFA-105 "Gunslingers"

  I done some decalling work on this one today when I was waiting for the paint on the other ones to dry.  I forgot how much hard work Dragon decals where.  I might arm this one up, still not sure yet.  Still got a little bit more to do on her tho.

   Not many decals on her really, I need to sort that yellow out on the tails... or I could be really lazy and just leave it entirely... hhmm...

   The other, more photogenic side!  God knows what makes it like that... I have coated this in 4 coats of varnish so hopefully I will finally be able to do a decent wash on it.  I doubt it will work like that tho.

  Close up on the "Gunslingers" mascot (it that what it is??), this thing is about 7mm high and look at the detail on it.  Very cool :)

   That is all for the F-18 E thus far...

  PEACE!

  Dazz

Completed - Dragon E/A-18G Growler and F/A-18F

  Well I have been working on these two since... June.  I've had a few headaches which I have listed on the Britmodeller GB forum.  But onto the pictures.  I'm not happy with the Jasmine Model decals, they seem well overscaled or the Dragon kits are massively underscaled...

  Both of them together.  I started to rush them towards the end so I could get them finished within the GBs deadline.  I managed it by 3 hours I think... gotta rush the Apache now as that finishes this weekend also.

  Best thing I love about Dragon decals?  The lack of stencils, the worst thing I hate about the Dragon decals? the lack of stencils! :P  I have decided to build these two again at some point.  Not sure when tho.

 The other side of the Growler, still not decided if I should do a wash on these two or not.

  The Swordsmen example, colourful little bugger isn't it?  If you look closely at the red triangle warning decals under the canopy you will see what I mean about the decals being oversized.  You can not read the names of the pilot/navigator/ew guy either.  I think they are the right way up... I hope...
 

  I also had no yellow paint to paint the top of the tails either.  I had lots of "No Step" decals in the pack also, but I will save them for a kit I know will use them well.  Overall I am quite happy with the end result.  The Canopies are very thin and very clear.  You can see right into the cockpit also, but they are very brittle.  I dont know how but the one on the Growler has got a massive crack up the middle.

  I am still working on the Gunslingers and Tomcatters versions.  Didn't get them finished for the GB.

  Hope you like, and I apologise for the dodgy camera work.

  PEACE!

  Dazz

New Purchases 1/144

  Yes I know I have been buying more models than I build, but I am hoping that should change soon as I have now cleaned off my desk in my bedroom for modelling, where as before I was using the kitchen table.  Least I will be able to listen to better music and have easier access to reference material, ie the interwebs and my book collection.  Right onto what I have purchased.

  All of the following where from King Kit - www.kingkit.co.uk a very good modelling kit website.  I will be using them again.  I only really wanted two kits from them but I think I ended up buying 8!!!  Onto the pictures.

   This was the first kit that I actually wanted, I'm not a great fan of CAG schemes as they seem like some kinda ego boost to me.  However this one I like, it fits with an A-10 to me.  Also it has the dual AIM-9 launchers that an A-10 should have.  Got lots of extra weapons with this one too, always handy to have. 

   Two planes I have always liked, the F-16XL was a design that was put forward as an bomber, it could carry 16 bombs on it.  I believe that this design proposal lost the the F-15E Strike Eagle.  The two that where built where given to NASA hence the cool black paint work on the plane.  The Saab Viggen is one of those weird planes that I love for no reason at all except that it looks cool!!  I always loved the way that Swedish planes are designed to operate from crap airfields and motorways, yeah I know that any plane can operate from a motorway but it's cool to be in the design.  I know the RAF used to train their pilots with motorway take offs with the Harriers and the Jaguars.  Not too sure on the Tornado tho... hhmm.

   As a kid I remember making an 1/144 F-4 Phantom from the Hellenic Air Force.  As a kid you never really gave a crap about details then, as I had painted it metallic aluminium and put the decals on.  I guess you could call this a trip down memory lane for me.  I got the F-16 as it's nice to do a plane in markings other than Russian, American and British.  I think it looks like a cool model to do with just the two tanks on it and the AIM-9's too.  The Tornado was because I wanted a GR1 model.  Every kit I have of the GR1 is missing the ECM pod under the left wing, I'm hoping as it's on the photo it should be in the box.  Gotta love a Sharkmouth Tornado. ;)

   The Su-25 Frogfoot (love that name) was bought because I have a thing for ground pounders/anti-armor planes.  I'm hoping it comes with a lot of ammo that I can use on one of my other Russian jets.  Now the Hawker Hunter, what a beautiful plane!  Anyone who doesn't love this plane is either moronic or blind!  It's also cool that the Royal Navy are still using them to this day via a 3rd party.  It also kicked serious arse in the Indian/Pakistan war, the pilots loved it because it never let them down.  I remember reading that one pilot hit a sand dune with his tail after a tank had a lucky shot at him and the plane survived and got him home too.  Class

 
  This Tigershark was added to the pile as it was cheap and I have been after a good F-5/F-20 for ages.  The paint work looks easy to do so not much to worry about and only... 8 decals if I am lucky.

  As of yet I am not too sure how I am going to paint them if it's going to be OOB (Out of Box) or bodge something up myself.  Will have to see what happens and how I feel.

  Thats all for now... PEACE!

  Dazz

New bits 1/144 and 1/100

  Nat is going to kill me, as I have promised her that I wouldn't buy anything until I had completed a few more models.  Well this little lot I couldn't resist on, first up the Tamiya ones.

 Love this plane, dunno why... guess its because I grew up with it being the fighter of the RAF and it appeared in a lot of the films I saw at the time for the Vietnam war.  I got this F-4 Phantom and the MiG-21 below at the grand ol' price of £2 each and as I was ordering other bits I thought why not.  Also I do not have any JASDF planes either so it was an added bonus. :)

  Another weird plane this, it's not a plane that I like but it is one that I respect.  Not decided if I want it to be Polish, Russian or Vietnamese yet....

  Found this on a website I order stuff from, it was the same model as the one I had ordered off ebay but didn't receive as they messed up the order and went out of stock.  Looking forward to making these :)  Got a thing about the Growler for some reason... I dunno...

  Now this one, I had this model before when I was younger which I think was a PML (?) model, I got it from Poundland, good model it was too.  I was just it together and left it, it came with a stand too!!  This time I am determined to make a decent model of this one.  This version is the F-16 Cranked Arrow, I hate the term F-16XL it makes it sound like a fat bastard this is the plane that got beaten by the F-15E Strike Eagle.

  More bits to add to the "to-do" pile :P

  PEACE!!

  Dazz

New models 1/144 and 1/72

  Me and Nat went out to Lakeside the other day, first time in ages and we had Wagamamas... yum yum.  Anyhow I always go into Modelzone to check out what they have and usually I try to sneak out with a model that Nat hasn't noticed that I have picked up :P  Well we went in there and I was on the look out for a new E-2C Hawkeye as mine has fubar'd up.  I might be able to recover it but I am not in the mood for it right now.  Well I spotted this instead, Nat told me to get it as it's not a "little fart arse thing"... anyhow below is what I got.

  I love the look of this plane, looks mean and it's a European theater plane too, which wins point for me as I saw the Battle of Britain's Memorial Flight C-47 Dakota fly over the other day.  Such a beautiful plane, anyhow it was in the colours of the D-Day landings and I was kinda inspired by it

  I also got these 3 in the post from Ebay, I did order an EA-18G Growler too but I am waiting for that to turn up.  Anyhow I was looking through the kits and I had brain storm concerning the two models below.

  Now these two both had nothing but Air-to-Air missiles in it, I wanted to do something different.  Then when I was researching the Tornado GR4 (Below)...

 It comes with 4 Storm Shadows, as you can see on the box art, there is two Storm Shadows on the wing plyons.  As far as I am aware that would hardly ever get used, its very rare to see a Tornado without the fuel tanks on that station.  I have only ever seen a Tornado without a fuel tank when it was on QRA or parked up.  But I know the Storm Shadow can be put there so technically it's not wrong, just odd.  Anyhow, while researching where they went I saw that the Storm Shadow is used on the Dassault Rafale and the Typhoon FGR4, and I had an idea once I saw the GBU-10/GBU-12's in the kit.  I am gonna turn my Typhoon into an FGR4 and the Tomcat will be turned into a Bombcat.  As far as I can see there wont be that much to do to either models.  The Bombcat put it's bombs where the AIM-54 Pheonix goes (the wiki picture demonstrates this perfectly) and there is some Mk.84 "dumb" bombs in the kit too.  The Typhoon FGR4 is easier, I just gotta find the right pylons to put the bombs on, now I can either have 6 GBU's on the wings, 4 GBU's and 2 Storm Shadows or a mixture with the "Supersonic" Fuel tanks.  I liked the look of the fuel tanks so I am going to go with that.  Now one part that was missing was the LITENING or TIALD pods for the Bombcat, I'll have to find out which it used but that problem was solved by the next kit...

 
  What do you see on the inner-most plyon?  A LITENING pod... well I think it's a LITENING pod, I gotta check that up, but still as I only bought this kit for the decals and the weapons.  I think I am sorted here.  I got the spare Sidewinders too.  Now part 3 of this weapon mix up.  I've got these pictures of an F-18 that I think looks cool...

 Or

  Now, the top one from what I can see has 8 ARMAAMs (AIM-120) possibly 10 with 2 in the body recess with two Sparrow AIM-7's and two Sidewinder AIM-9's.  And the bottom one has 6 AIM-120's with 2 Sidewinders.  Now I dont think these are viable load outs because as usual carrier aircraft usually have extra tanks on.  But it looks cool, so I am going to use the missiles I have left over from the Tomcat and the Typhoon and use them on the F-18.  Cool idea no?  I also got this model turn up...

  I have always had respect for the pilots of this aircraft and the amount of bombs this thing could carry was ridiculous.  I'll make one as the A-6E but I might try to make the other one into a Prowler, I'm sure that Retro-wings do a conversion will look into it.

  For people who like to read I purchased this...

 I was a little disappointed with this book, I thought it was going to be a book about the actual "fights" of the war day-by-day kinda thing but it describes what planes where involved and the paint they had on them instead with a little of the history behind it.  I likes this one tho, there is a few Pumas in it and I have an 1/144 Puma awaiting some loving care, I might get some ideas from this.

  More ideas as and when they come to me...

  PEACE!

  Dazz