David Hingtgen

I'd rather have an F-4G for that. Or F-16CJ.

And here's some nav lights, blue as blue can be. Left pic is the right wing's light, and the right pic is the one on the underside of the right wing glove. It's a Jolly Rogers F-14B, btw.

Sorry but I'm not QUITE following how you mask the intakes. (And the fact that the demarcation line between the grey and white on the interior of the intakes varies by squadron doesn't help). Anyways---I actually like the Fujimi 1/72 for Tomcats, for they are like 95% as detailed as the Hase, but have the great advantage in that they FIT quite nicely. Also, the way they're designed, you can completely paint, decal, and clear-coat the wings and fuselage separately, and then attach the wings as the very last step of all. And still have a working swing mechanism. Finally, Fujimi's come with a full set of *nice* weapons. (I'm not knocking the Hase, I'm just saying why I go for Fujimi--honestly, the fit is 99% of why I buy them) My first decent F-14 was the Fujimi when it first came out, and I noticed the much superior fit right away. (The reason is, because it's assembled unlike any other F-14, in any other scale--I'll describe it if you want). I am simply not one of those "cockpit guys". I focus on the outside of the plane. Overall shape is usually my #1 requirement for a model. (That and fit). While the Hase's are more detailed, I do think the Fujimi's have a better nose-shape. (though the rear fuselage nibs are definitely more accurate on the Hase). I do wish they made canopy masks for the Fujimi's. I'm decent at canopy masking, but it's still very stress/fear-inducing. PS---Fujimi's come with photoetched canopy mirrors. Man, I kept a spare set for years, I'll see if I still have them and send them. (I don't think I do though, but I'll dig through the spares box). Fujimi's have raised instrument detail, and decent ejection seats. Certainly not resin-good, but good enough for me. PPS---I'm very tempted to buy a Hase 'Cat for the decals alone, it's impossible to find *good* 1/72 VF-111 decals, my fave squadron by far. And the newer Hase have Cartograph... (If anybody's got a Hase F-14 with good VF-111/Sundowners decals, and aren't going to use them, I'd gladly buy them off you) PPPS----I have an Italeri 1/48 F-14 I plan to build soon as practice. (I just happened to have one). Haven't decided what to build it as yet---don't want to spend much money on decals. Also haven't decided whether to do a really easy all-gull-grey scheme, or to do a tougher one for painting practice as well. I'm going to try out some techniques (including intake and well and canopy masking) on this one before I tackle my pile of 1/72's.

wm cheng: I'd appreciate it if you could focus on how you mask and paint the intakes, and the wheel wells, in your upcoming posts. Those have always given me problems. (And I've bought like 4 F-14 kits this month, many a well and intake to mask). Of course, since I think the VF-0 will be pure white, there won't be much to mask--make something in camoflage next! But any tips would be appreciated. Especially if you could help me to mask off the lip of an intake. (Especially round ones). The absolute hardest thing to mask, for me, is an airliner's engine---pure white nacelle outside, but a bare metal lip on the outside, wrapping around to the inside. And F-18's aren't much better. Anyways--before you get to the navigation lights, etc, I noticed something when looking at some of my F-14 pics. While they certainly glow green when on, when off, they're BLUE. Not blue-green, but BLUE. I think that all the Yamatos are actually correct, for "lights off". (The red ones are red regardless, but the green lights look bright blue when off). Something you might want to consider.

Invisibility, and time-travel, are quite different IMHO. The only similarity is that they both have warships. PS--when I got it on release day, Best Buy only wanted $17 for limited, $15 for regular. Yes, only 2 bucks difference.

Now that I look at it more, I'm getting a slight Virtual-On vibe from it. (That's a compliment, as I love the Virtual-On female designs, certainly some of the best chick-mechs)

That rocks. I don't like some 90% of fan-made TF's, but I like that a LOT.

Diecast will oxidize though, if it's simply polished and not coated with anything. Becomes kind of streaky/dark in spots. (Ask anyone who has Eastern or American airlines models)

They didn't make "Grand Canyon"-filling superglue, so I just used like 1.5 bottles of gap-filling on my 1701-B kit combined with many .020 (and .100) strips... (the only thing with worse fit than their Excelsior, is their modified Excelsior...)

Heh, I just ordered some F-14's via EMS. (Ehh, can either pay a whole lot of money to get it imported and shipped from a US place, or pay less for the kit but a LOT for shipping). I think cost of the kits and the shipping will be about equal though... Should have snagged a VF-1 while I was at HLJ's site...

I never, ever, putty anymore. Not even to build up areas. I use CA. (Medium--thin is like water, thick's too thick). It does NOT shrink. And it's easy enough to layer. I use it for all my seams, gaps, etc. As a bonus, it can act as a glue if normal gluing won't work/help, and it adds strength to any seam.

That's the exact (and I mean EXACT) same set of drill bits I have. Of course over the years, only about half of them are the "originals", many replacements (especially in the 70+ ones). Never found replacements to last longer, even if they do cost a lot more per piece. From what I've heard, many hobby drill bits are actually used ones from PC-board making places--after they get too worn/short to get through a stack of chips/boards, the tip is re-pointed and the remaining bit is sold to us, since we generally only need it to go a little ways--which is why the actual bit part is so short on most of the ones you see. Anyways---while I do have pin-vise, I *much* prefer my mini spiral drill. Smaller, lighter, and you can also use it like a pin-vise, in addition to the spiral mechanism. They're worth their weight in gold. Ah yes, Evergreen styrene. .100x.020 is my fave. (Despite having HO scale trains, I have no HO scale styrene--I use it for filling, never scratchbuilding HO houses and the like) Nothing like an AMT/Ertl kit to use up your supply of gap-filling styrene strips!

Real planes are better than models or CGI. It's that simple. (This is especially a problem with airliners---they are represented by models or CGI more and more often, and usually BAD CGI) And nothing's as cool as a high-vis Jolly Rogers plane.

Dang that's huge. I have an unbuilt 1/72 under the bed. A sratch-built 1/48 is just insane. Since the pics are good (and most pics of the real thing are 40 years old) it actually looks better than the real thing! 1/48 B-1B is about the biggest jet kit I know (though I'd have to calculate it out against the vac-formed 1/72 747's) , a 1/48 XB-70..... PS---while the US was heavily investing in an SST, there was lots of work done on reducing or eliminating the effects of the sonic boom. Actually, a lot of the designs looked rather XB-70-ish! Lockheed did the most work. Of course, whenever an aircraft that large changes attitude, there's potential for a superboom. Superboom: when the sonic booms generated from different parts of the plane happen to impact the same point on the ground simultaneously. They don't cancel each other out, they add to the effect. BOOM! Most often happens to a Concorde when it enters a tight turn. Concorde's also one of the few planes long enough to have a distinctive double-boom. (XB-70 would certainly as well, if anyone ever heard it at low supersonic speeds)

The 1/72 Italeri? Never seen one, but I've heard they're not that good. The old Hasegawa would have been by far the best choice. (And I gotta wonder why 1/72, and not 1/48 or 1/32). I know there were lots of R/C ones built, but those were customs. BTW, most of the Top Gun F-14's were from VF-51, though there's rumors a few are from VF-111. (Rumor given credence since VF-111 and VF-51 are sister squadrons, and always deployed together). PS---Top Gun Tomcats are actually VERY colorful---painted in agressor markings like most other Navy "school" planes. There's just very few, and not often seen. Of course 99% of the planes you'd see at Miramar are grey, because that'd be all the in-service Tomcats come ashore to participate in Top Gun. The Top Gun F-14's are more often used to fight against Navy F-18's, since agressor F-18's are pointless for another Hornet squadron.

If you want contrast, real-life touchups/patches, or just want a good place to start looking for shades to mix, etc, the FS colors used for low-vis fighters in the real world are: F-14: A three-tone pattern of 36375, 36320, and 35237, or just two of those (usually omittiing 35237), or sometimes overall 36231 or more often overall 36440. F-15: 36375 and 36320 (1980's), or 36251 and 36176 (1990's+). F-16: Mainly 36118 with 36375 and a touch of 36320, or replace the 36375 with 36320 (more common lately). F-18: 36375 and 36320, or 36495 all over. If there's one color that defines low-vis, it's 36375. (Light Ghost Grey). (Yes, we aircraft modelers live and breathe FS numbers for paint) And the other option is 36118 all over, for the B-1, B-2, F-15E, F-111, etc.

There is quite clearly a massive pitch-up in Top Gun. Whether he stalls is debatable. A rapid pull up to 80 degrees and a massive slowdown, then recovery, is pretty close to a 95 degree pitch-up, slowdown, and recovery.

mikeszekely already said what I was going to---that I consider myself one heck of an airplane fan, and love the Ace Combat series. If you're that elitist, then you also probably couldn't enjoy any movie ever made with planes. Of course, one should never watch a movie with me that has an airliner, they're my true passion, and they're often far more screwed up than military planes in the movies---and I'll point out every little error. PS--isn't the "Top Gun manuever" basically the Cobra, in effect? And AC3 does suck.

Which is why I put the "of course there's exceptions" clause in there. On one of the SR-71 record runs, it got too low and close to LA before slowing down, and there were like 200 "sonic boom damage" claims that day. Ok, I think the rule is "No supersonic flights over POPULATED land". And of course populated means so many people per square mile, and ranchers always complain it spooks the cows, so animals count in the population rule... Nothing's simple when it comes to govt regs. There's also established supersonic corridors across the Atlantic. Concordes also rigidly adhere to the "accel" and "decel" points off the coasts. Usually about 100 miles off-shore, but varies due to temp, pressure, etc.

You know I just realized (embarrassingly for me) that the engine (both front and rear ends) looks quite TF-30-ish. As in, the Tomcat's original engine. (Though my FIRST impulse was J79-ish, most famously used in the F-4) "When all else fails, make a Valk use F-14 parts".

Please send me a copy of my own FSW thread if you can, any way you can. Heck, just photocopy it so I can retype it here. Anyways---here's another XB-70 pic, time frame inbetween the first two:

A few secs later, after aerodynamic forces have ripped off more parts, it's in an inverted flat spin. Left stab gone, right stab just the root is left, and you can see there's a lot less right wing than there should be (compare to the undamaged left wing). (remember the plane's upside down, so left is right, etc)

Actually, the wings WERE down. Only half-way, but still down. Even full down wouldn't have been enough, for they could only stabilize, not control. #2 lost like 99% of the right stab, and probably half of the left. No amount of wing-fold could replace 3/4 of your v.stab area being lost. Plus the fact that entire folded portion of the right wing was gone too. We're talking loss of 70% of all control surfaces. Sequence was right wingtip, right stab, left stab. Some were totally gone, others only partially. But pretty much everything was hit. ::searches hard drive:: Here, best pic of #2 in the initial pitch-up:

Supreme kaoishin--that statement's close to flamebait, IMHO, considering who's here (namely many Valkyrie/plane-lovers) How would MiG-25's shoot it down? Their real max speed is Mach 2.8, and only if lightly loaded. Of course, like most any plane they can overstress their engines and go faster for a few seconds before the turbines melt... And their altitude isn't high enough either. XB-70 is right up there with the SR-71 for the "too fast, too high" category. If the SR-71 is 99% invulnerable to SAM's and high-speed interceptors, then the XB-70 is like 90% invulnerable. If you're slower and lower than a plane, it's pretty darn hard to get off a shot. (Tonight I'll go look at my speed/alt chart for defeating SAM's, see if I can get an exact percentage for the XB-70) Anyways--the Concorde is banned from flying SUPERSONICALLY over LAND in the US, and most of the entire world. It can go supersonic San Diego-Honolulu because that's over water. It can go to Texas (as it did in service) by flying subsonically over US land. Just about every nation has banned supersonic overflights over land, regardless of type of plane. (Of course there's exceptions, like the middle of nowhere Nevada)

Yup, a recon plane's only weapon at times: use ALL the flashbombs at once, and just blind your enemy. And if you're lucky and you've got an RF-4C or maybe an RF-8U with the right load-out (a double-load of the high-power ones), you can get several billion candlepower going. According to one pilot who did just that: "I think that after all these years, there still might be VC wandering around the jungle blinking".