David Hingtgen

It's actually much brighter than this, BTW.

Lit!

Unlit

Lit

Well, nowadays they make brass templates for the aztec pattern, too. Covers the whole kit--just spray the whole kit white, then apply the templats, and spray your "not white" and you're done. (The trick is getting them all lined up--it's like 16 segments for the saucer). And the Excelsior kit is small/bad enough it's usually not worth it. I've only seen two lit-up aztec-ed Excelsiors ever. (Both were Modified Ent-B styles however, like mine)

Unlit:

I see the point for the "first day" thing, but I mean--F-117, plus B-2, plus the almost-sorta-stealthy B-1B should be more than enough. We've got a lot more stealthy stuff now than for '91. (When B-1B's were still pretty much nuke-only, and B-2's not in service).

And, with plenty of F-15C's, that opens up the F/A (blech) -22 to stuff JDAMS in its belly for the first day and act like an F-117 (though less stealthy).

J A Dare---the F-16XL was in direct competition to the F-15E. And the F-15E was even cheaper than the XL, since there's very little to change between an F-15D and E. Thus F-15E was chosen. (I do believe the 15E was superior in most aspects, though I bet XL won on range--I'd have to look it all up though)

Ok, if all goes well, I plan to airbrush the majority of my USS Iowa kit tomorrow/this week. I have a grand total of about 1 hour of airbrushing experience. Now, this is a 1/350 battleship, which means I have pieces from 4 to 30 inches long. (Most 1-3 inches though, only a half-dozen surpass 6 inches ).

Now, I've got it primered with a nice light grey, so I should definitely be able to get one-coat coverage. (Since it ALMOST did it with a much darker background when I was doing some testing on the undersides).

Anyways, unlike most "fine spray/dot/camoflage/weathering" uses for airbrushes, I'm using it to cover BIG areas with a nice even coat. Any hints/suggestions for thinning, air pressure, etc? I just want to cover several square feet (it's big, I can sit Yammies on the aft deck) with a single color. (And then repeat the process late for all the decks with a different color).

Last pic for now, will post shots of it all lit up later. (.8 amps to light it up, BTW) (might move to a new thread, this is getting OT) (it's REALLY hard to photograph at night lit up---comes out very dark no matter what--trust me, the thing is blazing bright at night, can light up the room--it's not just your standard bulbs, it's flourescent bright---it's actually the same tech used by the Air Force for those bright glowing position light strips on the wingtips and tail) (yes, the underside of the pylon joints are ugly with visible seams---they're not designed to have wires run through them, nor do they fit at all well in the first place--so they are as they are (and most people don't look at the bottom of the pylons anyway)--it's the one place I simply couldn't fill the seams without really messing up detail/wiring)

Only shot I have of the grey (and the ship is dark when not lit up--the warp engines are hand-polished inside and out with buffed transparent blue paint, BTW, they look amazing when the sun hits it--like sapphires) (impulse engines are not buffed, they're too inset to catch the light)

Gerwalker--very nice battroid. As for bare finger--not totally bare, covered in microset.

Info about my USS Lakota:

Ertl kit of course, which is basically an Excelsior with aftermarket parts. (They DON'T fit well, I used 1/8" styrene to fill gaps, not .020 or something). Clear resin replacement planetary sensor dome (clear lights on saucer bottom), replacement impulse crystals (light blue), replacement bussard ramscoops (deep blue), replacement torpedo tubes and launcer, fore and aft, replacement deflector dish (deep blue). Carved out the trench in the deflector dish (missing from the kit), and carved out all the opaque parts to replace the pieces mentioned about. Resin parts here: http://www.federationmodels.com/products/d...dlm/default.htm (quite a ways down for Ent-B parts)

Most importantly, I lit it up. There's dozens of wires in the thing, but only 1 resistor. Lit via lightsheet, which is the ACTUAL WARP ENGINE GLOW stuff used for Excelsior class ships on DS9. It's the perfect color, amazing stuff. It's paper thin, but glows as bright as flourescent bulbs, is naturally light blue, doesn't heat up. And easy to wire. Warp engines, ramscoops, and deflector dish have this. Impulse engines and saucer use micro-bulbs, crystals have full-size bulbs run at lower power. (Was going to use LED's, but it was easier to just use bulbs at low power due to how the saucer is wired).

I really wished I'd take some pics of the wiring before I sealed it up, the thing is PACKED with electronics. (I had to sand the interior of the warp engines to stuff the wires in---24 vs 26 gauge wire made the difference-it's THAT packed in there). If something truly horrific ever happens to the model, there are quick disconnects from the saucer just above the deflector, and forward of the nacelle mount above the shuttlebay.

Anyways---decals are from http://www.thomasmodels.com/. VERY complete, as I said, I didn't paint any blue or grey. (Except for 2 stripes on the pylons). You can order any ship there is (Ent-B and Lakota being the most popular for the Modified Excelsior clas)

Windows are decals, (only about 4 per side, I wasn't to cut the clear from hundreds of black dots). THAT was a lot of work to get what is basically a big clear decal with black specs to lay down over the grid pattern of the hull painted flat white. Saucer windows generally in groups of 6.

Here's the decals:

Want weathering?

1. Don't weather inside the intakes themselves. Even old planes have clean shiny intakes. (Because its very important that they do).

2. DIRTY VENTRAL FINS. F-14's usually have horrendously dirty ventral fins, right where they join the fuselage.

3. Do each rivet individually. (This is an F/A-18C, left side, right above the stab).

Landing gear generally retract at "straight" angles--i.e. straight forward/back or straight left/right. Rarely do they swing at an angle.

Anyways, here's how it *should* work, based on real-life planes:

Gear doors open fully, and the gear retracts back WHILE the wheel rotates 90 degrees to lie flat. It's simultaneous, not a two-step process. When the gear is half-way retracted, the wheel should be half-way turned.

Wheels rotate at the oleo strut. (The shiny chrome one, just a bit above the wheel itself). It's not JUST the wheel, nor the whole thing--more like the lower third or so of the gear. If you get REALLY technical, I would guess that the rotation is actually inside the oleo strut, so the visible of the exterior portion of the oleo itself wouldn't appear to move.

VF-1's have very very simple main gear struts. Simply move forward and back 90 degress. Not a whole bunch of retraction stuts, door struts, drag struts, scissor linkages, etc. Just the one main strut and that's about it. (Very similar to a YF-23's gear actually, which is basically a slimmed-down straightened-out F-18 gear).

If you want a real-life example to follow, check out an F-16's nose-gear. It's a single-wheel gear that rotates 90 degrees as it retracts backwards. That's what you need, isn't it?

PS--for detail, I've got lots of F-18 gear well pics, even an A-10's nose gear well. And of course, F-14 pics.

Grayson--that's exactly it. Microset does too---it just takes longer! Microsol will destroy many a decal. But you can soak a decal in microset for an hour, and it'll be fine. It will go down snug against the paint just as tightly as the paint adheres to the plastic. As I said, microset+time will let the decal pick out every panel, rivet, surface imperfection, etc. Sheesh, I can make sanding marks appear, if I've got a decal over a thin layer of paint. Microsol is too strong and unneccessary 99% of the time.

Here's my USS Lakota, for which I only painted white and steel. All blue and grey and red is decal:

Radar range is said to be 90 miles---2/3 that of the F-22. It's the same radar basically as the 22, just a lower-power version.

Missile stand-off range should be about the same as the F-22, whatever that is. (AMRAAM's range is still classified. 30 miles is a good guess, but 10-20 is optimum. However, when launched in supercruise, range goes up. How much, still classified).

F-35 is like a slower, less stealthy F-22. Overall the same idea, just cheaper and not quite as good. And WAY less payload. That's the F-35's main suckiness (I'm not an F-35 fan, BTW---it's the F-16 replacement, even though it's worse than the F-16 in many ways). It carries *two* weapons. Either 2 JDAM's, 2 AMRAAM's, or one of each. That's it.

And, since the AMRAAM is a medium-range missile, the F-35 is so totally screwed in a dogfight. And it's not manueverable enough to to use its gun well. (Though the gun should be superior to most any other gun).

Now, the F-35 should be decently manueverable, it just won't have any weapons. The F-22 is designed to be quite fast, quite stealthy (but still less than a F-23), and carry 6-8 missiles, both short and medium range, and take out a lot of bad guys quickly. As it gets close, it still has great manueverability, short-range missiles, and a gun, so it can still dogfight if things come to that.

But the F-35--I don't know WHAT it's supposed to do. (Neither do a lot of people). F-16 replacement is often cited, but it's so not. F-16 is originally an AWESOME close-range dogfighter. Unbeatable at "knife-range", can turn on a dime. Designed to use short-range missiles. So how can a plane without short-range missiles be a replacement? Also, F-16C's and such have a very good bombing ability. Because they can carry lots of weapons. No point in a bomber with only 1 or 2 bombs. (Except the F-117, because it's ULTRA stealthy, and is used to deliver a few big bombs to very well-defended, high-value targets)---F-35 can't do that, it's not stealthy enough, and doesn't carry as big bombs. F-35 is designed to be "as good as the F-16/18" in the strike role, and have a secondary air defense capability. Well, if you add the extra pylons on to it the F-35 can carry as much stuff as an F-16/18, but then it's lost its stealth. So you have a new, expensive F-35 that's only as good as the 16/18. And it's certainly 2nd-rate as a fighter. What's the point?

It does have good range though. Lots of fuel. More than an F-15. (Not a lot more, but more---but since it only feeds one engine, instead of two like the F-15, it can go quite far) However, F-15's usually load up on 3 huge drop tanks--another 50%. And then add FAST packs to an F-15 for even more. Can't do that on a F-35 without totally losing its stealthiness. (There is NO POINT in a stealth plane that can lose its stealthiness, IMHO )

I've always found "smooth surface" (and the 20 steps associated) to be over-rated. I rock at decals, and apply directly to whatever the paint is. Flat white and flat dark ghost grey lately. The secret is TIME. Give the microset TIME to work. It's not going to work in 30 secs. Give it like 5-10 minutes, 30 for a BIG decal. I never ever use microsol, there's no need--it's just for impatient people (unless you're trying to do a 120-degree bend in the decal). Microset and time will allow ANY decal to conform perfectly even to a flat, rough finish.

How *I* decal (with amazing results).

1. Trim the clear! ALL of it. The factory job is never good enough, unless they're the best of the best of aftermarket decals.

2. Brush microset over where you'll put it.

3. Put decal in water for a few secs. Just dunk it then pull it out---just enough to saturate the paper.

4. Brush microset over decal (while still on paper). (I don't always do this, but definitely for big decals).

5. Apply decal to model. Soak the thing in microset. Microset is your friend. (This is opposite of what Gerwalker said, and opposite of how most people do it--but I get perfect results, so I say do it my way) (I've had decals silver ONCE of all the models I've built, and that's when I forgot to use microset) Don't remove the excess early--for the first 5 minutes of that decal's existence on the model, it should be soaked in microset, with a puddle on top of it.

6. Use brush, fingers, q-tip, whatever to push the decal on so it's nice and snug.

7. Most important step: NOW (not earlier, not until you've got it in place and nice and snug) carefully soak up the excess water/microset using a napkin/paper towel. Get ALL of it. PRESS the decal, you want to basically squeegee it. Water under the decal it what causes silvering- (air bubbles are created by the water, thus water is the true cause). It's also what causes them to lift off. So you want to really get the decal RIGHT against the surface, and remove all the water. The microset helps with this.

8. Clear coat. (Well, more like "let decals DRY then clear coat")

Well the only real choice is -19 vs -22. (Sorry, but 30 years kinds of eliminates the VF-0/1/SV-51 from competition---that's like asking YF-22/YF-23 vs F-101/F-100)

Anyways---we don't really have any stats or info on most of these planes. I mean, for F-14/15/16/18 there's plenty of info, and I've seen them all fly and can make informed opinions. For valks, we only have what we see on TV.

AFAIK, the -22 is faster than the -19, but we don't know its acceleration (which is far more important--an F-16 has tremendous acceleration, better than anything--but its top speed is only Mach 2.05)

-21 has an amazing roll rate, but how much of that is due to the magic-morphing wing that the -22 doesn't have?

-19 is probably the more agile of the two overall (certainly in pitch), due to canards (NOT due to FSW).

-19 certainly is better at low-speed/high alpha manuevers, due to FSW.

-21/22 are stealthier, though neither are really *that* stealthy in appearance.

See, the thing is, the most modern fighters (F-22/Super Flanker/EF-2000/Rafale) are evaluated by the following things:

Supercruise ability. Radar range. Missile standoff range. Fuel capacity.

That's what people are going for nowadays. That's stuff we have no info on for valks. The LAST thing an F-22 wants to do is dogfight, and it's not designed for that. (It can, and is supposed to be the F-16's equal in that department). But what it's designed for is for long-range high-speed missile launches prior to detection. It is an assassin. Sneak in, attack quickly and deadly, then run like heck out of there. That's exactly what it is. The YF-23 was that to an even more extreme degree (faster, stealthier--it REALLY didn't want to dogfight--but boy would it have been able to wipe out entire squadrons from afar without anyone knowing)

And hey, what about damage? F-15's can come home missing wings, F-18's have *very* strong wings and their "way out back" engines have saved them from SAM's many times. F-14's are as tough as jets come (practically armored, while F-16's are probably just average. YF-21 sure took an incredible amount of punishment and kept flying--that certainly beats any real plane I know of. (it lost probably 35% of its structure including both tail fins and kept going)

I say the -19 looks cooler, but I can't say which is superior. Not until we get WAY more info. (Like acceleration, roll rate, pitch rate, sustained G's, rate of turn, radius of turn, time-to-height, max AOA, max AOA at various bank angles, supercruise ability, radar effectiveness, etc)

I've only played GC, but I think the controller's fine. If anything, I don't like the thumbstick. (It's in the "too sensitive along one axis" category---down requires STRAIGHT down 180, but downleft and downright go from like 95-175, and 185-265) At least for me, but I've always had problems with straight down in SC games.

I'm considering getting a US version again, for I really like collecting weapons and reading the descriptions--but I can't do that with the JP version. (Also an english movelist would help a lot)

Might as well post my fave/best characters:

Seung Mina, Nightmare, Xinghua, Sophitia, Mitsurugi, Ivy. In about that order. (First 3 used WAY more often than the others).

Hwang's my overall fave, but he's not here...

Please don't use length to compare aircraft. Planes are three-dimensional. Length is actually pretty poor, wingspan is generally better. (The BEST is empty weight of the aircraft--for that actually says how much "structure" the plane has). Going by length, the Concorde will beat out 90% of all airliners due to its pointy nose and tail, even though its takeoff weight is less than half that of a 747-400. (Of course, if you go by wingspan, Concorde is on the extreme low side, even though it's medium-large overall). Now, if 2 planes have a very similar configuration (VF-0, F-14, VF-1, Tornado) then maybe one dimension will work, but as a general rule don't rely on one meausurement.(Too bad nobody ever lists volume/displacement for plane stats)

Imagine two people----a 5'10 girl and a 5'9 guy. Girl's skinny, guy's a weight lifter. She may be taller, but he's a heck of a lot bigger overall. Same with planes. Longer planes may be much smaller. (And often are, since length often accompanies high-speed pointy delta planes--like the Concorde, while BIG planes are often a bit shorter and bulkier--like a DC-10)

Anyways---yeah, look at the plane as a whole. Front, side, above. That's why planes always have 3-view drawings--need to see it as a whole, not just one dimension.

Now as for size "small is beautiful" is often said for fighters. Why? Harder to see. Having a 50-mile range missile is worthless since 99% of the time the rules of engagement require *visual* confirmation of the enemy. (F-14's have high-magnification TV cameras to do this at long range---you'd think other planes would too, but it's still an F-14-exclusive-advantage)

The main advantage of having smaller planes (real-world sense) is that they're cheaper. If the US had infinite money, we'd have 3,000 F-15's and the F-16 and F-17 wouldn't have even been considered. (And hence no F-18). F-16's the best example for a (good) small plane.

Bigger planes CAN do more. But they also cost a lot more, and cost more to operate on a daily basis. And hey, 2 engines are going to cost exactly twice as much to buy, and twice as much to maintain and buy spare parts for. It's no problem making an F-15 or F-14 carry a lot of stuff far. The real skill is taking a small lightweight day fighter (F-16A) and making it into a serious multi-purpose night-striker (F-16C Block 50). And it's still cheaper than F-15E's.

Reflecting upon this, I realized that that's actually (sort of) how the YF-23's unique and very cool control system worked. To yaw, it would put the flap down, and the adjacent aileron up. The ailerons and flaps were sized and positioned so that their aerodynamic effects equaled each other. Thus, the overall lift of the wing was unchanged (so no roll) but it did create a significant increase in drag, thus yawing the aircraft to one side. (Not having conventional rudders, nor thrust vectoring, this is what it did). And it looked cool too, for it would create a *contrail from one wing only*

B-2's also operate very similarly, having no tail whatsoever. They can split their elevons into upper and lower halves, thus creating drag on one side only.

Just FYI, an F-16's brakes are linked to each other up/down, and cannot deploy independently. (One jackscrew controls both---operation is very similar to a thrust reverser)

PS--I (as well as Knight26 I think) am a big fan of having as many methods of control as possible. Spoilers, ruddervators, asymmetric throttles (need engines placed off of a common axis if you want pitch control--generally only trijets can do this), canards, vectoring, airbrakes---sure it adds weight, but when your one all-purpose lightweight stab gets shot off or damaged, what are you going to do?

Ah, the infamous 99% wrong Hasegawa kit.

If anything, I'd think Dragon would do a 1/72 diecast one. (Very unlikely though). Hasegawa and Dragon appear to have some sort of agreement with their military releases. However, Dragon's F-14 isn't out yet, and they don't have a D model. (Though their B model would be WAAAAY more accurate than Hasegawa's kit)

Any chance we could turn this thread back to "wow, it's got 4 friggin huge airbrakes"? ('cuz you know, if it deployed them asymmetrically, it could be VERY effective for manuevering--unheard of in the real world AFAIK, but no reason it couldn't work, not with the incredibly complex computer-controls valks must have))

Original=JP of course. Like my original GC, and original GBA. Man, I should have bought a Skeleton Saturn (as a spare) when VGD had them. Just piles of them sitting there.

The greatest pad ever was the original Saturn's. THAT was a pad. Especially for 2D fighters. Sheer bliss. Think I'll go play Darkstalkers 2 or something now...

Druna Skass--every weapon is available for purchase in the Edge Master Missions (or whatever--I play the JP version, I don't know what it's called! ) I presume it's a lot easier in the US version, being able to read the weapon descriptions and all. (The Soul Calibur versions of all weapons are of course the most expensive, makes it easier--though there's 2 and sometimes 3 versions though)

Super Ostrich----there's a limitless supply of decals for real planes, 99% of which are the same as VF's use.

Also--while I suck at painting, I *rock* at decaling. Ask away if you need anything. (I decal so well, you can see and feel the orange peel and brushstrokes in the paint it's laying on)

It's WAY too thick to be airbrush ready. It's far, far thicker than stuff I KNOW to be airbrush-ready. (It's as thick, if not thicker, than most MM Enamels---close to Gunship Grey I'd say, but not as thick as Insignia Blue) Testors.com says 3:1 paint/thinner for airbrushing for that specific paint, but I think more like 2:1. I plan to experiment some more with sprayers, airbrushes, etc. (Having taken a good long look at just how much surface area a 1/350 battleship has)

If anybody is really curious, just head on down to your local hobby shop, and open up some jars from Testor's MM acryl *marine* line. Specifically 5L Light Grey (1943). (The 1941 version is a very different color)