That A came out looking very sharp. The crew figures look very good as does the pit area. Great touch with the pencil for the panel lines. I read it twice cause I thought you re scribed them. I will mention two things, I don’t know if you painted the cannon blast panel in natural metal since I can’t tell from the pictures as here:
The natural metal finish on the slats should go up to the first line and not the entire slat. When the Navy switched to the low vis scheme these areas eventually ended up being painted. Great job overall.
Notice how thin the NM area looks in this picture:
Thanks so much, Bob! Like I said, my main obstacle is display space. Planes take up so much room! I DO, however have another couple 1;72 scale that won’t be as big! I’ll get around to those eventually!
Actually, it’s a 1/32 scale “Kanonwagen” (?) with some Eduard PE. I’ll get around to it maybe next year now that the new house is in order, somewhat ! [:)]
Thanks a ton for the great info, PlasticJunkie! I did NOT know to paint that cannon area in metallic gray–I will do that. And I did overpaint the wings’ metal areas, but I don’t think I"ll try o repair that, because those lines of demarcation got obliterated in the sanding process. But it’s a great thing to know. Thanks for taking the time to educate me, and for the nice compliments!. [:D][Y]
Thank you, Greg! Just to clarify, this was NOT a “restore”. I too, lack the patience for that. This was a fresh build of a model I had previously built, but that hit the plastic boneyard years ago. [:(] I think I’ll probably take better care of this one. [;)]
Ha ha, you know, when I was typing that, I said to myself: “Wait now, that’s a vehicle, not a plane”, bu I couldn’t think of the term for it. Thanks for the correction. I promise I won’t put tracks on it, lol. [:D]
Stik, iirc, when the Tomcats first entered the fleet, the term was NFO for the rear seat guys in the Tomcat only. I think RIO was used for Navy F-4 backseaters. AF F-4 guys were referred to as GIB (Guy in Back). I suppose with women navy pilots and rio’s they’d be called gals in back? Hmmm, mighta crossed a line there. Sorry!
'Tis a relief to know that I’m not the only one who cringes at the thought of a restore, and the fact that it wasn’t a restore doesn’t reduce my respect for your workmanship one iota.
I am itching to build a contemporary fighter again, and can only hope my first since hiatus is half as good as yours, mate.
F-14 backseaters were still referred to as RIO’s, but with the F/A-18F they became Weapon Systems Officers (WSO). That’s mostly due to the Phantom and Tomcat both being conceived as fleet defense interceptors where the RIO was tasked with running radar intercepts from the back seat.
AF F-4 backseaters were different in that they were rated pilots and had their own flight controls in the back seat unlike Navy Phantoms. It wasn’t until the advent of the Wild Weasel “Bears” that the AF really started to embrace more specialized training for their backseaters.
