Hello …
Hope you can give me some help … [?]
Project: Revell 1/48 F-18 HORNET - US NAVY Blue Angels for the first Community Building Project (see thread under General Modeling Discussion)
Question: the kit provides two (2) AIM-9(x) Sidewinder AAM missiles for the wing tips of this Blue Angles bird … and the instructions direct painting these missiles yellow and installing them … ??? The box top art shows the Blues flying an air show with these Sidewinders in place … My reference material does not show the Blues doing shows or flying practice for shows with these missiles on the wing tip rails … I am leaning towards not installing them … ideas ??? opinions ??? experiences ??? references ???
[:)]
I have seen the Blues at air shows several times … but I really can’t recall if there were missiles on the wing tip rails or not. [:I]
Help ??? [:)]
I have seen them twice, no missiles. Shows are done with clean aircraft for safety.
Try
www.blueangels.org or
www.blueangels.com
They fly without the missiles installed due to G limits. They are restricterd to the amount of G forces they can pull without over stressing the missile launchers. With no missiles, no limits except for what the pilots can stand or the limits of the airframe.
I have a pic of an F-18 that lost a missile during an arrested landing, shows the missile sliding down the flight deck.
I’ll bet that sent the deck crew jumping for cover!
Hey claymore68 & berny13 …
Thanks for the great information … it helps a lot … I will be leaving the missiles off the Blues a/c.
No Missles, I See the Blue Angels every summer performing at SeaFair in Seattle. And as long as they have been in the F-18, there hasnt been any missle’s loaded on them
Thank you Truckie942 …
I think I will leave them off the Blues F-18 … toss them in the old spares box. They really aren’t bad replicas of AIM-9(x) AAM. 'course that doesn’t mean that I will be able to remember just which “spares box” I put them in when I go to retrieve them …
Sure did berny, pic shows a man running. I’d post it if i could, maybe i’ll have a site up soon.
Hey Freedom, i got a favor to ask of you. Do you have the decal sheet still (unused). If so would it be possible to scan and send me the pic? I wanna do a fictious Demo squad and wanna use part of the Blue Angel markigs. Or does anyopne know where I can find these? THanks!
Steve
Another thing concerning that Revell kit in case you haven’t noticed is that the “Blue Angels” logo is way out of scale.(about twice as large as it should be)…Fortunately aftermarket decals are available…I always see them on ebay
I’m about to get started on doing the entire team in 1/72nd
Have fun!
Merlin
Do we need missiles for display plane?. Never seen any on Blue Angles,Thunderbirds or Red Arrow. So why do we need.
I have senn them only once. No missiles at all. maybe they use it sometimes in training beacuse, like all other acrobatic patrols in the world they may have a secondary role that implies missiles, and maybe they didn’t have time to take them off for next flight, that could explain why they are on your box art, F-16 and AMX flight performances aren’t influenced by aim-9s, maybe the same is for F-18. Lots of maybes!!
frasca78
Roger that, no missiles on Angels’ Hornets. But my real reason for this post…
Claymore, there’s a site; http://photopile.com/ that allows you a trial account and you can upload 10 images for nuthin’. I’ve used this hosting service for awhile now and you can open multiple accounts. It’s also a very easy upload process.
I’d love to see that pic of the man-seeking missle!
Fade to Black…
Blackwolfscd, thanx for the tip, I set up an account and posted a pic in the test forum. Now I just have to find the man seeker pic.
Found it! 3000+ images on the hard drive[:p]
Wonder if it went off the deck or stopped first.
Missles ? NO! But, I wonder how you’re going to handle the paint job?
I mean, the yellow decals don’t seem to work out with the blue undercoat of paint.
Let me know your technqiue.
Those who said that the Blues don’t fly with missiles or drop tanks are correct. I have several of those kits too. I bet the crewchief on that 18 wondered why he had some extra parts left!
By the way, all my Hornets are being done in regular fleet markings so whoever can use the Blue Angels decals are more than welcomed. My e-mail is sonic_master2001@yahoo.com
Regarding the “man seeking missile”, it did go off the flight deck into the ocean. It was on launch though, not landing. The guy running looks like the plane launcher. Just wanted to clarify that.
Semper Fi
Bryce
Are you sure that Hornet’s launching? It doesn’t look like the launch bar on the nose gear is lowered. I’m pretty sure you know that you kinda need that to get going! It’s pretty hard to tell though, and I could be wrong.