The bench...

[SebastianP]

Decided to do at least some superficial cleaning up of my work area, since I've been having some trouble with dust in my paint again. Found some pretty neat stuff under all the half-empty sprues, swiss-cheesed decal sheet, rumpled instructions and, of course, the damned boxes.

To wit: 18 jet fighter aircraft, and 11 helicopter all in 1/72 scale, plus one 1/48 scale fighter aircraft that's pretty much the black sheep of the whole collection...


Lessee....

One F/A-18C, which is awaiting decals but is otherwise finished. I've got something like six different options for it, since I've got some old Italeri sheets to play with in addition to the original Hasegawa sheet.

One F/A-18E, which lacks landing gear (since I haven't painted those), decals (since I can't decide on the Kestrels CAG jet or the VX-something alternate option), and a canopy, since some evil old lady stepped on it.

One F/A-18F, which is in the process of decalling. It's pretty boring - a VF-102 CO jet. Only thing special about it is that I tried Johnson's Klear on it, and it's yellowed some, which is too bad.

One Mirage 2000C, which may end up as a late-model version since I broke the pitot, and I've got spare MICA missiles laying around in droves. It's assembled, and has one layer of paint on the top surfaces that I'm not happy with. We'll see where I end up with it...

One Mirage 2000N, which is actually all painted up - except I'm decidedly unhappy that one of the camouflage colors decided to turn out gloss rather than flat as it was supposed to. I'm working on fixing the problem, and it looks pretty spiffy as my only "green" aircraft....

One Rafale B, all painted up. It's been pretty much jinxed through the whole build - we're talking spilled glue on the radome, broken landing gear, broken refueling probe (still missing a piece of that), and horrendous seams on the fuel tanks to the degree that they're probably not going on the model after all, they look so bad. Needs decals and the rest of the probe, and some stores, but other than that it's finished.

One Rafale C, also all painted up. Actually, I don't know why I haven't finished this one yet - there's only a dozen decals, and it's pretty much done besides that. I've had much less trouble with this one that the B-model, at least...

One F/A-22A Raptor, which is the first real venture into Whiff-land. It's painted up as if it was a Hornet, and is going to end up with whatever is left after I'm done decalling my C and E Hornets. Somewhere, I'll need to find the front gear hatches for it - I think I've got two sets, but I can't find them at present.

One AV-8B Harrier II+, on which I screwed up my paint selections. It's awaiting some fixing of the top camo color, and decals after that. Will get kit decals, I think. (If I tire of it completely, it may end up with RAF decals from an old GR.5/7 sheet - radar nosed RAF Harriers!)

One Eurofighter Typhoon single seater, presently done up as the black demo bird. Except that the decals desintegrated when I tried to put them on the model, so I'm left with an undecalled black Typhoon. Due for replacement by a Revell twin-seater as soon as I'm able...

One F-5E Tiger II, which I'm using as a paint test bird. It looks gruesome.

Two F-14 Tomcats. One is the USAF Strike bird already posted, and the other is a boring VF-102 CO jet. Nothing special - except for being lovely kits.

One RAF Tornado GR.1 - still just parts, although I've done some gluing on it. Lovely, lovely kit - half the reason why I'm anxious to get the Typhoon (the other being an F-16C kit that went out in the last purge).

One Mitsubishi F-2A, which is BLUE. Really, really blue. Still looking for the right green color for it...

One JAS-39 Gripen - this one *has been* finished - except for not having an ejection seat. It's been shedding parts, though, and it's a full time job gluing on the hatches each time they fall off. I'm missing one of the airbrakes right now... Oh, and it's a lovely black with hi-viz roundels, as appropriate for the second flight test vehicle.

One Su-27 Flanker - which is really two kits, since I spent $80 on an Airfix and a Revell flanker to build it "duffey style". Needs landing gear, decals, and wingtip rails, which I hope I still have, somewhere.

And the VF-0, from Macross Zero. But that has its own thread...

----

On the helicopter front, there's:

One RAH-66 Comanche, which is pretty much a What-if any way I build it. It needs a complete paint strip, since it looks pretty ridiculous as is. May end up in USMC markings, depending on the outcome of a couple of other projects.

One Dauphin II, presently done up in a pretty bad impression of a Coast Guard HH-65. I've got a resin nose replacement for it, so with some paint stripping, it may yet end up looking nice, as a Panther...

One CH-146 Griffon, which is pretty much in pieces - I haven't finished paintng the interior, and I don't have a noseweight for it yet.

One AH-1W Cobra, unpainted but assembled. That thing doesn't have a head on cross section... May get the decals from the CH-146, if I can convince myself to do something different with that.

One OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, which needs decals siince the originals desintegrated. Tiniest kit I've seen in 1/72... Nearly finished otherwise.

One CH-53E Super Stallion. Needs paint, and decals - I don't like the kit options since they're wraparound, which is damned hard for me to paint. Big ugly thing.

Two EH-101 Merlins - both actually finished, but for some broken parts that need replacement. One is a HMA.1, and the other a HC.3 - both look way cool.

One HH-60H Seahawk - no windshield and no rotor on this one yet, and no squadron markings, but otherwise it's finished.

One A-109KM - it's all over green, which it shouldn't be, and it's assembled. I donno what to do with it, frankly.

One V-22 Osprey - big thing. Needs noseweight, and decals that don't vanish when they dry....

[K5054NZ]

Hang on - if this is meant to be a progress thread, then how about some pics? Or are you looking to get rid of these kits? If so I'll take the Griffon...

[SebastianP]

Yes, they're all in progress. No pics tonight (I'm in CET-land, and it's *dark* here now!), but hopefully I'll at least be able to take some shots of my window sill tomorrow (where all the jets are).

Besides, most of them look pretty boring with no decals... Gotta work on that some. Most of the mess is because I get fed up with the kits while painting them and never get around to decalling them....

SP

[gooberliberation]

One Su-27 Flanker - which is really two kits, since I spent $80 on an Airfix and a Revell flanker to build it "duffey style". Needs landing gear, decals, and wingtip rails, which I hope I still have, somewhere.

How does he do that? kitbashes both of them?

[SebastianP]

Airframe from the Airfix kit - all the small details like landing gear and missile rails from the Revell kit. And of course the decals, since that sheet pretty much rules. I just gotta find the nerve to start cutting it up - since I haven't actually installed any of the Revell items on the kit I have, I may end up either stripping the kit I've got or getting another to get my panel lines back - pretty sure it'll end up as a what-if if I do that, since I'm most empathically *not* mixing up another batch of Flanker blues...

SP

[gooberliberation]

Airframe from the Airfix kit - all the small details like landing gear and missile rails from the Revell kit. And of course the decals, since that sheet pretty much rules. I just gotta find the nerve to start cutting it up - since I haven't actually installed any of the Revell items on the kit I have, I may end up either stripping the kit I've got or getting another to get my panel lines back - pretty sure it'll end up as a what-if if I do that, since I'm most empathically *not* mixing up another batch of Flanker blues...

SP

Here's something i found out... Testors' MM "flanker blue/gray" is practically the exact same color as their FS intermediate blue.   From now on i shall save the hassle and use the spraycan for that.