Chronic's Research and Aeronautics Project (C.R.A.P.)

[zenrat]

It depends how embarrassing it is to be seen driving the thing.
"Dude, I can't be seen in this.  Get me Tintacar now..."

[TheChronicOne]

It depends how embarrassing it is to be seen driving the thing.
"Dude, I can't be seen in this.  Get me Tintacar now..."

   Ha!!! Or they don't want the Sky Police to see them as they smoke their Sky-Chronic in the Sky.

I forgot to google this mess but just a cursory glance at some results I just dug up tells me the YELLOW-EY stuff is actually a stealth coating designed to lower radar cross section (for the Raptor, at least.. I assume it would be the same on the Viper and whatever other stuff uses it)...     Nothing apparent yet about traditional smoky tint. Pretty interesting stuff, though, and am going to look into it.

Anyway..... I've been "stuck" for a few days now trying to come up with a couple projects to start to go along with teh two I already have going. Struggling to even work on those.... back at it here in a bit I think.. I need to be able to open my window to vent exhaust from filing and sanding and haven't been able to for a few days!! Both projects are on hold because of it. That said, I'm running an idea around in my head right now and I have some wiki pages open for technical data, a calculator handy, and will brain storm a bit about one possibility I've been thinking about for a couple days now.

Also, I think I've decided to save my P-47 Moo-Cow for the one week GB. That takes care of that... so.... on my list of things to start working on I still have the Thunderbirds L-39 and Ford Thunderbird. I've been meaning to look up some reviews on the KP kit of the Albatros before I make my mind up on that. The 57 Ford is sort of waiting on that, too, because if I decided to do one, I might not decide to do the other or might do them as a pair or NOT AT ALL.  So wishy washy.. sometimes I feel like I have no clue what the hell I'm doing. 

[TheChronicOne]

Finally have my window back!! 

Back to the heavy filing on this ....  I don't know what to call it now. It's not going to get the F designation, though, so "F-6" is out. I think I'll just call it the A-4 (since that's what it's "replacing" ) and the name can be the "Liberty."   Thoughts?  Freedom Fighter for the AF, the Liberty for the Navy.

Tail-end modifications:



The idea here is to get the arse up a bit to compensate for the elongated nose gear. Don't need it slamming into the deck or anything! A ton of filing and sanding still to be done in this area. I swear, this is the lousiest fitting and overall condition of a kit that I've ever worked on. I keep finding more and more problems as I go, too. Just today I noticed there are two holes clear through the wings where the gear attach. I'll need to fill those..... also, on the wings, sink spots that create valleys. I'm just going to leave those alone though. They're bad looking but only when the light hits them just right. Otherwise they look pretty good!!  But anyway, if I were to sit around and list all the flaws I could spend all day so I'll dispense with it for now...

Oh yeah... I need to remember to scratch up a tail hook. Other scratching involves taking some old name plates from sprues and turning them into a couple more bomb pylons. I'm doing away with an air to air stuff so that left the original kit sitting there with just a couple bombs. This didn't look right in my minds eye so I found some old stuff in the spares stash from a Mustang. 250 pounders I think?

Along with the plethora of other surgery I'm doing on this lil guy, I need to cut out a new gear bay since I sliced 90% of it off with the ridiculous nose:



Never done anything like this before but I'm just going to make an outline with tape and just slowly cut into the plastic with my hobby knife. After I get the piece out, I might be able to re-use it to build the wheel well, if not, I guess I'll be using more name plates or the weird advertising laminated card stuff I've used in the past.

[TheChronicOne]

This thing here... man.. this thing..................     This here kit...........        

I love to rescue old kits... I dig building them into something nice... I do.. but this thing here?! 

First off... I goofed; I should have glued the intakes on before I glued the wings on. Now, when I glue them on, I'll have to either snap off and reglue the strakes, or use my itty bitty flat file and sand paper, which will take eons, to get the seam fixed.

But that's no excuse for this malarkey:


One is just laying there because it simply won't stay put. The other one is in the best it can be. Deleting the alignment pins will help matters but only marginally. I'm not going to give up, though!

So that's all for now.. I'm going to put this one down for a bit and check on the Raptor. I need to glue a tiny bit on the main gear then... well, I'm not sure.   

[Rick Lowe]

Strap on your Pe-2 and trash some Nastees!
A bit of mayhem and violence works wonders for clearing your mind to focus on other things.   

[TheChronicOne]

Pe-8 actually! The biggin! I even made it a "whif" by putting Slovak roundels on it.  Working my way toward the Tu-4 Bull but it's taking a while....

Only problem, it's slow and takes forever to get to altitude. Sometimes the mission is over before I can even get over target.    It's fun though, I prefer it. I can take my time and don't have to be on top of the stuff like a baby sitter. Whereas, if I'm in my lend-lease P-47, I'm usually chasing people or avoiding people. 

[DogfighterZen]

Quite a bit of surgery going on there... but it is looking interesting.

[Rick Lowe]

Pe-8 actually! The biggin!

Go Big Or Go Home! 

There is No Such Thing as Overkill; there is only 'Open Fire' and 'I need to Reload'...
Sgt Schlock
or
The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries

[TheChronicOne]

Quite a bit of surgery going on there... but it is looking interesting.

Aye!!! Some would have to be done even if I built this thing OOB!!!!  Shame on 1988 Airfix!     This is going to be really cool, though. I'm thinking back... and like... other than a Hellcat I did and a Hornet back in the early to mid 90's I've never done any NAVY models!    Should be good. I finally figured out the question to ask, "What if the A4 Skyhawk never existed at all?"   

Pe-8 actually! The biggin!

Go Big Or Go Home! 

There is No Such Thing as Overkill; there is only 'Open Fire' and 'I need to Reload'...
Sgt Schlock
or
The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries

I normally go home, big or not!  I used to be good at it (aerial gunnery) but I played a Naval gunnery game and became used to that way doing things. Now, put me back in the high alt. bomber and I'm still trying to gun things like I was on a destroyer. Long story short.. when other planes DO show up to shoot me down, I'm normally missing them. I can let the computer do the gunning for me but sometimes it doesn't do very good either. So.... I get shot down probably half the timer or better. 

[zenrat]

You are not alone.  I blame movies and TV making it look easy.

There is a mission in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City where you have to shoot the bad guys with an M60 from a Huey as you fly over their compound and land on the roof of their house.  It's great fun but i'm spectacularly bad at it despite all the TV & film i've seen telling me that I should be a crack shot because i'm the good guy.
Then there is the mission in GTA:San Andreas where you have to shoot down RC planes with a minigun.  I'm really crap at that as well.

[TheChronicOne]

On one hand, I really appreciate games that strive to be realistic. It's not "normal" to take off in a P-47, go and expend 250,000 rounds of 50 cal., drop 48 bombs, and be shot down 6 times only to magically re-appear in the sky moments later....      But then again, sometimes, it's frustrating as hell not being able to blow things up left and right. That's why it's good to have other games like Just Cause to play.

Still, I much prefer the "realistic" aspect of Warthunder when played on that mode. All the planes act like they should instead of a Star Wars Starfighter and fuel, ammo, time, and damage management all add in a real time strategic aspect that makes things fun. Having to fly back to home airfield to re-load and repair for instance, adds a lot of fun to the game.

[TheChronicOne]

After nearly two years I'm finally realizing that I can get better close up pictures of things by using the..... *GASP* zoom function of my camera instead of just putting it closer to the subject. It would seem a combination of the two is the best way to go about it. Who woulda thought?!?!   (I told you guys I was really bad at the whole photography thing).  I guess I never really considered the zoom because I had always used it, in the past, to try to get better pictures of things far away instead of closer pictures of things that are near and it never once made a good picture. Better late than never, though, and I'm slowly getting better at it.. 

Working on the A-4 Libery now.... got the intakes and fuselage as best as I could and glues them together. I'll have to make up the rest with filler...    I've also continued eliminating the seams on the sides where I glued the tail on.


 

Also working more on the Raptor. It's mainly together now, at least!!   I found a spot on the gear I forgot to glue earlier so I just did that... now my attention turns to the first real problem I can see on this thing. I'm not engineer but something just ain't right 'bout them intakes:




YEAH THAT UHHH... that ain't gon' work, bud. I'll use some of my advertising card stuff to fix that. Should be simple enough even for me.

[TheChronicOne]

Mainly been making 1/1 scale spaghetti since last update and and cleaning up the rest of the sprues for the F-22.... you know... getting rid of all the unneccessary attachment points and bits of sprue and just getting it down to the bare stuff with parts attached so I can prime them. Also have cleaned up and glued the drop tanks and a couple bombs or something or other....     

Measured and cut some card pieces to go on the shallow intake bottoms:



Now that I'm done cooking, I can get back to work in earnest on these two projects. I STILL haven't been able to figure out what other project or two I'd like to start to accompany these. Oh well.... there's no real lack of things to do right now on both. I have been starting my airliner collection though so maybe I can start my 737?

[DogfighterZen]

Ouch...  those intakes were not supposed to make that much of a step, i mean, i did have to use a bit of putty but it was nothing like that.



It's a shame that Revell made a mess of such details on a new tool, and even worse is that, the kit has very good shape and most of the detail is very good on most areas and then, you're let down by sink marks, missing panel lines and bad fit on only a few areas...
But mind you, Hasegawa, of which most recent kits are supposed to be some of the best, also has kits with molding problems, the F-2A wings i'm using on the F-16E kit also have a couple of almost unnoticeable sink marks on the underside, right around the pylons' attachment points...
They're very small so didn't even bother to fill them but i know they're there... it sucks to pay for what is supposed to be good quality and get such disappointing flaws but then again, what would be the fun of building perfect kits, right? 
Looks like you've got it under control, though.

[TheChronicOne]

I can only imagine what was going on at the company at the time....  they were probably aware of some of this stuff, the intakes I'd imagine... but ran out of time or budget or....

Digging your F-16 project. I like the bigger F-2 wings!!!!! I knew the F-2 was bigger but it was a bit eye-opening seeing the size difference with the wings applied to the E. I like how you were patching the gaps!

Man, I saw a youtube video earlier with what I was pretty sure was an F-16E doing some righteous maneuvers...   I think it was some joint U.S./ South Korean thingy  (<--- this type of stuff is one reason why I don't get projects done as fast as I could.  )

Did a ton of trimming of sprues on the F-22. Got them bad boys all cleaned up and ready for primer. I'm not all too sure about where I stand as a whole.. I think I may be at the point where, if I clean up the seams on the plane itself, that I can prime it and these sprues. I need to mask and glue on the canopy first, though. YES.. I'm going to do it this way. I don't recall ever gluing a canopy on with it masked BEFORE I painted. Tons of people do it with marvelous results, however, so I'm going to do it, too.

Aside from that, I'm furiously sanding away at the stupid A-4 Liberty.    ( )  It's a humongous pain in the arse but I'm somehow enjoying it still. I think when all is said and done, it will be a neat little model. I've been studying pictures of the Skyhawk and transplanting the paint scheme to this thing will be a treat.

Current state:


I'll be finished with this one in the year 2022 at the rate I keep finding bunkhouse fitment.