Noyhauser

If it is as I think it is, it won't help. That will just cover over the issue, when the CA will have altered the properties of the plastic/acrylic. Really there is nothing you can do, save for painting over the entire thing a different colour. I wish I had a photo of a kit's canopy I crazed, but I don't... sufficed to say I've ruined a number of canopies and needed to replace them due to this problem.

Unfortunately, its likely that you are. Superglue will fog up clear parts, to the extent that they change their chemical composition. You can't do much about it either... sanding it down won't do much, especially if you dropped it directly on it. Its a problem for Vacuform canopies, which need a strong fastener, but are easily damaged by CA fumes or direct contact. For future reference, you can prevent some damage if you put a coat of future down first. It acts as a protective barrier that will prevent serious fogging and crystallization.

It really depends on the connectors; if they fit they fit. Air pressure is air pressure after all. Do you have a water trap? they need to hit a certain pressure before the valve seals, which is pretty common.

Often a coat of future overtop of that will just get rid of it too.

Acrylics can be glossed through a number of methods. You can add a paint retarder, which will allow time for the paint to smooth out (gunze and tamiya sells such products), or an different additive that I think breaks the tension down and allows for glossing to occur. The other option is to use gloss coat afterwards... like future or Alclad Aqua gloss. Plenty of ways to get a nice glossy coat with acrylics.

Very cool and very well done! The SDF is no slouch whatsoever.

Modern Hobbies is pretty great.. the service I got was fantastic. I've got a few more of their products to use in the near future (F-117, F-2, among others) , which I'll post on the forums.

So its been awhile... some pretty cool things going on around here I see... like those parts from Derex... very nice. I've been a bit busy but tried to plow through some kits over the past few months. Probably the main kit I worked on was a 1/72 Hasegawa CF-104. Cockpit: Fuselage: Wings n'stuff with first colour: Painted: Annnnd done: Sorry for the crappy photo quality... I really need to learn how to take better photos. I also built this B5N2 kate... which has taken me ages to get right because of the extensive amount of PE for the wing folds and everything else. So, now I'm working on a couple of things... probably the most interesting for you guys is this kit: I'm building a VFA-2 Bounty Hunters scheme from around 2005 in this scene: I built the intakes from miliput: Added some pilots from Modern Hobbies: I painted them and made their oxygen hoses by wrapping thin copper wire around a somewhat thicker wire. And this is where I'm at today: That's all for now, thanks for looking.

Hi Quagga... sorry for the late reply. I'd go with a second hand compressor and a Iwata Revolution CR. Its a higher quality AB than the NEO, and can be found at really reasonable prices second hand. Its how I started modelling seriously... and I still use the CR to this day for large area painting. I guess I would suggest you do a fair bit of research on a model before you buy it. I bought a Senco PC1010, which is a really highly regarded compressor at a really reasonable price in the U.S. However it might not be as cheap in Europe. Really it is a question of what might be available for you.

Are we talking about the avionics? Because those were fairly apparent early on, but the issues with the design, and lack of gov't spending have really killed a proper fix. I also believe that this is why the F-22 production was capped; it would require an expensive redesign to build additional avionics sets. Given this and the other issues, I wouldn't be surprised if the F-22 fails to reach its planned life and is retired early (like in 15 years). I hope I'm wrong but as someone who has been keenly interested in the file for the last decade, I don't hold out much hope.

No, that's entirely incorrect. Size has an near infinitesimal effect on observability. you can have an infinitely long wing and angled correctly it won't matter. Conversely, an incorrectly positioned panel a few centermeters across will be detected by most modern fighter radars. Wing size is completely dependent on the navy's need for low speed handling, versus the general balance of flight characteristics that the AF wants for its version. The reality is that Sprey is wrong and an exceptionally biased information source. Even in the 1970s he was discredited as an analyst. He was dead set against the F-15 and F-14, as being too complex... even the F-16 was seen as being excessively weighted down. Today he claims that he was "designer" or key influencer of it and the A-10, which is just not true. But lets get onto the thrust of his arguments. First his calculations on wing loading did not include the F-35' fuselage, which is a lifting body, as you noted in the F-14 case. That changes quite a bit. Second, there is so much more to air combat to wing loading. In reality sustained turn is not the most sought after performance metric. The advent of all aspect, high off boresight missiles, basically has switched what performance variables matter relative to others. Rather than Acceleration and sustained turn being prized, Acceleration and instantaneous turn have become more important as these allow for sudden movements that can help an aircraft point its nose towards an adversary faster, or to quickly reposition itself on the defensive. Others that have increased in importance are High G Roll rate, low speed nose authority (post stall/high AoA conditions), time to corner speed. So, back to your question, the current wing design basically is a trade off that enables the aircraft to have the performance in those other realms. Smaller wings basically aid in acceleration, instantaneous Turn, high G, ect... all the stuff that have become more important for current air combat.You won't see great swirling dogfights of the old. Rather it will be a few violent turns within close quarters with one or both aircraft going down. That's not to say that the F-35 doesn't have a good sustained turn rate.. most of the comparisons are made with the early F-16 blocks, which were extremely maneuverable. Its just not as valuable as it was before. As a final point, The JSF's real concession wasn't the B version, that's a fallacy. In reality the biggest concession came from the C version, because of the extra reliability requirements the navy imposed on the aircraft. ITs heavier today because the Navy wanted an excessive amount of redundancy built in for carrier operations, including reinforced structures throughout the airframe. A good primer is Rebecca Grant's the Radar Game, which she updated in 2010. https://secure.afa.org/Mitchell/reports/MS_RadarGame_0910.pdf

In reality AMC III on Block III is not really close to the capability as the 3i avionics package that will be installed on F-35 after 2017. Its data will still be presented in a semi-federated state to the pilot (not fused in the way that the F-35's will be), and it too uses the MILSTD 1335 Databus which limits the amount of data that can be transferred. The biggest enabled capability is a digital touch screen and cockpit displays, and some processing capabilities, but it still is limited in a whole bunch of key areas. Moreover the F/A-18E won't be produced for much longer. The Navy wanted 22 additional EA-18Gs (not F/A-18Es) in its unfunded priorities list this year, and it got 5. In reality the US Navy hasn't made a large purchase of F/A-18E/Fs in several years and the EA-18Gs will primarily be tasked to jam for the existing F/A-18Es . The five units staved off the line closure for an additional year, but its almost certain that the St. Louis plant will be closed down in 2017. Its not a USB: the Databus is a critical component for bringing in data from federated sources: RWR, Radar, LANTIRN/LITENING pods, weapons, Comms, diagnostic sensors, among other things and sending processed information to flight displays, automated systems and communication. This is the Eurofighter's Avionics infrastructure diagram: Those red and green boxes are the data buses; They are integral to the functioning of a fighter's avionics system. In the case of the F-22, they actually fused the radar with the core processor in order to improve the data transfer rates. So being dismissively flippant about the quality of data bus really illustrates your lack of understanding of this area.

Prime Minister Abbott announced that 72 will be purchased. Since the deliveries will start in 2018, and so the RAAF has already started major planning for acquiring the fleet. Its basically a year or so away for them to start training their initial cadre of pilots. I'd say that 72 is likely what you will see in 2022, especially considering that the RAAF F/A-18A fleet will need to be replaced by 2022... as Australia does not have a centre barrel regeneration facility like the RCAF does in Mirabel Quebec. So those aircraft are life limited to that time. For medium sized air forces like Canada and Australia, decisions like this are not taken likely. You have an established force structure that isn't easily tinkered with: airframe life, aircraft capability, availability and personnel arrangements, just to name a few. That means an announcement like this is very likely to be followed through... especially given the broad political agreement over the procurement.

ITs not just through the floor, its basically a 360 degree spherical view around the aircraft utilizing an electro-optical system. The biggest value is the sensor fusion, so basically it will take information from other sensors, both onboard and off board and present that information to the pilot through the helmet system. That's unprecedented. It is for a number of reasons. First you need to basically run sensors all around the aircraft, power them, and then build an avionics and helmet system that takes all that data. That isn't really unfeasible, but its actually very costly and difficult to do. Its not being retrofitted into any other aircraft. The real challenge is to integrate that data into the overall sensor picture. Most aircraft do not possess computing power/architecture to integrate such a system. The F-22 and F-35 are the only aircraft with a IEEE 1394 firewire data bus that can handle the sort of data that is required to make such a system a reality. it might be possible to run a separate system outside of the core legacy avionics system, but it wouldn't have any fusion with other sensor systems, which is the real benefit of the DAS system. Some test F/A-18F attempted this, where they basically ran a firewire line from optical systems to back seat laptops... but that is limited in its capability and really only represents a narrow capability, nothing like a secondary DAS-like architecture without sensor fusion. So its really not possible. There have 120+ training aircraft, which are starting to produce new pilots and crews for the aircraft. Moreover by July or August of next year the first operational squadrons will start to come online in Yuma. Some, but this is balanced by new countries coming online and purchasing in larger than expected volumes. Oh it really matters. Basically aircraft are time limited by their airframe, which can only take a certain amount of flight time and Gs before they cannot be used anymore. The RCAF's CF-18s are basically representative of that, Early on they were flown extremely hard by pilots: they would regularly pull 9Gs and undertake multiple touch and go hard landings. It was quickly discovered that the aircraft were rapidly eating up their usable flight life and whole new flight restrictions were put into place. Now we basically fly them like classic cars: they rarely see more than 4Gs, they are equipped with very specific loadouts and landings are conducted with a gentle flare touchdown. They are literally at the end of their lives and we need to soldier on. The USAF does not have the same regimented regulatory system on their F-16 fleets, but many aircraft are being retired at 5,000~6,000 hours, instead of the 8,000 expected lifespan. The Super Hornet is not faster, more agile or "as capable." If the Shornet is clean, its likely faster, but not more agile and certainly not as capable (especially in range or with weapons). Basically if you hang anything on the Rhino, its performance drops dramatically. With tanks, it could not get to M1.6... at least not without a dive. It doesn't have anything approaching sensor capability or comms that the F-35 has. And in reality the cost is likely on 20% less than the F-35.. maybe. Weigh that with better capability and higher sortie rates, and its really not a bargain at all. Much of those claims are basically Boeing business development talking points, which basically use a clean F/A-18E (without pods of external fuel tanks), using 2000 base year costs and comparing them to the F-35's 2012 base year costs. The RAAF only purchased the Shornet because of the early withdrawal of the F-111: basically it was a gap filler. Its force structure in 2022 will be 24 F/A-18F (12 or 24 being EA-18G configuration) and 72 F-35. So its really not what the Aussies did.

So I'm in San Fran this week for a conference (you know which one) and I have some time thursday afternoon (16th) to see some stores. I searched through the threads and most concern collectables... and I'm more looking for models, macross, sci-fi and "regular". Any suggestions? I'm near the downtown core (specifically japan town)... and I have from 2:30~5ish If anybody would like to join me, that would be awesome too.

Gunze is the answer. Thinned properly and its fantastic either for brushing or air brushing. I've almost completely moved over to it.

Model Master Acryl is notorious for thinning out. I have bottles of Tamiya, Gunze and vallejo that are ten, even twenty years old (in some of the older Tamiya bottles) and they are almost all still usable. By comparison most of my Model master bottles are dried out within 3 years of opening them.

I run lacquer paint thinner through the AB and I use a pipe cleaner in the needle channel every time I finish. Keeps it nice and minty clean with no buildup at all.

Perhaps this can be a bit of inspiration for you: http://www.hasegawa-model.co.jp/jp/ Its basically people submitting scratch built "stuff" to Hasegawa to display. Its pretty awesome actually!

Probably. I once painted HGUC Char's Red Gelgoog with gray. it shouldn't be too big an issue.

Preorder up. http://www.hlj.com/product/HSG65725/Sci

Really depends on application. If you did it in one tone, I don't think it would look that good... it would look too "toyish," My suggestion is to paint and mask off areas to give some definition to different panels. That would give it more of a sense of scale that is really hard to do in smaller scales.

I used to be like that then I discovered that Mr Surfacer can be fired through an air brush. I much prefer it to Tamiya surface primer, particularly when you look at the cost, which is not even close.

So I also bought the Northug II VF-11... and trying to figure out what to do with it. I've got three options in mind: SU-35S Dark blue scheme: the New F-16 Haveglass/Early F-35 scheme with the white ident stripes. I'd probably make it heavily weathered like the F-16 Haveglasses used to see. Or a Just delivered aircraft "scheme": Not too sure what one I'll go with. Hasegawa D-9 in 1/72. I bought it with a true details cockpit set that dressed it up a bit inside. Its almost done... just need to correct the exhaust patterns and give it a final coat. In other news, more Starfighter love:

So I've been a bit remiss in posting lately, but I've had a bit of time to build lately. For Phyrox, I've almost completed that 1/72 Tiger with the Zimmeritt: Just got to do the road wheels, decals, a bit of weathering and I'm done. I actually generally don't like building German stuff, but I had this kit in my stash and I thought I'd build it. Another project that's almost done is a B5N Kate Bomber, with tons of photo etch. And a couple of korean war aircraft. Oh, and one more: a star fighter. That's it for now... maybe some completed shots next time.