Ivan Ivanovich

WARNING: Useless bit of information incoming. IIRC, the Mirage 2000 was the first aircraft to thoroughly rely on CAD/CAM technology during its design and construction process. Monsieur Dassault meets CATIA:

A 32nd scale F1C/CT/CR would be a great opportunity to correct the shape issues of their previous releases. Another favourite of mine...

By the way... Intake trunking (or lack thereof) shouldn't be too much of a problem:

In my general direction? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Solar-Powered-Light-up-Butt-Mooning-Garden-Gnome-LED-Lights-7-8-X-4-7-5-1-/143081350133

Nope. As long as 109ers will be built, thus causing the slow and agonising death of countless innocent puppies, folks won't stop teasing 109 fanboys with mostly harmless, sometimes subliminally sarcastic comments.

As a consequence, expectations among Mirage 2000 afficionados are extremely high.

Preliminary "Mirage 2000C" marking options: 3x Mirage 2000C, France 1x Mirage 2000-5F, France (118-AX, No.77, erroneously labelled as Mirage 2000C) 1x Mirage 2000H, KF1010, India 1x Mirage 2000C/F-2000C, No. 4949, Brazil (ex Armée de l'Air) 1x Mirage 2000EGM. Greece 1x Mirage 2000-5EI, Taiwan The depicted airframe configurations are (KH tradition) nonsense - Mirage 2000/2000-5 hybrids with Mirage 2000D tails. But hey, it's only "artwork". Anyway, the already published 2000C CADs are depicting a typical, correct French 2000C tail. Can't wait to see the plastic in order to find out whether KH has included cockpits for both the 2000C and the 2000-5F/EI subversions. The difference is substantial. Mirage 2000-5F, ECE 05.330 "Côte d'Argent", France: (ECE = Escadron de chasse et d'expérimentation) Mirage 2000C, EC 02.005 "Ile-de-France", France 1990/1991: Mirage 2000C, EC 01.012 "Cambrésis", France, NATO Tiger Meet 2011: Mirage 2000C, EC 05.330 "Côte d'Argent", France (Tiger Meet 1993): Mirage 2000H, 7 Sqn, India, 2011: (Not sure whether this particular aircraft has been upgraded to Mirage 2000I standard.) Mirage 2000C/F-2000C, 1° Grupo de Defesa Aérea, Brazil: Mirage 2000EGM, 332 MIra, Greece, 2015: (a/c crashed in 2017) Mirage 2000-5EI, 499th TFW, Taiwan:

Gaz, Have you already painted the radome? I just spotted a thing... It seems like the black of the upper nose anti-glare finish and the fuselage colour stop right aft of the radome mounting frame of the radome subassembly. The dark grey radome coating was only applied to the dielectric portion of the radome subassembly. Upper anti-glare finish and fuselage camo colour should also comprise the radome mounting frame. Unless it's too late for any corrections, it's only a few minutes of extra work to fix it.

In general, the service and maintenance markings on the forward fuselage, around the intakes and on the pylons were in somewhat better condition than those applied to the rest of the airframe. MiG-25s were parked in the open and only fwd fuselage, intakes, pylons and missile seekers were covered with tarps to protect the airframes, etc. from the elements. "Better condition" = less faded and worn. In order to replicate this "subdued" effect, you could apply another highly diluted, thin coat of light grey to the exposed areas. In principle that's just what I did on my old 48th scale Draken:

On a fairly well maintained operational MiG-25PD/PDS you could easily spot the larger service and maintenance markings from a distance of more than 50 metres. It's your model. You decide. For comparison - ICM MiG-25PD stencil sheet: Generic F-4E stencil data sheet: (the full monty - less than 20% of the stencils are duplicate copies/variations)

Any love for the Belfast and the Starlifter? Another engine sound you'll never forget...

Holy mackerel! A hypothetical 32nd scale B-36 would be indeed insanely big... Based on a simplified display footprint (scale fuselage length x wingspan). Most ideally one model per basal area:

You're absolutely right, Johann. IIRC, Ernie has a pretty soft spot for the Il-76. I guess the cargo bay in 1/72nd scale is large enough to hold a Bluetooth speaker to play the deafening sound of those D-30 series engines. Though I seriously doubt the bond seams would survive this...

All good, Gaz. My apologies. Apparently, my sarcasm has run riot again.

Instead? Reverting back to Pickelhaube and Stahlhelm M42 again? Goosestepping? And what's wrong with wearing a beret? (As long as it's worn in a proper size and in a proper manner. And as long as it comes in the only wearable colour - maroon.) But you are aware that a good deal of said heraldry/tradition is critically Nazi-infested or has been co-opted by the Nazis and is consequently strictly verboten in modern Germany? Which is a good thing IMHO... On the other hand, there still is some more traditional regular-issue Bundeswehr headgear - the ubiqitous Feldmütze/Field Cap, the Bergmütze/Ski Cap of the Mountain Troops, and the Luftwaffe as well as the Marine are still issuing the good old Schiffchen/Garrison Cap. Altogether fairly close equivalents to their Wehrmacht predecessors...

Waiting in the wings since forever... And most likely not to be getting anywhere:

They were sorta reluctant to use this one:

An impressive sight. Just as impressive as the engine sound...

In fact, it was me who "luftwaffled" that Super Herc. Not too different from what a "real" LW C-130J-30 will look like in 2021. The six German Hercs will be jointly operated with France from Evreux AB, France.

Or maybe a large scale Luftwaffel C-130J-30 Super Hercules?

Didn't Antonov team up with a Boeing subsidiary to restart production of a "westernised" An-124 by the end of the year?

Windows 10 Update?

Too fat?! I'd say just big enough to hold a decent stash of 48th scale 109ers in its cargo bay. The only thing that somewhat deters me from building an An-22 is the fact I've already built one as a commission build for Schenker Logistics in 2006. From my personal experience, the An-22 fits and builds better than Amodel's significantly smaller kit of the An-12. The biggest challenge was the sheer handling of the massive and unwieldy subassemblies. And that's quite exactly the reason why I'd never build anything exceeding a shelf area of 80x60cm. If I should ever tackle another Antei, it'll be this one: Just because it's one of my favourite planes, and given its 80x90cm footprint in 1/72, probably the only exception to my self-imposed 80x60cm rule.

For many outside observers our hobby as such seems kind of absurd... So why bother?