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Thankfully you can tell your friend it's less than a mortgage payment for the set. https://www.hobbyeasy.com/en/data/crpurktxowqmpxy6h3ay.html

Who doesn't love the look of the Sukhoi Flanker family? Say what you will about how capable it is, but they sure made a great looking plane with that one. A few years ago I picked up the Minibase Su-33 Sea Flanker. Talk about an incredibly detailed kit. I think the ejection seat is something like 15 pieces of plastic and the harness is another 20 or so bits of PE. Anyways, I was looking at burner cans for it and some of the new 3D printed MLG legs. Turns out Minibase make their own set and it was cheaper than buying separate sets for both. This set takes the kit to another level. The landing gear has all the wires and hoses printed in place. The NLG mud guards are here and they give you extras just in case. They include a pilot as well. If you don't want to use the pilot, a printed harness is included as well. That will probably save a lot of grief, and eyesight. The burner cans are great too. The instructions tell you where to snip off all the supports and in what order. Even the painting guide is detailed. I'm seriously considering getting a second kit after seeing this set. Oh, I also got some bits for my big Tiger.

Someone postulated that the Trumpeter kits that are the best accuracy-wise are those where there's been a really good 1/48 kit to copy/reference.

I'm in the same boat. Come close but never finished one. Currently the closest is an F-8 with the Fisher F-8C conversion.

Ron, that's some great scratch building you're doing there. I think mine will be closed up when the time comes to building it.

Truly a lot of masking there Rob. The results will be worth it I'm sure. The closest I've come to something like that was my F-4E build. I used Eduard PE stencils on that one but just masked around them. I did a few at a time and then moved them to their next spot. The inner wing ones were multipart as well so those took care.

That looks good there Ernie. No idea on accuracy but it looks like things together properly.

Thanks folks! I've only done one in-flight model so far but this might be the start of a trend. I've got the Revell 1/48 B-1B and always wanted to do that in-flight with a load of cruise missiles dropping out of the bomb bay. So that might happen.

I'm getting close to finishing the Final Countdown Tomcat. It won't be done in time for the end of the GB but I'm getting there. So since I had Tomcats top of mind and I'd already painted a set of wings I figured why not. To make it easier on myself (I hope) I decided to do it gear up. Less stuff to assemble and paint white... First step is re-scribing the rear fuselage. Then I grabbed a bunch of parts and just started gluing things together. As she'll be in-flight, I need a crew so I've decided to order a pilot and RIO figure from Reed Oak. They have their visors down so no face painting/butchering reeuired. Tomcats forever!

Just catching up with your build Gary. I've yet to do a 190. Came close with the Hasegawa A8 kit but botched the wing/cowl/fuselage join which you've shown can be a problem. Great problem solving and I'll have to remember some of them when the time comes to do the D9 I have in the stash.

The sneak peek looks amazing. Hope that you can finish in time. Either way, can't wait to see her finished.

Lovely work John. Mine is still collecting dust since I opened the box.

Great progress Bill. Good to know about the wing fillet. I'll have to try and remember that when I get around to mine.

Mr Color has been around since the '80s. It was available back then in some shops but being a lacquer it scared me off a bit at the time so I stuck to their Aqueous line. For a long time, there was no official North American importer for the paint. Being in Toronto, where there's a large Asian population there were a bunch of small hobby shops that were bringing it in themselves directly from Hong Kong or Japan. Sometimes they'd be sold out and you'd have to wait a while for certain colours or you had to go to a couple shops to find it. Another paint line that's been around longer than people think is Tamiya's enamel paints. Little square bottles but plastic instead of glass.

Condolences to you and your family Ron.

Rob, really great job. I'm very interested in seeing you use the 1Man Army masks and how well they will work.

What about polycarbonate or Lexan? Might be harder to find but I don't think it has the moisture absorption issue. You should see the detail that Tamiya gets from it when they vacform stuff.

Mr Color is the bestest. I've got bottles of it that are at least 20 years old and they're still good to go.

Gesundheit!

Peter, nice work on the Mustang. It was the last 1/32 kit Tamiya did that had the working parts on. They finally ditched all that stuff on the Mosquito and Corsair that followed. Great to hear Diane is better and back home. Carl

Found them! Along with an HK Do335 pilot. Man, these guys are giants. The tiny guy on the right is a Tamiya P-51 pilot.

If you want a really tall pilot, check out the ones included in the HK Mosquito. If I recall, one is tall enough to be a first round draft pick for the NBA.

A different paint scheme than the more common USMC grey.

I have those as well. They will really help with attaching the wing and landing gear.

Time for another update. I got the new pair of wings painted. I then did the corrogard leading edges in silver. With those done, I assembled the wings onto the upper fuselage half. The wings are mounted on a metal plate and pivot on brass bushings. I then glued the upper and lower halves together. I added the intake vari ramps. The underside of the fuselage along the intake area needed some filler so that was done next. Now to let it dry.