Small Scale Military Headquarters

I used sprue tro make a replacement for mine, but there's an easier way than filing. Just light a candle and hold the sprue above it until it starts to sag in the middle. Then slowly stretch it. It takes a couple of times to get it right, but it sure beats filing.

I had a lot of landings like that at Lajes Field in the Azores during winters. When I was sitting at the SS-3 station, I could look out the window and see the runway heading out anywhere between the nose and wingtip during the approach, which was bad given that I'm sitting in the middle of the plane...

We did it to ourselves. All our aircraft makers are focused on big ticket fighters and attack aircraft like the F-22, F-35, or F/A-18, and don't have much interest in making a small advanced training aircraft since there won't be enough ordered to justify the cost.

BRUZILLA: What is the status of the 1/18 F-14 pilots you were working on? My pilot and NFO are molded, and awaiting paint - which I hope to get to once the football thing slows down a bit. Looking at the Skyworks figure, I might get two of those and use my arms and head on their torso (my arms are ...

Also, that pilot looks to be too tall for the seat. The upper e-handles should be above the helmet. This guy would need to try to reach over or around his helmet to eject using those handles, and that's a sure-fire boot out of the community (as I learned when I got banned from flying in S-3 Vikings)...

Sorry to get to the conversation late, but with football season coming up, I've been ulta-busy customizing Steelers helmets for everyone I know. I think those Skyworks pilots look fine, in fact a little better than what I have IRT the helmet. My only peave would be the holes where round-head screws ...

If the paint accents were along the rivets it actually would be correct. i spent 14 months in the gulf aboard the USS Ranger with VMA-121 USMC and after about 3 months at sea all the planes had to be hand sanded and repainted in many areas along the rivets. i myself did this after getting in a bit ...

If you're buying stuff up at clearance sasles, you're not a part of the problem. The problem is folks going in and buying the new releases. Like at WalMart, every time the scan an item, the price is added to your total. At the same time, their computer is registering every item that is leaving the s...

Even at the Walmart price of $40, there's no way many could hoard these items. I was lucky to have a good paying job to afford one of most everything 21st made. Now that there are mostly repaints of ones I already have by JSI, my buying has waned, but my interest in the hobby hasn't. There at the e...

If 1/18 dies, it will be for the same reason that many similar product lines die - hoarders! For you older folks on the board, remember Cabbage Patch Kids dolls? These were really the first "it" toy that everyone wanted, and supply couldn't meet demand because you had people buying them who wanted t...

I won't waste my time going to see it. I'm sure it'll paint the Soviets as being innocent little peaceniks out collecting daisies when those evil Nazis just attacked them out of the blue. There will be no mention of that pesky non-aggression pact, or it's even peskier sub-component that showed the S...

My callsign is my login, Bruzilla. I got it during a det to Kadena, Okinawa. My crew and I were in this store, and I turned a corner and ran smack into a Japanese couple who looked to be in their 70s or so. I'm 6'6" tall, and they were about five feet even or so, and my appearance really startled th...

Found an oopsie! We didn't want to detail facial features, and my plane is going to be displayed in combat and firing an AIM-9, so the visors are going to be down... but the visor knob was placed at the top of the visor cover. Eeek! I'll be moving the knob to the bottom. I'm also missing the pig tai...

Thanks for the info. I especially like the ideas for the harnesses and cushions. I'm going to have crew figures attached to my seats (which is why I want to pull the seats), so I'm not too concerned about cushions, but harnesses are a concern. I never thought I would be "blessed" by having a son who...

Thanks for the info. I can see why it didn't last long on the planes, and wasn't installed on all of them as you can see that thing flopping around pretty well in the video.

I know someone's pulled the seats out of their Tomcat, and I was wondering if someone could tell me how it's done. Can they just be pulled out, or is there a connector I have to work around?

I haven't sold anything on here, but having sold stuff on other sites I can tell you there's an Idiot Factor that sellers have to take into account and that you might want to consider. What I mean by this is that there are a lot of people who try to do business over the net the same way they talk on...

I was looking at some old pics I have of Tomcats that I shot up at Oceana back about 1984 or so, and I have a good shot of a VF-33 bird's nose and that string is there. It's attached to a small, round, cover, maybe 4" across. I'm thinking it's used to pull that cover off. It's right in front of the ...

It was one of those things I ended up second guessing myself on. I looked at the LPA and knew something was missing, and it dawned on me it was that flashlight. Then I thought about how it was only held in place by velcro, and thought it would not be the sort of thing you want chasing you around dur...

I just got the initial rough of the pilot figure for my Tomcat. It's been fitted for the front and rear seat, and slides in and out pretty easilly. We made them with a wire rod coming out of the arms, which slides into a hole in the shoulder area. I put a small ball of modeling clay into the hole, w...

I think the lights in the engines are kinda retarted, especially when the plane is sitting empty on the deck. I would be impressed if they lit up all the position lights as those really stand out on the real birds when they are on.

That's the same paint scheme I'm converting my F-14 to. I'm guessing your painter just masked the OEM markings and painted over them. This technique works well with the exception of one thing: the ejection seat warnings. On Tomcats of this era, there were two warning decals on either side of the coc...

A lot of it is the "hard plastic clothes" I'm sure. The pilot figures I've put together for my F-14 (and the guys driving my jeeps and trucks) have all had to have their butts and the backs of their thighs dremelled flat. Consider that your muscles in these areas also flatten out when you sit down,...

It looks like it's in a parking lot. Probably an air show. That... or he's wearing a Halloween costume to the local aviation museum. :P I wish I could find my favorite picture of a Tomcat pilot. I was walking out to preflight an aircraft at NAS Sigonella, Italy, and I hear this roar over my head. I...

All I ever saw were black laces. The thing is that you can wear your flightboots as part of your working uniform (dungarees, working khaki, BDUs, etc.) so unless you want to be changing between black laces and coloreed laces day to day... One other bit of trivia about boots is we were never require...