Tag: Cold War

On the Bench

WIP : Hasegawa 1/48 F-104J Starfighter Pt. 3 – Painting

Painting begins with a black base with Tamiya XF-1 Black. The F-104J I’m modeling is a unit from the 202nd Hikotai, 5th Kokuden out of Nyutabaru Air Base in 1979. It sported a custom scheme over its all metal finish when it flew as an aggressor. So out come Tamiya XF-2 Flat White for the …...

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On the Bench

WIP : Hasegawa 1/48 F-104J Starfighter Pt. 2 – Construction

Once properly painted, washed and weathered, the out of the box cockpit looks good. Fit in general is good. The instructions don’t call for it but I added some fishing weights in the nose just in case. The tip of the tail broke off during construction. This was fixed with plastic plates. As usual, some …...

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On the Bench

WIP : Hasegawa 1/48 F-104J Starfighter Pt. 1 – Construction

Trying to get my building routine going again, I decided to tackle a 1/48 kit next. This will be an F-104J flown by the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force dressed in ‘Aggressor’ markings in the 1970s. I got this kit used from an online seller and it came with a set of aftermarket resin wheel bays …...

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Real Life

A visit to the War Remnants Museum, Ho Chi Minh City

I took a short family holiday to Vietnam over the Ramadan holidays and on the schedule was a visit to the War Remnants Musuem in Ho Chi Minh City. Before normalization of relations with the US, this museum was called “Exhibition House for Crimes of War and Aggression”. Ahhh Vietnam, not burying the lead at …...

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My Builds

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Completed : Italeri 1/72 Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-37B Ferret E

Kit Info Brand: Italeri 162 Scale: 1/72 Media: Injection Plastic Markings: Various (see text) The Subject In 1986, Testors Model Corporation released a conceptual model airplane dubbed the F-19 Ghostrider. Their design was based on Lockheed’s real life ‘HAVE BLUE’ stealth fighter project of the 1970s. This F-19 design became...

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On the Bench

WIP : Italeri 1/72 MiG-37 Ferret E – Painting & Finishing

Oof… it took quite a while to fix the gaps. It was prime, fill, sand, buff, prime, fill, sand, buff over and over to finally get to the painting stage. I don’t think I did a banged-up job but it’ll have to do. For the color scheme, I played around with the line-art and came …...

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On the Bench

WIP : Italeri 1/72 MiG-37 Ferret E – Construction

Next up is what I initially hoped was a quick build. The MiG-37 is a fictional Soviet stealth aircraft designed by the Testors Model Company as the Eastern Bloc counterpart to their F-19 Ghostrider kit. My copy is a Italeri re-boxed kit. Work begins with the cockpit which is very sparse and simplified although surprisingly, …...

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My Builds

Completed : Italeri 1/72 BAe Sea Harrier FRS.1

Kit Info Brand : Italeri No.1236 Media : Injection Plastic Markings : Kit The Subject The Sea Harrier is a further development of the Harrier Jump Jet. It is a naval short/vertical take-off and landing (S/VTOL) subsonic jet fighter designed to replace the de Havilland Sea Vixen. Largely based on the RAF’s Harrier GR.3, it …...

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On the Bench

WIP : Italeri 1/72 Sea Harrier FRS.1 Pt. 3 – Finishing

Hey… my missing wheel turned up! So the casting work I did was all for naught. Oh well, it was good practice at least. Anyway, on to finishing this build. First, for the base gloss coat, I sprayed AK Interactive Intermediate Gauzy. This is by far the easiest gloss coat I’ve ever used. I simply …...

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On the Bench

WIP : Italeri 1/72 Sea Harrier FRS.1 Pt. 2 – Painting

After a few rounds of seamline fixing and rescribing, the pitot tube broke off. Oh well, it makes the kit a lot less fiddly to hold. So, first on is black primer. To add some variety and fading to the monotone color scheme, I sprayed white in random straight lines across the top of the …...

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