Is that South Plainfield, New Jersey? Thats not too far from me and there is one at an American Legion Post in Milltown, NJ and yet another one in Monroe, NJ.

68GT - thanks a lot, I'll give it a go, then!

OK, I was researching a Vietnam Cobra and I found out it ended up as a memorial in South Plainfield:

I decided to model this baby, just without all the bad things they did to it - like painting it the wrong colour or mounting the TOW launchers for firing to the rear...

So it's going to be US Helo Drab with probable black markings - just as it would look like in the late eighties, at the end of Cold war. I'm going to use custom decals of my design here.

I started with the cockpit - put on the decals and painted up the crew that will help to hide the lack of detail there:

I just HAD to build the collectives for that cockpit - IMO a helicopter needs those. Not much will be seen from the cockpit anyhow:

After closing up the hull halves I had to fill and sand the seam and then replace a few details lost in the process, like the two antennae under the tail boom. I have also scratchbuilt one wire cutter - WSPS blade that wasn't in the kit:

castelnuevo - the Jeep is coming along nicely, but you might want to blank off those holes under the seats on the underside. I've got a web page that shows how to to this (although on an A1): http://vietnam.net.pl/M151moden.htm

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!

Paweł

Looks good CN and welcome Pawel!

Pawel, Since you pretty much just started I would say yes.  Just post some progress pics and we're good.  What kind of marking you using?

Hello!

I just realized the Cobra (AH-1F) I'm currently building was used in the eighties (late). Would you accept my entry in the GB at this stage?

Good luck with your builds, all, and have a nice day

Paweł

A bit of a progress on the MUTT

Very clean now but mud is on the way

Great work there guys!!! 

Nice choice for a build, Ed.  

My Lizard finally got its legs...and a BIG GUN.

Figured that I should start building something so I got some A-7 action going. I probably havnt touched anything since June.

John & Eagle: Both of those are coming along great guys!!! 

Need to get back to my van, but I keep getting distracted by other stuff... 

Thanks Ed.

I'm building it gear down.  Its getting its legs next.  Just got the standoff mounts done for the GPU-5/A 30mm gun pod that's going on the centerline.  The test fit was perfect.  They actually had to put standoff mounts on the real thing to get the gun pod to clear the gear doors.  Now that the test fit is done, the gun is back off the plane to leave me easier access to get the gear mounted and gear doors put on

Keyserj, your truck build is really coming along nicely.

Eagle, your Falcon is looking good as well. Are you going with gear up or down?

Pretty amazing detail work on the box, Keyserj!

Got the decals done on the F/A-16B and was finally able to unmask the canopy and get it polished up.  Its always so tempting to unmask it before its done and pull it off the model to see if the masking worked the way I wanted it to.

Got the box all finished up today and was able to get the engine and cab exterior painted. These old amt kits have a terrible fit but I am really happy with how this is coming together.

I like it CN, very cool! 

May I join with this?

Thanks Ed!  Just got the radome painted, as well as a gloss black basecoat for Alclad on the exhaust, AND Alclad.  Was able to put a semi-matt clear coat on the radome too, all in a single afternoon.  That MRP paint is a game changer for the amount of time finishing takes.  Their clear coat though is slower to cure, that's pretty much an overnight kind of paint.

Well...it took about 3 days to get all of the masking and painting done, but the airframe is all painted!  Whenever I think about how "long" it took to get it done, I just remember what it was like doing this kind of paint job prior to MRP paint coming along.  With the standard Model Master Enamels I had sworn by for years, this same job could have easily taken weeks or months to allow for proper cure times between colors.  Another good thing is that all of their paints are semi-gloss, so I won't even need to clear coat before putting decals on it.

Cool! Thanks guys! I'm going to let the paint go a little longer to make sure it's good and dry.

Thanks for the comments guys.

Gamera, I had been using Novus for years on 1:1 aircraft canopies and windscreens to safely get my skull prints off them after finishing an avionics job, but only recently discovered how awesome it is for models.

Nice ingenuity Eagle!

Gamera, I can't wait to see how your polishing works out.

Eagle: She's coming along well- nice work!!!

The Tamiya polishing compound worked really well. I wish I'd tried the Novus years ago now. I did encounter a few bad spots in the paint so I sanded them out and repainted. Sorry I didn't think to take any photos. Going to let it dry for a week or so and I'll take some then when I try the polishing compound again.

Almost ready for paint.  Got the major issues worked out with the airframe.  The holes for the elevon pins were way too big, so I drilled them out to 2mm and glued in some 2mm OD brass tubing.  Then I used a little Tamiya Extra Thin on those elevon pins to soften them up a little so I could get the elevons into their proper, slightly downward angle.  They have a 1.5mm OD, so they fit nice and snug in the brass sleeves I made.  Also had to add a tiny chunk of .010" Evergreen styrene strip to the inside of one of the mounting slots for the strakes.  That slot was over-sized and everything I tried for securing the strake to the fuselage failed.  The styrene shim was the magic bullet.

Also got the 1980s-appropriate armament put together and ready for paint.  Very little to deal with in the way of seams.  Fixed those with a few little dabs of the trusty old Gorilla Super Glue with the light blue cap.  Everything is smoothed and polished.  Just have a little re-scribing to do and all will be good.  Loading it with 2 AIM-9s, 2 AGM-65s, a GPU-5/A gun pod, and 2 370-gallon external fuel tanks.  Was going to put LANTIRN pods on it too, but those weren't around in 1983 when this one was flying at Hill AFB.

No problem, Gamera.  Let us all know how that polishing compound works out for you.  I've been having really good results with Novus applied with cotton gloves, but having as many options as possible never hurts.

John: That looks great! She's really coming together!

Eagle: Sorry, didn't see you question till now. It's the Tamiya polishing compound. There's an article here on FSM about polishing out orange peel. On the van it's not too bad but with the slab-sided flat shape I figure it should be good practice.

Nice work guys, keep up the good work!

I'm hoping to start something in the next few weeks. I'm still not sure what its going to be.

Thanks Keyserj!  The Mack looks like its coming together nicely!