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Looking great my friend! Always a pleasure to have you back

Pretty slick ~230 mph top speed, so not exactly sluggish not too far behind a "Rufe" . Nice lines.

Very sleek wing profile on this thing.

While it may be a simplified explanation, I 'm thinking Occam's razor may apply, where the simplest explanation tends to be the most correct.

Excellent recovery, Jay! Kev

While in the broad strokes it may be "fairly bland" researching and digging out the right colors can be interesting/aggravating and don't even get me started on the different cockpit colors. Boring? Not likely as far as I'm concerned ,I love it!

I remember seeing that Havoc at the San Jose show that year. It's incredibly impressive. Matt

Guy - the cure would be worse than the disease! The metal panels have some edges bondo'd to try to eliminate the panel lines, as was done on the actual aircraft. You will find, I think, that my fix is going to be OK.

So let's get building then to speed things up. I would love a Pete in 1/32 as I've just finished the Hasegawa 1/48 kit and have a thing about the aircraft that served in the Solomons campaign in the South Pacific. Can't believe we don't have a Jake in 1/32, apart from being Japanese maybe the fairly bland camo schemes don't inspire. TRF

For those of you who, like me, regard this recognition light issue as a project wrecking mistake, and just didn't say it out loud - I have some good news for you. First, months ago I did the wing tips, and was so proud of them. They really are awesome, especially with the tip fairings attached. They were tailor made for 3D printing. I took pictures and posted: Those three holes with light bulbs at the bottom? I worked hard on those details. But they ought to be on the other tip that you see on the right! Just a stupid gaff by yours truly. Truly stupid. Hit the button to make opposite hand parts, and it's good. Wish I realized that then; I'd have re-printed them. But no. The mistake went unnoticed right up until the wing was basically complete and ready for paint. So guess what I did nearly all day today. Here is what that LH side tip panel l looks like now: Those pretty light holes are never to be seen again - covered by round litho plates and gaps filled with epoxy. I have sanded and buffed this area about as well as I can. I will restore the silver paint next, and accept it if I can still see the plates. It's part of the price for the mistake. But what I really want to show you is the RH side where I created the new recognition lights, now in the correct location: Those litho rings are the same ones I made months ago, meant to fit into .005 inch under-contour circular depressions such that the rings would be flush with the surrounding surface. So now they are no longer flush with the surface, but they are really quite thin (less than .005 inch thick after some vigourous sanding). That is also part of the price for the mistake. And what you don't see yet, under the masking plates, are three holes with little light bulbs at the bottom sort of similar to what I did in the first place. Later after I finish the painting in this area, I will glue in the colored acetate "glass", and I think I will have an acceptable installation. I will post on it when it's done in a couple days or so. I think this development is better than just accepting the mistake as it is. When I show the finished product I hope you all agree.

This may be one of those posts where 'everyone knows that' and I missed the memo. I have often wondered why the colours on USN planes changed from the two early greys, typically painted on Wildcats, SBDs and early Hellcats to the 3-4 blue & white scheme and then to the glossy dark sea blue, when the greys would have been a better air superiority scheme for CAP etc. Enter the books by Michael Claringbould on the Solomons campaign in the South Pacific and after reading these and getting all inspired I bought kits of the 'Dave', 'Pete' & 'Rufe' to go along with my existing USN & USAAF kits. Then I got into wondering what the ships looked like and got hooked into buying examples of both USN and JN ships and submarines used around the Solomons. Never having built a ship before required the usual research into the colours of particularly USN ships. This subject is very confusing as the USN operated both in the Atlantic and the Pacific and it became apparent that the two theaters required different paint schemes (called measures by the navy). Generally early on they were light grey all over, including carriers so the light grey planes made sense as they wanted deck equipment (including planes) to blend in. The Navy then introduced a banded scheme with a medium blue on the hull and after consultation with naval aviators a dark navy blue (around September 1942) for all horizontal surfaces. The carriers had their wooden decks painted in the dark blue and they were paranoid enough to say that all deck equipment and also uniforms and Dixie caps were to be in dark navy blue. So if the deck is dark blue then the planes must also be dark blue all over so they don't stand out on deck. This is of course a simplified description of things but I think explains why the later USN planes in the Pacific were dark blue all over. Also if you think we have it bad trying to find the correct colours for our planes, there are no FS numbers or colour chips for the wartime USN ship colours, which is very frustrating and has stalled a couple of my builds. Your thoughts on my reasoning welcomed. TRF

The only way to make this happen is to undertake the pain-staking scratchbuild of one over the course of many months and years. Only then, right as you are preparing to join the final pieces together, will the universe have one be announced by a mainstream company Matt

About the only thing that would make me a little "jittery" regarding the "Pete" , would be the rigging on the flying wires. I've done them on 1to1 biplanes and what a pain in the whaazooo. I think I'd be willing to try though, what the hell ,right?

Just put it on backorder, price says $ 103.19. Although as Ivan5 says shipping to the U.S.will probably be quite high. Cheers.

That I did and the price is still good. Although the shipping will probably be a heart stopper I'm guessing.

I’d call a mulligan and claim dyslexia.

Thanks for sharing the pics. Some fantastic looking models. I like the interior in the Cylon Raider with the toasters in place of the Centurions. I built one a couple years again bd it's definitely huge.

I can already tell this is going to be an epic build. It’s a shame these airplanes just sorta disappeared. Does anyone know what happened to the airframes after the war? Be nice to see one flying again like the current crop of Mosquitos.

Just the latest environmental scare story which is another great example of the difference between observation, correlation and causation. Just because it's in there doesn't mean it's actually causing any harm. If you use aluminium cooking pots, that's a far bigger risk as there's a well proven link between aluminium exposure and dementia. Those of us in the UK of a certain age will remember the Camelford disaster.

I agree with reservations, it would be the only one that I have an interest in but IF it shows up with stressed skin and raised rivets I'll .....I'll ......!

P-38, yes please

Sorry for that. I did not want to reopen that can of worms. Actually I just wanted to be somewhat sarcastic about the strategy to use UK as a scapegoat whereas most British people are as well the victims of that stupid situation. For instance, Hannants used to be my main source of aftermarket for decades as well as The Aviation Bookshop for books. Alas this is now rather the exception rather than the rule. Too bad...

That's a bit of a straw man, as I never made that claim. My point is: if a group of people spend well over a decade collecting all remaining engineering data and information from recovered wrecks in order to re-build pretty much from scratch an airframe of which there aren't any examples in existence anymore, they are quite likely going to be better versed in the fine intricacies of the type they want to reproduce than anyone else.

Forgot one! In 1/35th helicopters, I only found one entry. It is a scratchbuild so maybe I didn't find the regular category? There were groups blocking me from certain tables (judges?) so I might have missed the others. Anyway, this is a scratched Mi-28 Havoc.