Friday, October 17, 2014

Greek F-4 Phantom drop 12 bombs in Vietnam-style attack during Parmenion drills.

On Oct. 2, several assets belonging to the Hellenic Armed Forces attended the final phase of the national joint exercise “PARMENION 2014”  held from September 29 to October 2, throughout the territory of Greece and within Athens FIR (Flight Information Region).


Among the aircraft that took part in the live firing demo in Evros there were four F-4E AUP Phantom II of the 338 Squadron, dropping 12 Mk82 (500lbs) dumb bombs each.




http://theaviationist.com/2014/10/11/photo-shows-greek-f-4-phantom-drop-12-bombs-in-vietnam-style-attack-during-parmenion-drills/

Pre-production review Corgi AA36709 Junkers Ju88 A-4 1./KG77.

kevjb64 on DAF has been in possession of a pre-production model of the Corgi Junkers Ju88 A-4 1./KG77. for evaluation and comment. He has been allowed share these pictures and insights by Corgi. I have not included his research photos of actual aircraft in this post.

Corgi gave the ok to post some pictures of the PP.

Overall I am reasonably happy with the upper surface , possibly minor shade tweaks to the sand.  


I am happier in some places than others, along the fuselage with the cross and forwards I think it is very good but I think it widens out too much behind and on the tail and needs to be infilled by 10 % (ish) more grey. There are no direct pics of the top of the plane. Do not forget these pics are super sized on a digital cannon, joint lines do not look anything like that to the Mk.I and the cammo tends to look better from not so up close, you can see the general pattern more.  


I have absolutely no idea what that is meant to be poking out of the front, a machine gun has been specified.  


The resin PP had two small hard points with the torpedo on the outer one which was totally wrong. It was successfully changed to the larger attachment but was still in the wrong position.


So I sent a couple of pics to show where they should be, which is closer into the fuselage and more forward, I also snapped them off and placed them where they should be, in doing so ruining the 'mint' status of my PP .   


The wing crosses were somewhat further out to allow for the hard points for the rocket boosters and the dive brakes need to be added. The upper and lower dab/meander cammo joins very well at the demarc line.


IMPO though this plane has had a makeover and it is less uniform than the norm with more intricate squiggles and circles within the meander. No idea if that can be done but I have made my thoughts clear and isolated a couple of parts of the plane to highlight it (one wing and one engine nacelle). So we wait. 

http://forums.diecast-aviation.eu/showthread.php?t=22566



Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Hobby Master releases for December 2014.

It seems like just the other day that we looked at the November releases from HM but here we with the releases for the following month.

In 1/72 scale there's a pure jet lineup that includes amongst others two F-15s and two F-16s, a USAF F-15D and JASDF F-15J, and F-16CJs based in Italy and Japan. In addition we see a ROCAF F-104B, Luftwaffe F-4F "Phantom Pharewell" and an F-35A.

In 1/48 scale we find a P-51D Mustang "Passion Wagon" and two P-47Ds, "OH JOHNNIE" 1st Lt. Raymond Knight and French GCII/5 'Lafayette'.


Monday, October 13, 2014

Cargolux 747-8 freighter (CLX789) delivery - take off and wings swing - bye.



The latest brand new Boeing 747-8 Cargolux Airlines' freighter (call sign# CLX789; Regn No# LX-VCJ) performing a crazy wings swing-bye during take-off on its delivery flight from Paine field airport. 

Mostly all big heavies that get delivered from PAE do the 'wing wave' as a thankful gesture during delivery flight to their destination airbase but, they do so only when they have climbed to almost 2000 ft or higher and attained a sufficient speed. The 'wing wave' is mostly done to say goodbye as the airplane will never see the home airport again (where it was made). 

But in this case, surprisingly, the Cargolux 747-8F performed it immediately after leaving the ground when it was too low and at slower speed which appeared to be quite dangerous and something very crazy/ unusual. This also shows the extreme maneuver capabilities of the newest version of the 'Queen of the skies'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2783901/Captain-dramatically-dips-wings-just-seconds-highly-skilled-stunt.html

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Shuttle's Report - Duxford 10 October 2014.

 Duxford 10th October 2014

Not much to report as winter approaches and the flying aircraft are returned to the hangers for maintenance. The resident Jet Provost did some flying today and made some noise...! Some of the DAS fleet are being repainted.

 Shuttle