Patch placement on MA-1 jackets?

[Stand By]

Model planes! Awesome!
I haven't built one in like, 30 years? (stopped when I discovered girls). Sometimes I wander around the hobby store and check out some of the awesome kits on sale these days. I'm really impressed by all the new moulds that have proper panel lines, and Japanese speciality companies are making fantastic etched metal details for interiors and landing gear. I think this is spurred by the huge number of 'born-again modelers'; guys who were kids before video games, and are retiring now and have the time and the money.QUOTE]

As a hobby, it has never been better served - and the kids have never been less interested due to the fact that they have no patience for anything and we used to build so we could "fly" the plane around the house (or in flames out of a bedroom window!) and use our imaginations - meanwhile they can "fly" online via their PS3/PS4/X-Box/PC and design their own plane and put a photo of their faces on the pilot and watch themselves fly after the mission - and yet, today the quality of the kits are exemplary and the after-market kits to detail/enhance the kits are ridiculously brilliant. Intricate and accurate resin parts, photo-etched parts - and many of them are pre-painted to an eye-searing degree of the most unbelievable detail - I have NO idea how they're made but they're all out there ...
I have a nostaligia for Airfix kits of the 1970s and I got a vintage 1/72 Hercules from the mid-70s with the Bloodhound missile - I eventually lost patience and gave up on the bloody thing! Just awful moulding. Back then nobody cared (I didn't!) - but these days - oh no. It wouldn't pass! And today, Airfix has upped their game beyond recognition and is brilliant (which it needs to be to compete!).
Toronto is blessed with a few great model shops and this is a far better place to be a modeller than the UK - just amazing shops like the 1980s in Sheffield (Beatties!). I love to ride over to my model shop once a month or so - just to escape the house and the dogs for a while, have a good coffee in there (they serve Keurig!) and browse/pick up the latest magazines, all the kits and go downstairs to rummage in the vintage kits, magazines and old books.
Last weekend I found another copy of a rare book I, <ahem!> "liberated" from my old college library (Shhh! The only thing I ever stole in my life! Well, the college was demolished so it would have gone to landfill! So really, I saved it!) - a stellar hardback book from the mid-60s that details the world's latest fighters and bombers - and the TSR-2 was in there as it tells of how it has been successfully tested and is ready to be rolled out ... well that story came to an abrupt and inglorious end!
If there's a particular fan of the TSR-2 out there, let me know and I can try and grab it.

A photo of my den … (this time no kits on the go - I'm working on Lucky Dog - for my ANJ-3 jacket)

 

[Big J]

Model planes! Awesome!
I haven't built one in like, 30 years? (stopped when I discovered girls). Sometimes I wander around the hobby store and check out some of the awesome kits on sale these days. I'm really impressed by all the new moulds that have proper panel lines, and Japanese speciality companies are making fantastic etched metal details for interiors and landing gear. I think this is spurred by the huge number of 'born-again modelers'; guys who were kids before video games, and are retiring now and have the time and the money.QUOTE]

As a hobby, it has never been better served - and the kids have never been less interested due to the fact that they have no patience for anything and we used to build so we could "fly" the plane around the house (or in flames out of a bedroom window!) and use our imaginations - meanwhile they can "fly" online via their PS3/PS4/X-Box/PC and design their own plane and put a photo of their faces on the pilot and watch themselves fly after the mission - and yet, today the quality of the kits are exemplary and the after-market kits to detail/enhance the kits are ridiculously brilliant. Intricate and accurate resin parts, photo-etched parts - and many of them are pre-painted to an eye-searing degree of the most unbelievable detail - I have NO idea how they're made but they're all out there ...
I have a nostaligia for Airfix kits of the 1970s and I got a vintage 1/72 Hercules from the mid-70s with the Bloodhound missile - I eventually lost patience and gave up on the bloody thing! Just awful moulding. Back then nobody cared (I didn't!) - but these days - oh no. It wouldn't pass! And today, Airfix has upped their game beyond recognition and is brilliant (which it needs to be to compete!).
Toronto is blessed with a few great model shops and this is a far better place to be a modeller than the UK - just amazing shops like the 1980s in Sheffield (Beatties!). I love to ride over to my model shop once a month or so - just to escape the house and the dogs for a while, have a good coffee in there (they serve Keurig!) and browse/pick up the latest magazines, all the kits and go downstairs to rummage in the vintage kits, magazines and old books.
Last weekend I found another copy of a rare book I, <ahem!> "liberated" from my old college library (Shhh! The only thing I ever stole in my life! Well, the college was demolished so it would have gone to landfill! So really, I saved it!) - a stellar hardback book from the mid-60s that details the world's latest fighters and bombers - and the TSR-2 was in there as it tells of how it has been successfully tested and is ready to be rolled out ... well that story came to an abrupt and inglorious end!
If there's a particular fan of the TSR-2 out there, let me know and I can try and grab it.

A photo of my den … (this time no kits on the go - I'm working on Lucky Dog - for my ANJ-3 jacket)
View attachment 28727

Man, you're a bad influence on me. Looking at your photo of your man cave, I noticed the way finished models are hanging on the wall, and it got me thinking...

A 1:72 model of Showtime 100, or Dick's F-8, or Handley's, Old's, or Ritchies F-4, mounted in a (say) 2.5 inch deep shadow box, with a nice photo of the crew, and the date of kills, would elevate this beyond 'fun' and enough into 'art' for me to put it up on the wall of my man cave with impunity (it'd also keep the kids fingers off them).

 

[Stand By]

Man, you're a bad influence on me. Looking at your photo of your man cave, I noticed the way finished models are hanging on the wall, and it got me thinking...

A 1:72 model of Showtime 100, or Dick's F-8, or Handley's, Old's, or Ritchies F-4, mounted in a (say) 2.5 inch deep shadow box, with a nice photo of the crew, and the date of kills, would elevate this beyond 'fun' and enough into 'art' for me to put it up on the wall of my man cave with impunity (it'd also keep the kids fingers off them).

I'll take that as a compliment! Yeah, I love my den - the beer fridge, and behind me from where I took the shot, my old 1930s library chair that I had restored and re-upholstered that's next to my bookcase of military/model/sci-fi/old comic books - under the Arcam Alpha 9 pre-amp, power amp and CD player and my bookcases of CDs … just love it down there!

More teasing … something like this on your wall in 1/72? The old Hasegawa kits are amazing - I have the RAF bomber version (in my stash of kits to build) and it's a beautiful kit.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234971532-showtime-100-vs-mig-17-in-172/

PS. I also see that there are after-market decals for your Showtime 100 in 1/32 - so you could go BIG! It's an option.

 

[Cocker]

Yeah, sure! And then I can come and live with you when my wife kicks me out!

No problem, lots of fields around the house, and the lady is not against rocket science! :-D And man, I love your idea of a frame mounted display with pictures of the original!

Stand By, that's a helluva nice office! I haven't built model kits for like 10 years, but your talking about them, and your picture, well... Once I'd get to finish my office in our new house, I may think about getting back to them.