F-111F, 48th TFW, Lakenheath, Operation El Dorado Canyon, 1986

[Lucky13]

Neat!

 

[dirkpitt289]

Very cool

 

[vikingBerserker]

Well done!

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Looks good Dwight.

 

[Capt. Vick]

I don't know if this was said in this thread already, but a vendor for the company I work for was in the USAF in England during El Dorado Canyon and he told me that the F-111 that was shot down was not supposed to go "in" and drop it's bombs, but the crew pleaded that they came this far and they wanted to. Sad if true, but can you blame them?

 

[Wayne Little]

8)

 

[Airframes]

Found this pic among some magazines Dwight, original source unknown. It's over a bombing-range in Spain.

 

[kgambit]

Thanks everyone.

Found this pic among some magazines Dwight, original source unknown. It's over a bombing-range in Spain.

Thanks for the pic Terry!



And here's the latest:

Pics 1 2: The finished cockpit tub with seats in place and controls added. Everything glued together.

Pics 3 4: Front portion of cockpit with additional control panel and HUD display. The main instrument panel sits under this and just behind that small control panel.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Nicely done!

 

[T Bolt]

Very nice Dwight!

 

[Airframes]

Tasty !

 

[B-17engineer]

Great!

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Beautifully done Dwight.

 

[Lucky13]

Top racket Dwight!

 

[Wayne Little]

Done good Dwight.

 

[evangilder]

You are putting some amazing detail into this one, Dwight! It's looking fantastic!

I don't know if this was said in this thread already, but a vendor for the company I work for was in the USAF in England during El Dorado Canyon and he told me that the F-111 that was shot down was not supposed to go "in" and drop it's bombs, but the crew pleaded that they came this far and they wanted to. Sad if true, but can you blame them?

Great war story, but just a story. Complete radio silence was done from take-off until the time that all aircraft were back over the gulf of Sitre and on the way home. All aircraft that took off had an assigned target and spares that took off initially were back about 30 minutes after departure.

 

[Crimea_River]

I agree with all. Great job so far.

 

[kgambit]

Thanks Terry, Andy, Vic, Evan, Wayne, Jan, Harrison, David and Glenn.

Did a quick test fit of the wings and fuselage sections last night just to make sure everything was fitting fine.
Will have to do some minor clean up work to do on the fuselage joins and the starboard access port for the wing needs some trimming as well which is really surprising for a Hasegawa kit.

Here's a quick shot of things taped together, I needed to see something resembling an actual plane out of all the bits lying about. This was just a quick fix.

 

[Wayne Little]

 

[kgambit]

Thanks Wayne.

Don't worry about that nasty gap between the forward and aft fuselage sections - that's just caused by the tape over the front of the rear section. Those two sections join up VERY well.

After scrutinizing the fit, I might have to add some shims inside the lower rear fuselage section. For some reason, Hasegawa provided absolutely NO alignment pins for the upper and lower pieces of that section. The two halves tend to be a bit loose on the dry fit. A couple of carefully cut pieces of scrap plasti-card might be just the ticket. Otherwise the alignment on everything is fantastic.