I
have always liked the appearance of the US Navy's red/orange and
white trainer aircraft. A while ago I saw a copy of the
Testors 1/72 T-45 at my local hobby shop, and within a few days I
got a copy of the issue of Combat Aircraft magazine with
a story about the Goshawk. I quickly returned to the shop, traded
a portion of my meager modeling allowance for the kit and immediately decided
that it had the potential it needed to make it to the top of my build
pile.
I
have only built a couple of Testors kits and have generally found them
to be disappointingly clunky and riddled with fit issues. With
this experience I had low expectations and expected a lot of work
ahead of me, but I had a great set of markings, so I decided to give it a
go. Wow! I was very pleasantly surprised by the level
of detail and dry fitting the major pieces gave me hope. The fit
was remarkably good and even the ejection seats looks passable for this
scale!
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As a former US
Marine, I have a soft spot in my heart (and on my display shelves) for any
aircraft with MARINES on the side .
The issue of Combat
Aircraft article included a shot or two of a T-45 with the ever
coveted MARINES emblazoned on the fuselage. I knew just had
to build mine with those markings! With a little online research, I
turned up a few walkarounds of more T-45's with my choice of
markings and decided that I could churn a set of decals out of my ALPS
printer. I used some of the kit markings, such as the national
insignia and intake warning triangles, but all of the titles, tail code,
grilles, stencils, and other decals were printed out of my ALPS.
I
struggled over how to represent the canopy detonation cord. The cord is
nicely molded into the canopy, but the kit didn't come with a nifty
little det cord decal like Hasegawa's Harrier's. I tried to paint it but
didn't like the results, it looked too obvious. I then decided that
lightly sanding the cord from inside would turn the clear plastic white.
I gave that a try and I think that it looks just subtle enough to be acceptable.
This kit
really caught me by surprise. I had a lot of fun building
it and it looks great on my shelf next to my F-16N "viggen"
scheme.
By the
way - just watch for a commercial release of these markings from a major
manufacturer - it happened when I sat down and created the 1/72 markings
for my F-16N and the Red Ghost Viggen - maybe it will happen with these
too.... OK - maybe not.
Semper Fi!
Arrin
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