Years ago I read the book "Ravens" about the secret air war in Laos and the "Raven" pilots who flew there. It was called the "Steve Canyon Program" and only the top FAC pilots in Vietnam at the time were invited to join. These pilots who were still officially in the USAF, were told go to a airbase in Thailand and purchase their aeroplane for $1 USD and fly it to the secret airfield in Laos at Long Tieng or "Spook Heaven" as it was called. Aircraft mainly used by the Ravens was the 0-1 Bird Dog and the T-28D. Typical flying attire by these pilots was cowboy shirt/t-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots - sounds like my kind of war! Air America also conducted it's operations out of this airbase as well - highlighted in the movie "Air America". From what I've read of Raven and Air America activities, I don't think that film was overly dramatic!
Raven flights were in support of the Laotian army in the south and east and the Hmong army run by the legendary leader Gen. Van Pao up north. The war was being fought against the communist Pathet Lao - being supported by Vietnam, China and USSR with weapons and training.
OK, so much for the history lesson folks. Onto this project. I'm building the Roden 1/48 T-28D and have purchased some resin "bling" for this kit - mainly Aires stuff - replacement cockpit (unsatisfactory as it does not use the correct "Yankee" rocket assisted ejection system) and lovely replacement wheel wells as the kit offering is pretty basic. If it's not up to scratch - out it goes!
Not much to show so far other than a huge mess. There is always a huge amount of grinding and shaving required to shoe horn in Aires offerings - so much so that the plastic is shaved down until it is translucent. Best tools for this is my trusty Dremel and a curved blade on my Exacto. I've almost got the cockpit to fit so I can start painting that over the weekend hopefully. The wheel wells require major surgery.
Only criticism of the kit so far are the trench like panel lines. This kit will get a bath of Mr Surfacer once assembled to hopefully reduce the effect of these trenches. I may even resort to filling them in with Tamiya putty, which we know has the wonderful property of shrinking - hopefully just enough to leave a subtle panel line - this I will test.
Here is where I've started.
This is what I want the finished product to look like - except loaded with WP rocket pods rather than the Mk.81 slicks.
Interestingly, the T-28D-5 I had a ride in years ago (ex-Raven/RLAF bird) it was discovered when stripped apart during it's rebuild, had AK-47 rounds rattling around in the wing! Now that is a real warbird!
