April 24th. marked the 74th. anniversary of the creation of the Blue Angels, and I wanted to post something related, so came up with this quick post.
The Project
I built two identical of these Egg Planes, one for a friend, and one for McGuire’s Irish Pub in Pensacola.
For those that aren’t familiar with the place, McGuire’s has, in addition to an incredible menu, an entire section dedicated to the Blue Angels. You can basically go there, ask to be seated at the Blue Angels Room, and enjoy great food and drinks surrounded by incredible Blue Angel memorabilia. You can see some pictures of it’s opening here https://weartv.com/news/local/blue-angels-room-opens-at-mcguires-pub, and of course learn more about McGuire’s here https://www.mcguiresirishpub.com/
The idea of the Egg Plane for the pub was born after a conversation I had with Laura Bogan from the Blue Angels Association. The intention was to give something simple and not too big that could be added to the Blue Angels Room, so at the end we donated the model and this great drawing made by my friend Marcelo Allende from 3A Aviation Artist.
With the Blues 75th. anniversary coming up in 2021 and several exhibits being planned around it, I’m not sure when you’ll be able to see these items in the pub, but if you happen to go to Pensacola, make sure you make some time to go to McGuire’s and have a good time!
The Model
Hasegawa’s Egg Plane range is awesome, it has really nice subjects, they are simple, cute, and of course, a lot of fun! Their Blue Angels hornet is old, so it doesn’t have a lot of detail and the plastic is somehow hard, but it’s still fun to do.
First thing you must do to replicate a BA Hornet, is to delete the wingtip sidewinders. Second, you have to modify the pilot a bit. The kit pilot comes with an oxygen mask, but the Blues fly without it, so it has to be removed. In my case I just deleted the mask, sanded a bit and added a little rounded nose made with epoxy putty. Some additional helmet detail to improve the HGU-33 style helmet will do the trick.
The pilot’s coverall was painted in MRP-45 (SU-27 Dark Blue), while the yellow details and helmet are MRP-28 (Dark Chrome Yellow). I used that SU-27 blue because I had it and I liked it in comparison with the actual uniform color, while the helmet golden visor was made by using gold Bare Metal Foil.
The F-18 blue color is Mr. Color 328 (labeled as Blue Angel Blue). I used this same color for some of the History of the Blue Angels models too. I know there is a lot of controversy around the right blue for the Blue Angels aircraft, but this was my final choice for the Hornet after a lot (and I mean a lot) of research and testing. We’ll talk about that in several future posts. Anyway, the airplane yellow is again MRP-28. I used this color for all my BA models (again, lot of controversy here). Kit decals are not great, but usable at least.
The display was finalized with the Hornet in flight over a round Plymor base that has the Blue Angels insignia. It’s attached to the base with a Plastruct clear rod, and although it’s not in the photos, the display is covered by a glass dome for protection.
Project Final Thoughts
If you are looking for something different to do, give a chance to these egg planes. They are easy, fun, and look really nice!
Hasegawa has an awesome collection but there are others very cool also, like the ones from Freedom Models. I built a couple already and have some more planned for the future.
I hope you liked this one, if you have any questions, drop me a line below.
Thanks much for reading, and as always, happy modeling!
Max,
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