Thanks a lot George @gblair for creating this wonderful Groupbuild.

I will be entering this GB with the Academy 1/48 F86 which I received from my good friend Sipros @fiveten while he visited me last summer. It was a wonderful day where we had some great talks. With this build I want to create a remembrance of that wonderful day in 2023. To make it even more noticeable that it came from my best Greek friend, I decided to finish it in a Greek scheme, it will be aircraft 19438 of 341 squadron. The decals for that specific aircraft were sent to me by Spiros as well.

The Academy kit has the option to take off the tail section so that the engine is nicely visible. When opening the box, I noticed that it has a lot of details molded, also the engine, therefore I decided that I will build it with the tail section separated.

@fiveten, thank you, Spiros.

@gblair, thank you, George. Indeed, the amount of F-86 schemes is countless

Looks good, John! @johnb
Yet another project without a propeller for you! 😉

@alfred, thank you, Alfred. Indeed another jet, seems like I'm switching to the other side.
@fiveten, thanks, Spiros. Surgery on the fuselage halves to seperate the tail section is likely the next step.

@johnb. My all time fav A/C….great start John

Cool subject, John, with some good resources to work with. If the a/c is bare metal, I would mask the stripes with frisket film to avoid lifting the finish. It worked well for my P-51D when doing camo over metal coat. The pics show a very dull metal finish on the real thing. Not sure if this is grey or silver paint, dulled over time or just the bare metal. When I look at the decal sheet image, it does say natural metal. Probably pretty shiny years ago.

Finally a bit of progress on my Sabre. Painted the interior parts neutral grey.