Excellent choice Tom !

Welcome aboard my friend... and it sounds like you have a great plan laid out for the build.

If this one turns out half as nice as the others you have built on previous Group Builds, you will definitely have a winner on your hands...

I'll be watching for future updates. The official "Ending" date is not being strictly enforced, (just in case life happens to get in the way), so you will have all of the time you need to finish this beauty.

Robert I don't know for sure but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. Having left the hobby around age 16 for a 40+ year hiatus I'm a bit sketchy on the history of certain kits and manufacturers. The box states it's a Testors kit

Louis the decals are for VF-61, off the US Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1949, or "Beetle Bomb" with the Blue Angles Team, 1949. Leaning towards VF-61 as I don't enjoy working with the color yellow. However the plastic is very light grey so yellow would work much better than trying to cover over a darker color such as blue etc. Especially if you covered it with white before applying the yellow.

It is the old Hawk kit. Been back several times, including the chrome plated version with the Thai markings. Testors had the molds afterwards.

I built a "Beetle Bomb" several years ago. Sometimes it's nice to see a Bearcat in different colors other than Navy Blue. I'm sure that whatever color scheme you decide to use will look fantastic !

Just like you said, yellow is very translucent and hard to get good coverage. The white base is a must for a decent looking yellow. (But light gray will work just as good). The key is having a uniform light colored base coat for the yellow. White just makes it pop a little more...

Jeff, Allan is correct with the reveal date. Since the GB was going for such a long time, we decided to let the builder decide if they wanted to post their project when it was completed or wait until mid February. The choice was theirs.

Allan, I'm 99 % sure that the "Beetle Bomb" was never flown with red markings. In every photograph I have ever found of the real plane, the letters were always blue.

Here's a few for you guys...

In some of the pictures the leading edges of the wings AND tail appear to be polished aluminum. In other pictures, it looks like just the leading edge of the wings were polished. Yet here in the third and 5th pictures I posted the entire plane looks yellow, with nothing polished at all. It was probably due to these pictures being taken at various times of the plane's career. It was something that probably evolved over time.

It's amazing how dirty the Pratt and Whitney R2800 made the plane look in a very short time. Between the exhaust stains and the oil 🙂 I'll bet this kept the ground crews very busy with clean up...

Hope these help...

I did save my Gulfhawk decals from when I built mine. I'll be using them on the Hobby Boss F8F-1. I did get to see Elmer Ward's Gulfhawk replica at EAA back in the 90's. Too bad he had engine trouble during a show and put it in a field south of the airport. Good news is he was okay it's getting ready to fly again (if it hasn't already) but sadly not in the Al Williams colors anymore.

Time for an update, now this is a very simple model and one that reminds me of my youth as I build it. Not a lot of parts and not a lot of detail. And just for fun I actually twisted some of the parts off the sprues rather than cut them off. Their really isn't a real cockpit, just a seat with a pilot

. So I purchased an after market cockpit to enhance it a bit. It was suppose to fit the Hobby Boss kit so I should have been forewarned. It doesn't fit very well. Mike West from Lone Star Models said it should fit, and yes it does with lots of sanding and fiddling around. Plus the detail is rather rough but it does enhance the office. Next I found the air intakes for either the supercharger or oil cooler was basically a hole. So after searching the spares box I found what could be interpreted as a filter, and inserted them in the hole. Lastly I'm trying to figure out the blob that I suppose was to represent some sort of antenna positioned right behind the cockpit. I'm sure it's coming off and something will replace it. So far so good and this puppy will get done rather quickly.