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Nice! Building model aircraft was a huge hobby of mine growing up. 1:72 scale was my favorite, and my dad's too! I haven't had a lot of time for the hobby over the past decade, but I'll pass on what I know.

Things You Might Not Think You Need, But You Need

• A small pair of wire cutters (nail clippers will work in a pinch)
  > Resist the urge to twist, pull, or snap the tiny parts off of their sprues. Clip them off as far away from the part as you can and then carefully shave off the excess plastic from the sprue with a knife. You don't want to accidentally rip off a chunk of the part; no Demon Lord wants a pockmarked plane.
  
  
• A small, sharp knife
  > An xacto knife, small pocket knife, or even a paring knife will do. Use this to trim extra plastic off of parts. For long pieces, like wings and fuselages, you can hold the blade perpendicular to the part and gently drag along the edge to remove long swaths of plastic.
  
  
• An emery board
  > Hasegawa is one of the best brands of model manufacturers. Their kits fit together flawlessly, and they are highly detailed. Still, the nature of injection molding means that these parts have to be attached to sprues, and that means there will be excess plastic to trim away.
  > Also, glue can squeeze out between fuselages and wings. Try to wipe it away immediately, but if it dries you can sand it away.
  
  
• Newspaper
  > Model building is messy. Small plastic shavings and paint can get everywhere without a disposable surface to work on.
  
  
• A paper towel (or three)
  > Better to have one close, instead of having to run into the kitchen to grab one as excess glue dribbles down your vertical stabilizer.
  
  
• A toothpick (or three)
  > Useful for holding small parts, like wheels. You can also use it as a tool to apply tiny amounts of glue and paint.
  
  
• Rubber bands, binder clips, and clothespins
  > Critical for holding together parts while the glue dries
  
  Glue Advice
  
  
• Use plastic model glue for most of your parts. Testors in the red tube is great stuff, but the blue tube (non toxic, smells like oranges) is garbage.
  
  
• DO NOT use that plastic model glue on your clear pieces, like canopies and landing lights. It will "fog" up, and you won't be able to see a damn thing while you're clearing out area B7R. Use glue especially made for clear pieces, like this one.
  
  
• Use glue sparingly, and apply carefully. Plastic model glue actually melts parts together, and it acts fast. When gluing two halves of a fuselage or wing together, try to put the glue close to the inside edge, so that any excess squeezes out inside the plane (where only the maintenance crew will see it).
  
  
• Super glue is handy for attaching a part temporarily, or gluing a part to a toothpick handle for painting. But, super glue isn't a permanent solution. It's brittle, and plastic model glue does a much better job.
  
  Paint Advice
  
  
• Don't be afraid to spray paint. Especially on modern military jets, where most of the plane is one color, you can just spray away. Stick a dowel rod or pen into one of the engine nozzles to make a handle.
  
  
• If spraying, hold the paint can about 1.5 feet away, and keep it moving constantly. If too much paint is applied, it will drip and run. If this happens, keep a paper towel handy to wipe it away.
  
  
• Primer isn't 100% necessary, but it does help the topcoat stick. Maybe...78% necessary.
  
  
• Mask off your canopy, or other areas you don't want to paint. You can also attach these parts after you paint, but model glue doesn't stick to paint. You have to sand or shave off the paint before gluing.
  
  General Advice
  
  
• Be patient when attaching wings, stabilizers, strakes, and antennae. These parts will look wonky if they aren't attached at the right angle.
  
  
• You will get frustrated when applying water-based decals. Just be careful not to tear them, use plenty of water (both to dunk them in and dribbled onto the model), and they will slide on well enough.
  
  
• There is a return line to the south. Cross it anytime to rearm and repair.

Keric has posted some great info but I would add a bit of extra info to that. Buy some gloss varnish so that the Decals look & stick properly. I would suggest using PVA wood glue to glue canopies & clear parts because it's better value for the money. Also, if you're doing any brush painting, buy Vallejo Model Colour paints. I've heard they brush paint the best.

Paint formatting chart to be used for obtaining the correct paints from Vallejo.

Use tweezers to handle the smallest parts. Thin the paints before you paint & Apply a few thin coats instead of one thick coat. I would suggest getting a bottle of modeling glue with a fine applicator nozzle or a brush to apply the glue more precisely. i advise you to keep a tube of plastic putty that's either water or solvent just in case you need to fill any gaps.

Would also suggest you join the Britmodeller or FSM forums for more advice:

http://www.britmodeller.com/
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/f/default.aspx

More advice: Scale Model Guide Quick Kits
Guide on brush painting

As has been said before, this looks pretty much identical to the previous stick that Hori made in 2012. And since the one they made for the 360 was nothing but a rehash of the one for the PS2, it's safe to say that most of the reviews on the previous model will probably carry over to the new stick.

I've been searching up hardcore for any info on deadzones. I have been really looking for a stick that has a mini joystick on the stick and this both fits the bill and I want moar AC7 shtuff. The biggest consensus of all the reviews of both models seems to be that it does have a bit of a deadzone, but the stick action is fairly heavy and feels well put together. Good button layout and accessibility. Although I'm skeptical I'm a little hopeful they make it at least a little better inernally. Different company but TM fixed the deadzone a bit from the HOTAS X to the HOTAS 4 so who knows.

Here's a link to the reviews page sincethey don't seem to appear correctly on the product page (at least on my computer).

As others have said, it's probably not available on digital but you can buy it used on Amazon from third party sellers, ranging from $14-19

There's one offer in "very good" condition that's $20 and prime eligible

Wikipedia isn't a bad place to start for some bare basics. Don't lean on it for things like technical specifications, but for broad-strokes knowledge about what an aircraft's niches are (air-to-air, air-to-ground, multirole, carrier-based, etc) it's ok. Another decent starting resource is this book, which I had as a kid. There are some mistakes and omissions, and it's definitely not an "expert resource," but it's a handy guide when paired with the Ace Combat series, which spans multiple eras and generations of aircraft.

Another place I like is Jane's. They publish Jane's Defence Weekly, but you can also get online content to keep up with platforms and technology.

I used an i7 4770K (£300 on Amazon) to get my good results on Ace Combat 4. Every intel quad core processor ivy bridge or above has 4 cores+4 threads, so it effectively works as an 8 core processor.

Getting great 8 core performance is kinda pricey, but not nearly as bad as that.

It's the encyclopedia, right? That's the only one I can find with the isbn provided.

The Encyclopedia Of Military Aircraft https://www.amazon.com/dp/1407567527/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_XAUyDbYS676RQ

Thanks for the info btw

Ah, yes - it's there.

+-10 days won't make that big of a difference I guess. It's not like I haven't listened to Zaptroxix's rip for hundreds of hours :P

Digital component like this

Heard this helps the quality a bit

Sorry for the late reply btw

Honestly... Wikipedia isn’t a bad start lol if you want a book I’d recommend this one.

The Encyclopedia Of Military Aircraft https://www.amazon.com/dp/1407567527/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_j2vMBbF1JW1QQ

That's exactly where I got it as well. https://www.amazon.com/Patch-Squad-Combat-Fighter-Squadron/dp/B019PCVDAE/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1486509065&sr=8-11&keywords=ace+combat

Amazon's got some used ones for a decent price, link has one at about $27 currently.

https://www.amazon.com/Patch-Squad-Combat-Fighter-Squadron/dp/B019PCVDAE

This work?

Might be a decade old, but I don’t think there’s anything newer, aside from their primary product which is a whopping $1500. One day I’ll get to look inside one of these, but that day is not soon.

They still sell these new on Amazon.jp which i had no idea.

Acecombat 3

Acecombat 04

Acecombat 5

Acecombat Zero

Acecombat 6

UPDATE: Negative, the stick and HOTAS does not work. Sorry dude, game looks dope and it is great with gamepad, but damn they really screwed the pooch and dropped the ball on lack of joystick support at launch. Shame.

If you're talking about this joystick, I have the same one and I'm done installing in ~30min. I'm going to play with gamepad anyways since I run PC->TV and I like to lay in bed, but I'll do you a solid and report back if it works so you can cancel your order if needed.

> X1 doesn’t support generic PC controllers so why would the version they ripped be any different in what they support?

Because the "X" in Xbox stands for DirectX, which is the graphics library that Windows uses to power video games. The whole console series was designed at the core to be as similar to PC as possible in order to allow easy development and porting between Microsoft's two ecosystems, Windows and Xbox. So, the assumption that supporting one joystick means the game supports all joysticks is by far and away the norm. You're either really ignorant about how this stuff works under the hood or you're going through some award-winning mental gymnastics here.

Basically every third-party gamepad ever uses either directinput or xinput, which means that this and this are exactly the same in everything except physical form factor and the internal product ID on the device's chipset. Similarly, every game with joystick support ever doesn't care that this is a different brand, make, model, etc. from this. It's all the same once you get past the form factor. All joysticks are treated the exact same way by the software unless you specifically design the software to not do that.

> Yeah it’s shitty but it is fixable and I’d hedge my bets on a design oversight considering these games have been console exclusive forever

They could easily mitigate that by releasing a statement saying that more support is coming. I highly doubt that'll be the case until whatever exclusivity deal they signed wears out (if it even can), though, because the evidence points to it being a conscious decision.

> It seems everyone has forgotten the olden days of shitty PC to Console or Console to PC ports that barley or didn’t function at all (dark souls) and this is project Aces first PC port

"It was bad before, so don't be so mad that it's bad now." They had ample opportunity to learn. Capcom's Monster Hunter team learned similar lessons when MH:World released on PC last year, but their sins weren't nearly as egregious and nothing about it screamed "malicious", just "incompetent". Bamco's actions here are a targeted effort at creating a closed system, and no one should stand for it.

I actually just picked it up at my local crafts shop (Michael’s) and it seems to be a pretty common 1:48 F/A-18E made by Revell. I’ll see if I can find you a link for it.

Edit: I actually hated putting this together toward the end because Revell makes all their models with the landing gear down and doesn’t leave it possible to put it up without irreparably altering parts, and even then it still looks bad, hence why the ports are open and empty on this build.

Here’s the link.