This is the CAG bird from VS-38 and one of the more colorful schemes applied to an S-3. Though no date is given, judging by the paint scheme, it is from October1989 before the entire fleet had been repainted in the current grey tactical paint scheme. This light gull grey over white scheme was not painted as cleanly as is shown on the instruction sheet so you may want to keep that in mind. I should also mention that judging from the photo below, this is the same plane so is actually an S-3A and not an S-3B. That means you can build the ESCI/AMT/Italeri kit as is and only have to dig up some proper wing tanks to make things match the photo. You may notice from the picture, that the right side intake warning stripe is cut a bit short, which would leave me to think that the forward cowling has been replaced. This is supported by looking at how nice a sharp the camo demarcation line is on this part as compared to the rest of the cowling. The red fin and horizontal stab tips will have to be painted by the builder.

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