NightDog Posted December 28, 2006 Share Posted December 28, 2006 I liked building my last A-4 so much and had enough decals from Fox One's Marine Skyhawks in Vietnam to build another, so here it is. I decided to do an in-flight VMA-211 bird. Cockpit was enhanced with Eduard color set with pilot from Hasegawa's F-8 kit, which looks really good but can hardly be seen once put together. Everything went together fairly easily in the gear up position with the exception of the nose gear door. Had to sand and rescribe there and never quite got it right. I also wasn't paying attention and painted two left stabs so I'll have to redo one of those and get the colors on the correct side. That, an ordnance load, and misc antennas and bits and it should be complete by the deadline. Oh yeah, and a base. In flight technique was taken from Gary Wickham's ScaleSpot website and the first time I used that. It was easy and the brass looks good and holds very stable. Thanks Gary for the tips! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
David Walker Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 The cockpit looks great, as does the weathering. Nice A-4. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rodney Posted December 29, 2006 Share Posted December 29, 2006 Very nice. I need to do an A-4 in-flight. Great finish and choice of markings. Rodney Quote Link to post Share on other sites
NightDog Posted January 7, 2007 Author Share Posted January 7, 2007 Completed both of my Skyhawks today. 1st up is VMA-223 A-4E OOB except Fox-1 decals and Aires resin seat. Details on build are here: http://s102164210.onlinehome.us/forums/ind...howtopic=104565 Next is VMA-211 inflight as described above. Loadout is 6 Mk-82 snakes and centerline tank. For the base I wanted to get an aerial photo of Chu Lai and use that as a background, but GoogleEarth didn't have good enough resolution in that part of the world and I couldn't find a good overhead shot of Chu Lai, so it's just a picture of a river in Florida that looked similar to what I thought Vietnam would look like from 15,000 feet. I may redo the base as I was just experimenting and it doesn't have a nice finish or anything on the wood. Notice no probe or hook on the jet - I painted them and put them aside to install at the end, now I can't remember where I put them (it was a good safe place I'm sure). If I ever find them, they will go on. Thanks to g0_command0, Raymond and Spongebob for putting this group build together. It was a lot of fun. I have a couple more A-4 inbound in the mail to put in the stash. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Fox One Decals Posted January 7, 2007 Share Posted January 7, 2007 Another sweet Scooter! Nice job NightDog! BTW, I did the same thing when painting my horizontal stabs for my own Bulldogs jet. D'oh! Ben Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rampage55 Posted January 7, 2007 Share Posted January 7, 2007 Beautiful work NiteDog. Very creative with the base. Looks great. Mark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rodney Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 Nice. The ordinance really adds to the in-flight machine. I'll have to attempt an inflight model sometime. Rodney Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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