Monogram AD-6 (A1-H)

[Caesar Alexius]

Hi everyone,

A few weeks ago I picked up a Monogram AD-6 Skyraider at the Queensland Model Hobby Expo and I must say that I'm very happy with my purchase. However, me being me, I'm not content with building it OOB so I thought I should ask a few questions before commencing work. For starters, I'm going to make this a U.S. Navy aircraft from Vietnam, most likely by making my own decals. Finding a scheme shouldn't be difficult. What is proving to be difficult is choosing a loadout. The kit comes with 8 Mk.82s with daisy cutter fuzes (it is spelled with a z in this instance right?), 4 rocket pods (type unknown) and three fuel tanks. This seems OK for a land-based VNAF Skyraider (which is what the kit's supposed to be) but I'm yet to see any pictures of Navy Skyraiders with Mk.82 daisy cutters. Most of the bombs they seem to use are WW2-era 250lb and 500lb general purpose bombs. Can anyone elaborate on this?

Also, the kit is labeled as an AD-6. However, if I decide to make this an AD-7 then this gives me more options as to which markings I'm going to use. Providing I keep the engine covers closed I should be able to get away with pretending it's an AD-7 right?

Thanks,

Alex.

[A6BSTARM]

The Rocket pods included in the Monogram kits are supposed to represent the 2.75in "Mighty Mouse" rockets that were popular for a while before the Forrestal and Enterprise accidents change the Navy's mind about rockets. As to bombs if you want to try the Mk series of bombs which were introduced on the last round of Spad deployments in 1968, but before that yes the US Navy was still using the "AN-M" Army/Navy series of older bombs. This mainly came from, depending on which rumor you followed, that the US Military (Navy/Marines and USAF) hadn't ordered conventional weapons in years depending nuclear weapons to be the primary in the next war and so as the Vietnam war heated up the US DoD basically had to buy back all the older iron bombs from its NATO allies or (and IMHO more likely) that there was a manufacturing crunch as the war spun up due to Ike's draw-down and there weren't enough of the new Low Drag General Purpose bombs out there yet to fill all the ship, so the US used what was on hand still in the magazines around the various bases. Anyhow, the best I could suggest if check your references with regards to suggested weapons load outs. If you want to use the low drag Mk80 series of bombs then Hasegawa's Weapons Set A - HE36001 is the way to go, it will give you the best in that category, if you want to have bombs that look similar to the WW2 era then look for a after market company called Aeromaster, they make a pretty good looking WW2/Korea looking bomb in 250,500,1k lb range. As to converting the AD-6 to an AD-7, from my understanding reading my sources, you couldn't tell unless you got under the cowling to look at the engine. The biggest differences were an improved engine, strengthened landing gear and outer wing panels; otherwise the two planes were identical.

[Joe Hegedus]

Hi everyone,

A few weeks ago I picked up a Monogram AD-6 Skyraider at the Queensland Model Hobby Expo and I must say that I'm very happy with my purchase. However, me being me, I'm not content with building it OOB so I thought I should ask a few questions before commencing work. For starters, I'm going to make this a U.S. Navy aircraft from Vietnam, most likely by making my own decals. Finding a scheme shouldn't be difficult. What is proving to be difficult is choosing a loadout. The kit comes with 8 Mk.82s with daisy cutter fuzes (it is spelled with a z in this instance right?), 4 rocket pods (type unknown) and three fuel tanks. This seems OK for a land-based VNAF Skyraider (which is what the kit's supposed to be) but I'm yet to see any pictures of Navy Skyraiders with Mk.82 daisy cutters. Most of the bombs they seem to use are WW2-era 250lb and 500lb general purpose bombs. Can anyone elaborate on this?

Also, the kit is labeled as an AD-6. However, if I decide to make this an AD-7 then this gives me more options as to which markings I'm going to use. Providing I keep the engine covers closed I should be able to get away with pretending it's an AD-7 right?

Thanks,

Alex.

The bombs in the Monogram A-1 are Mk-81, 250-lb bombs. They are acceptable for use on a Navy aircraft of the period, but I'm not sure if the fuze extenders were used much off the boat. Just cut the fuze extender off, then cut the front end of the fuze extender with the little prop vanes on and glue that back on the nose of the bomb and you've got a standard MK-81 bomb. Or, you could use the earlier style bombs too.

Just for info, I believe the original boxing of the Monogram A-1 was a Navy bird in VA-176 markings with the bumblebee tail marking, followed by a second release in the overall blue scheme, with the USAF boxing following that back in the 80s. The plastic was the same in each case, just the color changing

[chriss7606]

From what I've read, the AD-6 and -7 were externally identical. The only way to tell the difference was by looking at the BuNo.

[Finn]

The wing tanks in the kit are actually Mk-79 1,000lb napalm used by the Navy/Marines:

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/74ba03a1c59ca8d6_large

as mentioned, the early era bombs were used at first and fuze (fuze/fuse potatoe/potato same difference) extenders were used as you can see in the included pic. As for rocket pods, most photos show either 19 tube 2.75" pods or 4 tube 5" Zuni pods carried by Navy Spads, not the smaller ones in the kit.

Jari

[Caesar Alexius]

Thanks for the responses everybody! I've gone through a few more photos and right now, a combination of HVARs and WW2-era GP bombs is the most likely combination to put on my Skyraider. Thankfully I have a Monogram 48 scale F9F-5P Recon Panther in my stash which still came with a weapons sprue, containing six 250lb, two 500lb bombs and six HVARs, so I'll be using these. And Jari, thanks for that photo. I've never actually seen extended fuzes on the older bombs before and I'm very tempted to add them to my own. The fact that the kit contains wing-mounted napalm bombs instead of fuel tanks throws a huge spanner in the works so thanks for pointing that out to me.

[Andre]

The fact that the kit contains wing-mounted napalm bombs instead of fuel tanks throws a huge spanner in the works so thanks for pointing that out to me.

The good news is that you the tanks carried by the Skyraider are generic Douglas Aero series tanks, so you can susbstitute tanks from an A-4, A-7 or S-3 kit.

For Everything You Wanted To Know About Douglas External Tanks But Were Afraid To Ask, look no further than Tailspin Turtle's insightful feature:

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/07/douglas-low-drag-external-fuel-tanks.html

HTH,

Andre

[Caesar Alexius]

Thanks for that Andre. No matter how obscure a topic, the members on this site are always able to point me in the right direction. The problem now is that I don't actually have any of the aircraft mentioned in your link in my kit stash. This means I have two options. My first is to see if anyone has said fuel tank lying around in their spares box and would be prepared to mail it to me. The second is to just have one fuel tank on the centreline hardpoint which has been seen in many of my reference photos. I prefer the look of two fuel tanks (I've hardly ever seen three used) but as they say, beggars can't be choosers. My plan for the moment is to arm my Skyraider like this. Alternatively, I could take Joe Hegedus's suggestion of taking the extended fuzes off the kit's Mk. 81s and making it something like this.

[Caesar Alexius]

Actually, now that I've read the description of those pictures, it appears that those planes are "Loaded with a representative collection of weapons for display purposes only." Hmmm.

[Finn]

Yes those are display loads, the first link shows the Skyraider with a Mk-7 nuke on the belly. You can check the photos here:

http://naval.aviation.museum/emuwebdoncoms/pages/doncoms/Query.php

type in AD/A-1 in the search box to get a whole bunch of Skyraider pics. Most are of the early days but a few from Vietnam.

Jari

[Otto]

We had a very nice thread here about the Monogram kit some weeks ago. You may find some very good information in it. There is only one thing major wrong with that kit and that is the cowling. it is WAY too small. I love the kit myself but made my own cowling for it. the cowling should be about 1.22" in diameter in front of the cowl flaps. and about 1.19" at the panel line before it hits the speedring. Even the Tamiya cowl is a tiny smaller than it should be but very close and good enough. I show how I made the cowlings in this thread.

http://s362974870.on...er&fromsearch=1

Edited September 30, 2012 by Otto

[Caesar Alexius]

Thanks for that Jari. My Skyraider reference folder has tripled in size now. And Otto, I remember skimming over that thread when doing my initial research. Interesting point you raise about the cowling. As for the prices of kits, I know exactly what you mean. When it comes to ebay, I'm at a disadvantage in that I live in Australia, meaning that I have to put up with enormous shipping costs. That's why when I saw this kit for $25 at the hobby expo, I immediately bought it.

[Otto]

True details has a very nice load set for the A-1. It is also quite inexpensive. I plan on doing my first Monogram kit as a Korean war version. I need to sand down all the armor on the fuselage first. The marines (which is the bird I plan on doing) had the armor on the lower wing center section. Monogram, Revell and Lindberg are about the only kits that can br gotten inexpensively here in the US.