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1/72 Kitbashed A-4F Skyhawk Blue Angels


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If it matters, the Hasegawa rudder matches all the others in 1/72. The Airfix is "too tall at the bottom", if you will, so anything that involves swapping could be done by including the part below the rudder in your cut when you grab a spare. Which you have when you start with a Blue Angels boxing of the Hasegawa kit.

It really only matters if you are ever swapping on someone's A-4A solid rudder (including Airfix's old tooled one) or if decals are being used.

So, of course it also means that you can't use rudder decals designed for the Airfix A-4B kit when building a Fujimi A-4B,,,or an Esci with the IPMS A-4B nose set.

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I actually intended to try and cut out the rudder anyway to see if I could replicate the scale gap between the bottom of the rudder and the rest of the fin, and to slightly correct its shape as well. As a result I was just going to rebuild whats below the rudder with styrene. I like to go Frankenstein with styrene for some reason. Not sure if I can pull it off but I want to try once at least and see how it goes. Good to know that its a simple cut and replace though.

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To show visually what we're talking about...

KitbashedA4FSkyhawkBlueAngels014.JPG

There's a discrepancy in the height of the tail rudders. Here's a view comparing my schematic...

KitbashedA4FSkyhawkBlueAngels015.JPG

I think the tail end of the Airfix is slightly out of proportion which leads to its rudder height appearing correct depending on how you line up the points. So as Rex suggested its technically correct to those set of numbers. Just use what you want in the end, this is rather ticky-tacky details which get lost from a far.

Here's a rough mockup of the nose section addition.

KitbashedA4FSkyhawkBlueAngels013.JPG

Its lightly glued in place to get a sense of how it will look. I like the direction its headed, the nose will require some work though naturally. I'm thinking this is the direction I'm going to go with it...since I've already gone...with..it. Yeah.

Enjoy!

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  • 3 months later...

Well unfortunately health concerns took a toll this season and I've just been unable to get the focus and energy away from my more immediate needs to make any foreseeable progress on this project. So for now I can't see this getting done by the deadline or next few months, which I'm rather disappointed in. I didn't intend to start a thread and not complete it. At some point I'll take this up again but I just wanted to give an update on the status. A lot of great information was given in this thread though and I really appreciate all the contributors, the information they provided has helped me see more of the details and will help in future builds. Thank you again and sorry for the incomplete. Be well all!

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