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WIP: Vietnam US Navy A-4F In-Flight 1/48


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Started this a few weeks ago after my in-flight Mosquito build

Hasegawa 1/48 A-4E/F kit (actually the Revell Blue Angle boxed kit). Building is as Lady Jessie from VA-164 with the CAM decals.

Kit is standard Hasegawa, fine engraved panel lines and such. Care must be taken to build an in-flight model since the slats need to be retracted and the gear doors sealed. Take you time, trial fit everything and sand just enough and very little clean up is needed after things are glued in place. Modified a pilot I had in the spare box with some survival vest gear and painted the cockpit up. Not a whole lot will be seen since the A-4 had such a small cockpit (I remember just as much from my time in VFC-12 flying the TA-4J/F).

On with the pics. Comments and questions welcome.

Cheers

Collin

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That is very sharp looking. A question I have. Will the clear rod be permanently affixed or will you be able to roll the plane one way or the other? Sorry one other question, how heavy is your wood base? I would just be afraid that the bird that far off the center would make it tip!

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I figure a picture speaks more than I can say.

Point 1: The plane can be rolled to a limited amount when on the rod. Not much, just a little. It's a tight fit of the rod in the tailpipe, no need to cement that in. Of course the rod will be clearly cemented to the base.

Point 2: After I bent the intial clear rod and took the photos, I too had the same thought about weight distribution and for some reason I didn't like the look of the off-center look of the model. So back to the oven top to do some careful bending of another clear rod and the below picture is the current result.

Cheers

Collin

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Great job on the pit and pilot, looks awesome.

Just my 2 cents but, I'd go with the first acrylic rod and get a bigger base. I really like the idea that you can turn the jet slightly one way or the other.

Steve

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Hey Collin, Looking Great, sir! I love in-flights to the point that probably 95% to 99% of my builds are in-flights. After all, don't airplanes belong in the air?!?! However, the models that I see on ARC that are built static are also amazing! To each his own I say. As far as having to build up your nose gear door, that's not your fault. I built an in-flight 1/32 scale Hasegawa Scooter. Guess what? Same exact thing! My nose gear door was short, almost exactly to the 1/16 of an inch as yours is. The following is not a critique, but simply advice that I learned along the way that helped me. As far as your base and acrylic rod, I will go along with A-10 loader. Your base looks like one of the pine bases that comes from Hobby Lobby. Ken Middleton uses them all the time. They look great. The one you have for your 1/48 scale Scooter looks a little bit small for the scale. I would have the same concerns about your nice Scooter tipping over. That size base would work great for 1/72 scale. I have the good fortune of having a woodworking friend that gives he his scraps. They are heavier wood such as Oak, Hickory, Walnut, etc. They work great, but when I eventually run out of that, I'll probably start using the pine bases from Hobby Lobby that have already been routered. Do you cut your brass with a hack-saw or a pipe-cutter? I have a small pipe cutter that works great for cutting brass tubing for models. The sizes marked on it are 3mm to 28mm - 1/8" to 1 1/8." Again, the things that I mentioned above aren't critiques. They are simply techniques that I am sharing that helped me improve my model building. I learned this from talking to other folks and/or from reading forums, modeling magazines(FSM), and books/articles about modeling. Good luck and keep up the great work!!! Tim

Edited by balls47
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On with the painting:

1. Started with the bottom/white areas of the aircraft, including the drop tank. Same technique for all. Marble the area with heavily thinned white (in this case Krylon Short Cuts enamel white. Marble it on then blend it in. After that was complete, I took some old fashion Reefer White (amazing stuff), which is slightly off-white and molted that in a few spots.

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Finished bottom:

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2. Marbled on the Flat Gull Grey on the upper surfaces (after masking off the upper moveable surfaces). After the marbling is done, I blend it in with a heavily thinned mix of the same color.

One half complete, the other half still to go

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Finished

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3. I then take FS36307 Sea Grey and thinly spray around areas that did get foot traffic and general muck.

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4. I go back with even more heavily thinned Flat Gull Grey and blend it in. Pics don't do it justice...but you in person can see a gentle molting effect.

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That's it for today. Busy night ahead with company coming over. Next steps are to paint the anti-glare on the nose, the walkway areas on the wing roots, and the dreaded red intakes.

Cheers

Collin

Edited by Collin
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Glossed up and ready for decals.

Sunday was spent masking and painting all the areas of a Skyhawk that need it. Intakes/walkways/anti-glare and nose/gun blast areas.

Spent Super Bowl evening making trips in between the Denver defense beating up on Cam and the halftime show (which I have no interest in watching) to spray mist coats of Future (straight from the bottle) on my Skyhawk, about 4-5 in total. Spray....then walk away for a sack or punt, back in for another spray...then walk away. Final thing I do is mist coat on Windex...and that does a pretty good job of smoothing everything out.

Results

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Looks like I just got screwed into a two-day meeting that pretty much kills my chances of making the meeting on the 18th. I will be driving up from Norfolk while you guys are smoking/joking about your models at the meeting. Maybe I will swing by Denbigh Hobby on the way home.

Cheers

Collin

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Decals going on slowly. These are older CAM decals, some of them work great (NAVY, the black number and lettering)...but anything with orange on them...all separate and crack like a sidewalk when they hit the water. It's been tough going. One more night and all the decals will be on. Using a combo of Micro-Set/SOL, Tamiya X-20A thinner as setting agents. At least in the end they are all laying down.

And I wish there was a way to make decals that fit over the vortex generators on the outboard sections of A-4 wings. Every build this sends me into a spin.

Cheers

Collin

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