Fujimi 1/72 A-6A VA-145

Teeradej · March 4, 2020

For years I was absent from building any model kit since lengthy work training coupled with moving to a new house. After finished setting my new man cave I finally have time to cut something off the sprues and spray some paint.

This Fujimi 1/72 A-6A intruder basic shape is accurate and fit wise is generally good except both wing to fuselage and intake joints that required some filler to blend out steps and gaps. Exhaust nozzles were carved to make them more resemblance of the real thing. I also reshaped vertical fin tip angle just a bit more steep. Original kit main shock struts sat too vertically to the ground when viewed from front or behind so I adjusted struts and drag braces canted a little outward. That means angle of main wheel axles were modified too. All antennae were scratch built. The model was painted with Mr.Color paint 315 for grey, 316 for white and 182 for final flat coated.

Kit supplied schemes were impressive but I prefer VA-145’s colorful sabre tail marking not contained on kit decals. So I used markings from Wolfpak Decals 72-015 “PGM Pioneers” sheet. The decals is quite excellent in term of flexibility. They went well into recessed panels and conformed to compound curves perfectly. In my opinion star and bars’ blue color are a bit too light but I can live with it. Initially there were two solid green decals with white “04” to cover areas each side of vertical fin tip which designed for kit’s original shape. But the fin tip on my A-6 was modified so I had to separated only white numbers and applied on green painted fin tip instead.

Like my previous Fujimi kits, their kit supplied underwing stores such as drop tanks, bombs and missiles always look too much off to my eyes. I replace them with anything I have on hand, if it closer to the real deal. This time drop tanks came from spare bin leftover from Hasegawa A-1 Skyraider. At first I wanted my Intruder armed with LGBs but soon I felt I dislike the look of a Pave Knife pod. SoI changed my mind to more normal dumb look with some kind of dumb bombs bigger than more common Mk.82 variants. Hence I used Mk.83s from Hasegawa weapon set as well as MERs.

This model actually started few months before the long break. I left tamiya tape masked on canopy sooo long time. Nearly to final stage of the built while peeling off canopy masking tape, I was very thrilled and curious if the tape damages my lovely clear canopy? Once all pieces of tape gone no any single damage found thanks to Tamiya quality and I was very happy with the result.

Any comments welcomed. Thanks.