CD48198 - 1/48 A-10 Thunderbolt - The Early Years

[utley]

that was the gun fairing that gave the warthog its name. literally looks like a pig snout, doesnt it?

[Dave Williams]

I always liked the Battelle Gun Gas Diverter.

 

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25166/this-a-10-warthog-ground-trainer-still-has-a-tickler-muzzle-device-on-its-cannon

 

 

[thegoodsgt]

Which of the 3D printing manufacturers will step up and produce that?  🤞

[Darren Roberts]

Are the reference pages up yet for the A-10 sheet? I've got a Monogram kit waiting to paint the assymetrical scheme. This will be the third A-10 from this sheet that I've done. What a great sheet!

[KursadA]

I am still working on these and will gradually complete it over the course of this week.

[CraigSargent]

On 3/5/2023 at 4:15 PM, Norm DUbay said:

The early Tamiya A-10a kit is based off the pre-production A-10s plus first four A-10s serial numbers 75-258 thru 75-262 I believe.  The kit has the longer flap tracks that extend past the trailing edge of the wings.  The kit has Escapac ejection seat and lacks the chaff pods under the wings and sponsons.  It also has the 30mm cannon not the 20 mm cannon.  To do a prototype 11369 and 11370 you will need to do a lot of mods.  The tails, profile of the nose, wheel sponsons, fuselage panels and scoops, shortening the wings, and adding the 20 mm gun will be required.  If you want to do a really early prototype you will also need to remove the wing fillets to fuselage.  I think the inboard slates will need attention as well.

 

Something like this 😄

 

Removed the wing fillets, reshaped the nose (have reshaped it more since), reshaped the tail fins, removed the strakes under the fuselage in front of the wings, glued the inboard slats closed, shortened the wings, glued the ladder door closed and filled and sanded it, this was before I shortened the pylon fairings for the engine, and the Aires wheel sponsons have since been removed and I'll CAD some new ones. Lots to do, but now I have the Caracal decal sheet in hand

Edited November 28 by CraigSargent

[Norm DUbay]

Looking good!  Craig you should remove the 3 oval shaped access panels on top of the wings.  Also up you should flattened the wing joint cover. By the wheel sponson.  It’s basically flat with no roundness to it.  

[CraigSargent]

Yeah, the oval panels have to go, but the wing joint cover needs to stay, but needs to be flattened a lot. It was definitely there

[Norm DUbay]

Use also will need to remove the trim tab actuators and covers from the bottom of the elevators on the horizontal stabs.  These were not present on the YA-10s

[CraigSargent]

It's more than that - you actually have to move the trim tabs (fill and rescribe) to the inboard ends of the elevators. They are not on the outboard end as per the production aircraft.

[Norm DUbay]

Interesting!  Do you have a photo showing the position of the trim tabs?

[CraigSargent]

Here you go

[utley]

What's up with the projecting sphincter? Also looks like the empennage is 6 feet farther than currently deployed hogs as they don't sit underneath the engine exhaust nozzles.

Edited Thursday at 09:30 PM by utley

[CraigSargent]

Huh?

[Dave Williams]

That looks a temporary underside camera, likely mounted to monitor weapons separation.  Also, the exhausts look fine to me.  The exhausts are some distance from the vertical tails.  Any direct side view of an A-10 shows that.

[CraigSargent]

The rear of the engine pylon to fuselage fairings on the YA-10 was squared off, not tapered like current ones so may be throwing off the relationship perception a little.

 

Solid red lines show pylon rear end. Dashed red lines are approximately where production fairing goes.

Edited Thursday at 10:15 PM by CraigSargent

[utley]

No, viewing straight under you wouldn't see exhaust pipes IIRC. designed that way to prevent manpads from tracking heat signatures from certain angles. They're definitely further aft than normal. And yeah, that piece just aft of the drain facing forward kinda looks like a stinger.

[CraigSargent]

No, pretty much exactly the same in production. The exhausts have never sat over the tailplanes

 

[utley]

Guess I'm getting too old now....beep beep bleep.

[CraigSargent]

They say memory is the second thing to go when you get old. I can't remember what the first was... 😄

Edited Thursday at 11:07 PM by CraigSargent

[Darren Roberts]

I took the easy way out with the ESCI kit and left on the wing fillets and 30mm gun. I found pictures with them added to the YA-10. 😁

 

ESCI YA-10

[KursadA]

It's a beauty! Looking forward to the many more early A-10 builds from Darren and others.

[Dutch]

Darren, beautiful build, as usual.