Cateaser Posted March 22, 2023 Share Posted March 22, 2023 It took more than three months to finally complete the desert-painted A-6E belonging to the VA-65 team. The aircraft was deployed on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and wore a special desert two-tone livery during Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War. The concept of camouflage painting was proposed in the Red Flag military exercise in 1990. Different from ordinary light gray low-visibility painting, desert painting is considered to be easier to integrate into the desert environment and reduce the possibility of being locked by optical tracking. (Please correct me if I am wrong.) However, in the later tests, it was found that the camouflage paint would prevent the deck landing commander from accurately and clearly guiding the aircraft to land. In addition, most of the missions of the A-6E were night operations, so camouflage painting was not widely used. It is worth mentioning that this A-6E was hit by an anti-aircraft missile during a ground attack mission two days after the desert paint was removed. Fortunately, the missile did not explode but penetrated the entire right wing. Because the impact was near the edge of the wing, far from the folded hinge part of the wing, no serious damage was caused. The crew finally managed to ditch the plane to the base in Bahrain. This A-6E was later repaired and continued to serve. In terms of model making, the overall kit combination is not bad, only the front landing gear, the guard plate of the engine nozzle and the connecting part of the wing-body use some filling to fill the gap. In the initial production, a lot of time was spent remaking the panel lines in order to preserve the details as much as possible. Now it seems that I have indeed added a lot of unnecessary burdens to myself... It is excellent to only deepen the line without being obsessed with textual research. The ammunition part uses reskit's 3D printing pylon and resin mk82 ammunition. I have to say that the details of the 3D-printed parts are amazing, and I am looking forward to the printed landing gear of the GWH Su family as well as the Tamiya F-14. The ultra-high-detailed ammunition and pylons can be said to be one of the highlights of this work, so a lot of effort has been spent to highlight this part. Another highlight of this work and the most difficult part should be the camouflage painting. Since the decals are also two-color stitching, there are very high requirements on the size and border of the camouflage paint blocks. It is necessary to repeat many times to adjust the boundary during the spraying process. So this time I did not use pre-shading but tried to use post-highlight, salt erosion mask, and filter to de-aging. Although I tried my best to do the aging well, but due to insufficient technology, I still couldn't faithfully express the heaviness of the real machine. I can only make persistent efforts in the future. It has been almost 20 years since I first came into contact with model making. I was accidentally brought into this miniature world and was deeply attracted by it. The development of the model industry is also accompanied by the development of modern industry, and more and more fine products are brought to the market. More and more model authors are involved in product development. Products are becoming more and more refined, but the difficulty of making them has rarely increased. 3D printing technology is an even more dimension-reducing blow to model making, which was unimaginable 10 years ago. Before this year, I have never systematically examined my technical reserves and found that I still have a lot of techniques and techniques to learn. I hope that I can continue to bring more satisfactory work from this year onwards. Thanks for watching! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
f5guy Posted March 22, 2023 Share Posted March 22, 2023 Looks great! I will eventually build this jet in 72nd scale. Nice work 👍 Fred K. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
kellyF15 Posted March 22, 2023 Share Posted March 22, 2023 WOW, This is a beautiful build! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Trojan Thunder Posted March 22, 2023 Share Posted March 22, 2023 A great result, lovely attention to detail 🏆 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Alternative 4 Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 My kind of build. I like that the focal point is the weathered paint rather than rows of dark panel lines. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
airmechaja Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 Skillfully done. Great effics. Love it! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
phantom Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 Beautiful job. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
lgl007 Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 Love the scheme! Beautiful build... 🙂 -Greg Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A-10 LOADER Posted March 26, 2023 Share Posted March 26, 2023 Very nice job. Steve Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JNordgren42 Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 Beautiful work! I have to say I'm extremely impressed with Reskit's ordinance. I bought a set each of their AIM-9D, AIM-9L, AIM-7E-2, and the new AIM-54A in 1/72 for my Academy F-14A and they are all top notch. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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