Twosair Twofer 1/72nd EA-7L & A-7K

[f5guy]

Hello everyone,

        Like I really need to start another In Progress thread, but here goes!

        Last week I received some really nicely done custom 3D printed goodies in the mail. For the several EA-7L's that I wish to build I got some AN/ALE-41 chaff dispensing pods, and ALQ-170 Missile Simulator Pods. For the A-7K (and just about everything else), I got some BDU-33 practice bombs. I was so impressed with them that I had to hang them on something! Two of Hobby Boss's TA-7C kits will fit the bill. The kit is well known, as are its short comings. Mainly a somewhat squashed intake and canopy, and lousy weapons. Seeing as there is no easy fix for the "squashing" issues, I'm not going to worry about them and keep the builds simple. Also, there seems to be a similar issues with the exhaust section for which ResKit makes a very nice correction set. However, I won't be using that set as I don't have any on hand, and if I order them, and wait around for them to arrive, I'll have lost interest in this build. Yes, my attention span is that short 😂

     So here's the details on what I'll be using for the...

EA-7L

Hobby Boss kit

Quickboost resin TA-7C parachute housing

Aires resin USN A-7 wheels (the kit wheels are pretty inaccurate)

Eduard TA-7C Zoom photo etch cockpit set (close enough to an EA-7L for me)

Eduard TA-7C canopy mask

3D printed ALQ-170 x1

Underwing fuel tank from a Fujimi A-4 to offset the ALQ-170 (the kits tanks are awful)

Fuselage mounted Sidewinder racks from the ESCI kit (the HB kits are bad)

Neomega resin SJU-7 ejection seats. These are not correct for the two seat Navy A-7s, but are far as I've been able to determine, no one has done the correct SJU-11/12 seats. I will tack them in lightly so in case someone does the correct seats in the future they can be easily changed out.

 

 A-7K

Hobby Boss kit

Resin clones of the ESCI A-7D wheels (kindly given to me by a fellow ARC'er whose name I can't remember some years back. Thanks!)

MERs from the Academy F-8 kit

Fuselage mounted Sidewinder racks from an ESCI A-7D kit (the HB kits are bad)

Eduard TA-7C Zoom photo etch cockpit set (again, close enough for me to an A-7K)

Eduard TA-7C canopy mask

3D printed BDU-33 practice bombs x12

True Details resin ESCAPAC ejection seats. They're a little undersized, but I've used them in the past and they look okay.

 

I would like to note that the HB TA-7C kit has all of the parts needed for an ANG A-7K, so if you're looking for the A-7K kit and can't find it, the TA-7C has the exact same parts. As mentioned, the weapons are pretty useless, so I just tossed the entire bag of sprues. 

 

So here's the kits....    Fred K.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 04:12 AM by f5guy

[f5guy]

And here's the weapons.

[f5guy]

Here's a VAQ-34 EA-7L with the ALQ-170 pod, and an ANG A-7K with MERs and BDU-33s.

[A-10 LOADER]

Following along.

Steve

[ST0RM]

Cool subjects, Fred!! 
I'll be following. 

-Jeff

[Hajo L.]

Cool! I did a VAQ-33 EA-7L some years ago and will be closely following your build!

 

 

HAJO

[GW8345]

If I may;

 

recommend you get the Quickboost TA-7C drag chute housing correction set since Hobby Boss messed up and didn't include it in the kit.

 

https://spruebrothers.com/qbt72216-1-72-quickboost-tc-7c-corsair-ii-drag-chute-housing-hbs-kit-72216/

[f5guy]

2 minutes ago, GW8345 said:

If I may;

 

recommend you get the Quickboost TA-7C drag chute housing correction set since Hobby Boss messed up and didn't include it in the kit.

 

https://spruebrothers.com/qbt72216-1-72-quickboost-tc-7c-corsair-ii-drag-chute-housing-hbs-kit-72216/

 

Hi,

     It's already listed in the list of goodies that I intend to use for the EA-7L. Definitely a big miss by HB! Thanks, Fred.

 

 

[GW8345]

19 hours ago, f5guy said:

 

Hi,

     It's already listed in the list of goodies that I intend to use for the EA-7L. Definitely a big miss by HB! Thanks, Fred.

 

 

Whoops, didn't see that in your first post. 👍

[Thadeus]

Nice. HB Corsair is a very fun kit. And IMHO the double seater is one of the nicer variations out there.

[SERNAK]

OK now this is going to be a joy to watch because Fred has accustomed us to his very good constructions!!!

[f5guy]

Hi everyone,

      Time for an update. 

I got all of the internal parts painted up and installed on both jets. I cut the rear end of the intake trunks out to allow me to sand the inside of the intake from both ends. For the EA-7L the interior of the intake is white. A big hole at the end of it might be noticeable, so I took half of a Hasegawa S-3 intake fan, and glued it to the rear of the trunk , so when you look in, you can see fan blades. For the A-7K the interior color is the same as the exterior paint scheme.... gunship grey. Once painted up its so dark in there that you can't see a thing anyway, so I just left it open. 

     

I trimmed up a few area's for better fit of the fuselage halves, but still ended up with some gaps, and tight fit, especially around the nose section. Nothing some super glue and sanding won't take care of. All for now. Fred.

 

 

[f5guy]

On 1/12/2024 at 6:54 AM, SERNAK said:

OK now this is going to be a joy to watch because Fred has accustomed us to his very good constructions!!!

 

Thanks! But don't look too closely 😆 Fred.

[Dutch]

6 hours ago, f5guy said:

 

Thanks! But don't look too closely 😆 Fred.

Yeah.  I'm more of the Larry the Cable Guy builder, "Get 'er done!"  Great work, Fred. K/r, Dutch

Edited January 17, 2024 by Dutch

[habu2]

This thread reminded me I have the old Precision Enterprises conversion kits for the Two-sairs in my stash.

[f5guy]

11 hours ago, Dutch said:

Yeah.  I'm more of the Larry the Cable Guy builder, "Get 'er done!"  Great work, Fred. K/r, Dutch

 

Hi Dutch!

  Well I will certainly do my best with the kits, but whether they'll see a contest or not remains to be seen. I generally don't build for contests as it takes the fun away for me, but if something turns out well enough, it might get entered. I'm mainly building these two just to hang some neat weapons on 😉 Regards, Fred.

 

Edited January 17, 2024 by f5guy

[f5guy]

3 hours ago, habu2 said:

This thread reminded me I have the old Precision Enterprises conversion kits for the Two-sairs in my stash.

 

Huh.... I've never heard of that brand before. I did attempt an RVHP resin conversion EA-7L many years ago.... in fact, the decals that I'm going to use come mostly from that set. However, I could never get all of the pin holes in the resin filled to my satisfaction, so the whole thing got chucked out. Hopefully the PE set you have is better. If it's that old, I'm guessing its not 🤣 Fred.

[f5guy]

Hi all!

     And here we are.... a year later! I got distracted with a bunch of 48th scale F-5E/F builds among other things, but now that those are done, I'm going back and attempting to finish off some of these lingering build threads.

     So here's a pic of the A-7K. It's ready for paint, and I hope to have some time in the next few days to get that done. You'll notice that I've replaced the front end of the spine refueling receptacle. The kit has it as an oval shape, when in reality it is rectangular. It's a pretty minor thing, but for whatever reason it really bugged me. So I cut it off and replaced it with some Evergreen rectangular rod and filed it to shape. Also, the Loran/Upper VHS antenna on both sides of the tail was sanded flat. This is the black line antenna seen on many A-7s. The kit has it raised significantly from the tail..... about 1 scale foot! In fact, it is flush with the tail. For the model it will be represented with decals. For primer paint I will just use the lighter gray. If there's any issues, I will get them fixed before moving on to the gunship gray. Anyhoo... all for now 😉 Fred.

 

 

[A-10 LOADER]

Good to see you back at these, looking forward to the next update.

Steve

[f5guy]

On 1/9/2026 at 10:35 AM, A-10 LOADER said:

Good to see you back at these, looking forward to the next update.

Steve

 

Thanks Steve! I should have the camo down later today. Next up is a Fujimi A-6E, and then I'll move onto the EA-7L. That's the plan anyway.... Fred.

 

[f5guy]

Okay guys, the A-7K is finished! The decals were a bit of a mess. I used Xtra Decals sheet 72-090 with markings for various A-7Ks. I chose serial number 81-0077 from the Iowa ANG. Upon inspection of the instruction sheet, I noticed that the paint scheme provided for the two gray scheme was wrong. Lacking any pics of this jet, I followed the pattern provided in the Detail & Scale book on A-7D/K markings. I got the decals on the left side of the aircraft no problem, but when I got to the right side, the provided tail code and serial number markings were virtually the same color as the gunship gray in the paint scheme, owing to the Xtra Declas paint scheme being wrong. If you follow the wrong scheme provided, the decals will work fine. If you correct it, part of them blends right in. So now I've got a problem.... half of the decals are done, so there's no changing subjects. Thankfully in my large stash of decals I found some old Repliscale USAF code and number sheets in black. Unfortunately, the "I" looks just like this... I... no bar at the top and bottom. To correct this I used a T and inverted it. Once that was dry I used another T and left it in normal position. That did the trick, and the rest of the decaling went off without issues. Now if you look closely, you can see that there is a slight variation between the style of the tail code and serial number from side to side, but sometimes as modelers we just do the best we can with what we have available. Such is the case here.

 

The practice bombs went on fine, but cutting them from the base plate resin was a bit dicey, and several were destroyed in the process, so if you use them on your project, paint up a few extra's. The front windscreen of the kit is slightly smaller than the fuselage. I was able to get a reasonable fit by filling in the gaps with Microscale's thick white glue. However, on the EA-7L I think I will get the windscreen on the model and faired in before painting.

 

At the very end of this project I found a pic of 81-0077. While my assertion that the scheme provided by Xtra Decals is indeed wrong, and the Detail & Scale scheme is much more accurate, I still ended up being a little off on the pattern due to the variations from the folks that painted the real jet. Still, it's pretty close, and that's good enough for me. 

 

I'm working on an Operation Praying Mantis A-6E now, and then will move on to the EA-7L and wrap this thread up. Thanks for sticking around! Fred.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 04:44 AM by f5guy

[A-10 LOADER]

That's sucks about the decals Fred but, you did a great job fixing the issue. All things considered, she looks great, nice work.

Steve

[ST0RM]

Great job Fred! Love the two-seater. 
I visit KSUX twice a year for work and they've got a great collection of their aircraft history. No A-7Ks, but a great looking D. 
-Jeff