Eduard A-4E/F Upgrades (for Eduard or Hasegawa) 1:48

[Mike]

A-4E/F Upgrades (for Eduard or Hasegawa)
1:48 Eduard

If you were one of the happy band that managed to get a copy of the new Limited Edition boxing by Eduard of the Hasegawa A-4E "Vietnam Scooters" (1197 still some in stock at time of writing), then these updates and upgrades may well be right up your street. Even if you didn't and have a Hasegawa E/F in the stash, you'll probably still have your interest piqued. As always, Eduard Brassin sets come in clamshell boxes with foam protection and a backing card that doubles as the instruction booklets. Their Photo-Etch (PE) sets are flat-packed and have white card protection and instruction sheets sandwiched behind the PE frets.


A-4E/F Upgrade Set (48851)
This is a PE set to upgrade and improve the detail over the whole airframe, including the prominent air-brakes and their bays, landing gear bay doors and bays, the leading-edge slat actuating rods as well as the underside of the slats themselves, which are another prominent feature of the Scooter, plus some additional parts for the cockpit rear bulkhead and sills. Inside the canopy is also lined with PE sound insulation padding, and as a bonus you get a pair of FOD guards for the intakes and some pylon attachment surfaces with sway-braces, plus some scale-thickness fins for the almost obligatory wing-mounted fuel tanks.

Bear in mind that this set is designed as an augmentation to the PE found in the kit box, so if you are working with just the base kit in Hasegawa boxings, you'll need to take that into consideration.

A4-E/F Exhaust (648215)
The A-4 has a long tail-pipe, and this resin replacement for the kit supplied tube is a vast upgrade in terms of detail and ease of use. Once cut from their casting blocks, the resin parts can be painted individually without the need to remove any seams from the long narrow trunking. The aft face of the engine is depicted in extreme detail, with a PE afterburner ring inserted before it is mated to the trunk, and once that is installed, the exit nozzle is added after the fuselage is closed up. Detail and finesse here is superb, with a very fine outer shroud and detailed inner petals. Styrene just can't compete!

A-4E Early Wheels (648213) & A-4E/F Wheels (648214)
Both sets are resin replacement wheels with kabuki tape hub masks for all three wheels. The sets build up identically, although the hubs and brake details are different on the main wheels. The main wheels have separate brake details on the rear and are drop-in replacements once glued, while the nose wheel has a new white resin yoke that requires the modeller to remove the kit part and drill a 1mm hole in the remaining leg to accept the new part. The yoke simply flexes to admit the new resin wheel common to both sets, and like its larger siblings, it has a slight sag moulded-in.

A-4E Early


A-4E/F

Review sample courtesy of