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Airfix Douglas A-4 Skyhawk (Old Tool)


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My productivity is always low between November and the end of January due to work commitments. Once January was out of the way, I bashed together a real "quickie" as I needed to get something finished as quickly as possible to get my hand in again. This is certainly not the best model I've ever built and it is a rather ancient moulding.

My local model club have an annual competition themed on Australian and New Zealand based subjects. This was my entry. I didn't expect it to win and my expectations were achieved :)

I could have built Airfix's new tool A-4 which is pretty good but this is their ancient (1958) moulding that I picked up for 50p at Farnborough Modelfest last year.

The markings represent one of the the three Australian Navy Skyhawks that visited Greenham Common in 1977. The refueling probe is scratchbuilt and I added the ribs to the rudder as they are missing from the original kit.

 

 

 

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Hi Eric!!!

 

I liked a lot the job you have done with this old lovely kit!!! Great work and wonderful paint and decal  job!!

I remember whe I built this one from an MPC with five crew figures small box that costed me just US$0.95 in 1979...this one was my first Skiyhawk followed by the HAWK/IMC Battle Damaged rendition....have got the IMC kit but didn't this one until now, maybe this year will get another one or two to make, hope mines will look at least 40% as wonderful as your wonderful build.

 

Thank you very much for sharing!!!

Cheers,

 

Luis Alfonso 

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Thank you. Believe me, it looks a bit ropey when you get close.

 

I enjoy building ancient kits - partly because of the nostalgia factor and partly because of the low parts count.

Although Airfix had a reputation of adding far too many unrealistic and oversized rivets to its models, back in 1958 they hadn't started doing that so the kit's panel; line detail, although raised, was fairly restrained.

 

I forgot to mention that the decals were from a 1977 Modeldecal sheet - so they are around 40 years old themselves.

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What a great build.  The words "silk purse" and "pig's ear" spring to mind, you've certainly achieved a very nicely finished model from what was always a basic kit - as you say, Airfix's newer mould is vastly superior.

 

Like you, I enjoy the nostalgia aspect of building these old kits, allied to the fact that they usually have so few parts (albeit that they're often ill-fitting); that's much of the challenge, as well as seeing how much better you can build them today, rather than the efforts made all those years ago as a teenager over a single weekend.

 

I'm impressed that your 40 year old decals worked so well.....

 

 

Don

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Hi Eric,

 

great salvage job you did! Well done!

A bit of a shame you added the vanes on the rudder, as the old Airfix tooling is the only A-4A kit I know of... And it has too short a nose to represent an Ausie A-4G correctly.

But as a quick and dirty build to get a mojo back, it is swell, and it is a great paint scheme!

 

JR

Edited by jean
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