1/72 Airfix A-4B Skyhawk - 1st RFI (OK - you can laugh!)

[UKguyInUSA]

A great way to start off your first RFI Rabbit Leader...looks very well done to me

[Stew Dapple]

Nice job Dave

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[F-32]

Pretty damn perfect if you ask me!

[Rabbit Leader]

Wow!! - the amount of positive feedback has been extremely encouraging, thank-you all very much.  

I'm sure I'm not the only one on here who has had nervous trepidations about posting a completed build, however for those that still do - it's great to get the monkey off the back!!

 

Now a couple of things I learnt whilst building this kit -

1. I filled the starboard side nose panel lines that represent the Avionics bay. You would not be able to open this with that refuelling probe in the way!

2. On the upper fuselage, there's a small rectangle slot that looks like some type of vent. If building the Argie version the bump sits there, however on a stock US A-4B it should be filled. This vent appeared on later A-4E Scooters however was not present on the earlier J65 powered Skyhawks.

3. The kit supplied Antenna that sits behind the canopy is too small. Mine was made from thin plastic card.

4. No matter how many times I looked at actual photographs, I followed the kit instructions paint guide and initially got the grey white aileron & hori-stab demarcations wrong. School boy error I know, but you could get caught out. As always, check photographs.

5. The Red gear door safety edging (so common of US Navy jets) is very hit and miss during this mid-sixties era of Skyhawk. There's a BM thread about this topic here -

6. What colour are the insides of those leading edge slats? Airfix (& Eduard) suggest Red, however once again this varies as much as the Red gear door edging. I chose white after viewing a few photo's, although there's not many of this angle around.

 

Anyway - enough of all that. I appreciate all the feedback and may even post another one of Airfix's 1/72 new tools in the next few days! 

 

Cheers.. Dave.     

[stevehnz]

That is very nice Dave, you've been hiding your light under a bushel mate. I would've said so earlier but I've been picking myself up & dusting myself off  after this uncouth lot pushed me out of the way.

Steve.

[Rabbit Leader]

1 hour ago, stevehnz said:

That is very nice Dave, you've been hiding your light under a bushel mate. I would've said so earlier but I've been picking myself up & dusting myself off  after this uncouth lot pushed me out of the way.

Steve.

Always nice to hear from you Steve... I thought of you when I was looking at a my unbuilt Academy Texan (Harvard) and the lovely set of Tasman RNZAF decals I've got for it. 

Hopefully it will leap a few steps forward up the Rabbit Leader build queue. 

 

Cheers.. Dave.

[BIG X]

That is a fantastic Skyhawk

[cngaero]

That was well worth waiting for Sir. 

A really good looking Skyhawk. 

 

[woody37]

Stunning, hope it's not the last we see when they look this good

 

[jean]

Hi Rabbit Leader,

 

well this Skyhawk is not really recent news, but it is still beautiful!

I may have commented then, but I shall possibly repeat myself: Congrats!!!

What little time on my hand I had today, I spent it on the same kit, re-scribing... Just to show you how ham-fisted I can be in the first place!

 

Great Skyhawk!

JR

[At Sea]

Sooper scooter!

[CJP]

Nice neat Skyhawk - looking forward to seeing your future posts

CJP

[Rabbit Leader]

14 hours ago, cngaero said:

That was well worth waiting for Sir. 

A really good looking Skyhawk. 

 

 

13 hours ago, woody37 said:

Stunning, hope it's not the last we see when they look this good

 

 

7 hours ago, CJP said:

Nice neat Skyhawk - looking forward to seeing your future posts

CJP

Just letting you all know that some bad fellow (who shall remain nameless) has resurrected this old thread from over 12 months ago!

Thankfully, I've built a few more since then and I must thank this great Forum (and the Group Build crowd in particular) for the many 'Unwarranted' nice comments and bucketfulls of motivational to keep going with this hobby.

 

I appreciate the latest round of niceties.

Cheers.. Dave

 

[FAAMAN]

It's a very nicely finished Scooter Rabbit Leader 😎

Just a pity it's the awful Airfix "B", so much wrong with it it's hard to know where to start, my ATF thread on fixing this problematic model here and correctly detailing it ;

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/airfixtributeforum/airfix-1-72-douglas-a4b-4p-skyhawk-a03029-t47356.html

It should help answer your questions on J-65 powered A-4's

[Rabbit Leader]

Thanks for the comments and thread link @FAAMAN. Looks like you know your A-4's pretty well! 

I've got quite a few Fujimi Scooters and Hasegawa's 1/48th 'E' in the stash so will bookmark you're link for future reference, might even ask you a question or two if that's ok? I'm pretty committed with GB's at the moment and unfortunately there's no Skyhawks amongst that lot.  

 

Cheers and thanks.. Dave 

 

  

[Lovely Pig]

Smashing Scooter there. 

[Ad-4N]

Fantastic job.  With the Hasegawa 1/48 A-4B as rare as hen's teeth, I wonder if Airfix knows they are sitting on a gold mine if they scaled this kit up to 1/48?  

[FAAMAN]

Thanks for that Rabbit Leader I'm glad you found my thread useful.

I worked on RAN A/TA-4Gs just before they were given away to those people across the "Ditch".

My thread is only really good for J-65 powered versions of the Skyhawk, J-52 powered A-4E, F, G etc are not really applicable but I'd try to answer any poser you may have on the Scooter.

I do not do 1/48 scale at all so I cannot comment on A-4s in this scale.

AD-4N if Airfix scaled up their particular A-4B (A4D-2) it would be even worse than some of Trumpeter's gross fails 😨 The Airfix kit really is a poor model of the J-65 powered A-4B, just have a look at my ATF thread.

They (Airfix) missed a golden opportunity to bring out a definitive J-65 powered A-4 of any version and with a bit of forethought could've tooled a basic set of molds to produce any A-4 and replace the overly "Fat" Fujimi 1/72 scale A-4 series.

Oh well . . . . . .