Sting67

Oh, I missed that information. Hmmm... I have already ordered a few things. I think I already ordered stuff there three times. Only once there was a very minor missing detail, but I got it afterwards and everything was perfect. Keep on getting in contact with Modern Hobbies. I think I read somewhere that they use to produce everything freshly when an order comes in. This may take a bit longer than having everything stored and ready to ship. The quality, however, is good. Ramon

Hi, I'm following your Tomcat builds with big interest. Excellent detailing! You are searching some pilot figures with a specific configuration. Unfortunately, I don't know of anything that fits, but what about these figures here. They have to be modified but maybe they are good to work with. Ramon

Hi Giorgio, last subject first. The exhaust is, as you see well, dark grey but NOT green. This green you see, seems to be a little accident from a poor masking job when the aircraft was re-painted or retouched with its three camouflage colors. You will see that other aircraft don't have green on the exhaust. For the rest I agree with you that it looks like dull metal. Maybe a dark type of a matt gun metal is a good match, plus the weathering. Regarding the first subject, I'm very sure that on all aircraft (Lizzard, Ghost etc) the middle interior section of the engine nacelles is gloss white. All other interiors, including the gear bays etc are in the so called ADC Grey FS16473 on all old lizzard camouflaged A-10As. Later they switched to gloss white for the landing gear and wheel bays. But I'm sure about the inside of the engine nacelles (see page 24, Colors & Markings #24 - A-10 Warthog ) These reference pics of a (ghost grey) Hog has open engine nacelles that clearly show the white interior. It seems that some pictures don't show the color well, but I will take white on my kit. That seems to be the official color for the middle section of the engine nacelles. However, I have a theory. Maybe in some rare cases the paint ran out and they took the next closest matching color as a replacement for the gloss white. That's only a theory and can, of course, only be verified by ground crew members that worked on the engine . Ramon

Hello Giorgio, again very interesting progress pics! A few suggestions to treat the engines and engine nacelles. I would paint the engines in a dark grey like in this picture that shows it very well. The Hogs with the current light grey scheme, however, have these engines in a light grey color. I'm not 100% sure but the dark grey could be FS36081 as used in the Euro 1 (or lizzard) scheme or a close match. Note that slight trace of one of the camouflage greens (probably accidentally) can be seen on the engine exhaust of the pic. The interior of the engine nacelles have two different colors: The larger center of the nacelles is painted in gloss white on all planes (lizzard and ghost). The aft third section of the nacelles are very likely FS36081. I'm not sure here, as there are very few good quality pics of this section. All I know is that this aft nacelle section is removed during engine repairs, exchanges and maintenance. Look at this sample picture. Although of a poor quality, here are a few further pics of the engine nacelles of a damaged Hog. Hope it helps! Cheers Ramon

Maybe some modelers take that easier solution. It's a question of tastes. I don't like FOD covers for the majority of planes I build. First I try the difficult but, to me, better looking appearance.

I took two quick pictures of the dry-fitting of the Italeri (left) and Hasegawa (right) engine assembly to show you the difference of all fans. The pics are not the best but should help to see what everything looks like. Front shot. In both cases the left fan is from Quickboost. The right fan is from Italeri (left assembly) and Hasegawa (right assembly). k-P1110669 by Ramon Gomez, auf Flickr Same here from a slightly different angle. k-P1110670 by Ramon Gomez, auf Flickr Note, that the Quickboost fan looks much better but doesn't seem to have the right depth either. I see two different solutions: 1. To get two sets of Quickboost fans, hollowing one pair of the fan bay out while carefully extracting the fans from the second set. Then adjusting the depth of the hollowed set and attaching the isolated fans to the depper engine bay. 2. To scratchbuild the single fan blades with very thin sheet styrene or, why not, a yoghurt cup I can't understand why none of the aftermarket producers still didn't offer a solution. Should be easy to launch photoetched fan blades for the most important engines. Ramon

Good looking job so far. I agree with you that the engines are hard to fix. But I always think that most things can be fixed, somehow. I have a few engine intakes from Quickboost that actually are meant to fix the also wrong blades of the Hobbyboss A-10. Nevertheless the pieces perfectly fit into the Italeri engines. Although, these Quickboost engines look very good, I still think that the fan should also here be a bit deeper. I'm still thinking what to do with this section, either overtaking the parts as they are, or modifying them so that they get the appropriate depth. Or trying to build custom fans. By the way, at some places on the net the Hasegawa A-10 is regarded as being the best in 1/72. Even one or two old reference books say that. But to that time the Italeri A-10 was still not launched. I have both kits and when I compare them I can asure you that the Hasegawa one is not better. Besides, it has raised panel lines and the outlines and dimensions are very much the same of Italeri's. Ramon

Very good solution of how to reproduce the bulbs

Also from me a Happy Easter, Giorgio and also to all the others!

Hello Giorgio, again a very interesting and good looking update. The mesh, however, is a very challenging task. I have also searched for a decent representation of the mesh. One day I discovered a very interesting add on from Brengun at a local hobby shop. It's an Air Intake mesh for the Academy 1/72 Hawker Typhoon (BRL72018). The mesh is so fine that I cut it to shape and I think it fits. The problem is that there is not enough mesh for all holes plus the squared opening of the A-10 belly. But then I also found a very fine nylon mesh from another Czech brand called Plus Model. There you have a lot of mesh and it's easy to cut. I think it almost looks as fine as the Brengun mesh. See the pictures below. Once carefully painted it should look nice. If I remember well the same nylon mesh is also available as PE mesh. Plus Model mesh Comparison of Brengun mesh (left) and Plus Model mesh (right) Dry fitting of Plus Model mesh Ramon

@Old Viper Tester very very beautiful pics! Every picture is always very welcomed and often very helpful. Thanks a lot for your contribution. (I'm also building an A-10A from the 23rd TFW, therefore I'm also always thankful for new images). Ramon

Hello Giorgio, again a very interesting progress job. The pictures always look good and clear. And that's what I also have, pictures. Maybe you have them already, but I saw a few very rare color pics of the open airbrakes of a green Hog. You can see every detail, see here: This will help you as a reference when building the open airbrakes. Ramon

Giorgio, again a very good step forward and very good progress pictures. By the way: It shouldn't be a big issue to replicate the mission markings. You have a small but clear view of the right side of the aircraft. It's just a question to magnify the picture and try the best in interpreting the number of stars. You can take the tiny red vehicle symbols (tanks, trucks, SAM Sites etc.) from the Italeri decal sheet. Maybe you have to change the order of the symbols. To replicate the red mission stars (the England AFB squadrons used red stars) you just paint very very tiny red dots next to the vehicle symbols. On my decal sheet these stars are so tiny that you can't see that they are stars. Besides, several aircraft had many mission markings very blurry, probably because they were painted on the aircraft very quickly in between the reloading and refueling process. Maybe the template wasn't held close enough to the aircraft fuselage while spraying the symbols. If you google "A-10A John Marks" you will find a good close-up picture of these mission markings. The only tricky thing will be how to get the information or a pic of the pilot names. If we can find that information somewhere, it will be easy to create the square with the pilot names and build a custom decal. Ramon

I noticed something. The black & white picture above belongs to aircraft 77-0186 "The Warrior/The Box Seat" NOT to 79-0186. The pic has simply been put in the wrong line by mistake. Ramon

There are two decal sheets with 'EL' Desert Storm Hogs. 1. This one from Superscale probably is not available anymore, or at least it could be hard to find. 2. This one from Speed Hunter Graphics is brand new and should be available. Among many other very very interesting subjects, a Desert Storm unit from England AFB is on the sheet. (A-10A 80-0163, 76th TFS, 23rd TFW, Desert Storm 1991). I still hope that they will launch that decal sheet in 1/72 also. I want to build some OIR aircraft in the future. Ramon

I also think that these decals are very useful for future projects. I think the size will fit (I hope). I have their stripes and edges for Aircraft Ground Equipment.

First of all: Excellent progress pics und very nice paint job on the cockpit. It looks very convincing. Also the detailing of the front wheel bay walls looks good. It is also very helpful that you mention details of what you did and what materials you took to achieve the result. Well done. To one of your questions above I can say what I've noticed. I'm not an expert but it looks like the number on the U/C side fronts are like an abreviation of the entire serial number. To show it better it's like this: 80-0186 = 0186 79-0186 = 9186 Actually, on 80-0186 the first digit '8' and the third digit '0' have been skipped. On 79-0186 the first digit '7' and the third digit '0' have been skipped. Ramon

I asume that the artist of the painting mixed things up a bit or created a non-existing unit and that Italeri just saved additional research work and time, or didn't find enough necessary detail pictures and easily overtook the paintings to create decals for this aircraft. But, still continue with everything. Until you come to the decalling stage its still a long way and the camouflage is the same on all aircraft. Just three decal sections require attention and possible improvisation: the tail markings, the pilot names below the front canopy and the mission markings. And, as you will build an open ladder door, the painting on the inside of the door. Here some custom decal creation will help. I have it easier as I will build 79-0210 that I have on a Superscale decal sheet. That was the only England unit that was in the Gulf War on a decal sheet. None of the many decal producers were able to launch more EL units of Desert Storm in 1/72. As soon as I have my aircraft built, I plan to build a second EL aircraft, also of the 74th TFS. Then I will try to improvise and build some custom decals. Then I will probably also create a WIP thread. But I first have to solve some tricky modelling problems with my current build

Giorgio, I have compared pictures of the unit you are building. Check every available information again and again before you start decaling. Information on unit 80-0186 is (at least for me) a bit confusing. There is a painting profile of the 80-0186 with the red woman on the aircraft. The aircraft shows no signs that it is a CO aircraft. The squadron this unit belongs to is the 74th TFS. This aircraft is the one Italeri offers among the building options. I didn't find a real picture of that plane excepting this one which doesn't show much. But when you google the net the unit 80-0186 which suffered heavy battle damage is a CO aircraft that belongs to the 76th TFS. Interesting is also that the tail of the battle damaged unit 80-0186 looks like the CO aircraft of 79-0196 (excepting the serial number). Edit: I just found the aircraft with the painted "Devil Woman". Its unit 80-0163 "We give no quarter" of the 76th TFS. Check the Desert Storm page.

That's true. Unfortunately there are very few good Desert Storm pics of the 'England AFB' A-10s. Another fact is that the England A-10s used two different styles of national insignia, some birds wore one, some wore the other one. Also this can often not be seen on pictures.

That's very interesting. @Giorgio Regarding most Desert Storm pics, at least it seems that the EL A-10s don't have this strip (from what I can see on the pics). Ramon

They also have very beautiful sets of decals that contain very interesting subjects, among them A-10Cs of Op Inherent Resolve. I would buy a few sets but it's a disappointment that they're not available in 1/72. Can't be that difficult to downsize the decals.

Good question. I don't know. I hope that there is an informative answer in some of the sources. I'm also building the Hog, but I still didn't concentrate on the cockpit. I'm working on the weapons, the aft belly section and the engines. My wish was building a ready to depart pair of Hogs, but I have to stay with one only (no infos and decals for a wingman). Ramon

I have no explanation for that. Here are more pics of the A model and it looks more like it is without that kind of frame or holder. Look here.

I'm still not sure, but it looks weird. Without having checked that I would say that the Gulf War Hogs (the A models) didn't have that.