A-1E Skyraider - Maj. B. Fisher USAF MoH. - Completed

[trickyrich]

Everyone knows the famous A-1 Skyraider but less so it’s multi-seat cousin. Designed for the Navy as an advanced anti-submarine aircraft she was lengthened by close to 2’ and widened by 9” to allow for side-by-side seating, with a rear compartment special equipment and 1 or 2 operators. All this space in the back also allowed for some interesting adaptions, a VIP transport, 4 stretchers could be loaded or up to 12 people!!! Not so squeezy!!

 

  It was in the role with the Airforce as a support aircraft for aircrew recover that the A-1E “Sandy” and her single seat “Spad” cousin really excelled. Though an extremely hazardous job, they could stay with the rescue choppers, long time over target, take heaps of damage, and carried a bucket load of things that go bang!

 

This is one of those aircraft I knew I had to build from the first time I saw it, think it may have been the old matchbox model from way back in the early 80’s! Unfortunately, that’s the newest version of this model in any scale! The rest are all 1/72nd and versions based on the original 197?’s Monogram model.

 

Then by chance I happened to read about the Fisher Model conversion kit for a 1/32nd version and knew it had to be mine. Unfortunately this was around the time their factory (and property) were destroyed by fire in those tragic bushfires in LA a few years ago. But I managed to find one on evilBay for a wee bit less than my firstborn and all was good in the world! 

 

 

Risking the chance of getting all hot an bothered I will only just so you all that resin loveliness!!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

The fuselage is pretty much one piece…

 

 

…….and she’s a big sucker!

 

 

The conversion kit is made for any of the Trumpeter A-1 Skyraider kits or if you’re feeling very flush one of the Zoukei-Mura ones.

 

 

There’s a lot of bits in here that will go into the spares box…..unless I buy extra sprues? 

 

 

So far the only extra is some Brass barrels…..though that’s going to change. 

 

 

Scheme, well it’ll be the that of the most famous Sandy of all, 132649 flown by Major Burnie Fisher who won the Medal of Honor on one such mission in March 66.

 

https://skyraider.org/skyassn/fisher/fishermoh.htm

 

I have been waiting to build this one for some time now and I finally get too, I just hope time will be good to me. But if not I do have a couple of backup plans…..and no sorry, no chance of doing a WWEMD!!

 

 

....full resin with extra resin AM stuff!!!

 

or this...

 

 

...with correct decal set!

 

 

[Triet Cam]

Rich, You possessed one of earth's rare commodity, you know that right?

[trickyrich]

most defiantly!!!! 

 

It should go nicely with their Sea Fury....

 

 

... I still have a second one to build, an F9F-5 Panther plus the rarest of them all a RB-51 "Red Baron" Reno Mustang!  I have this resin disease! 

 

These things need to be built and not kept locked away.

[helios16v]

And you've got the skills to do them justice.  Looking forward to this.

[reini]

Oh wow, that is looking to be like a fun build!

[modelling minion]

This has the makings of an epic build Rich.

My favourite version of the Spad.

And if for any reason it fails the I vote O-2!

Not that it will, all hail our budgie smuggler wearing glorious leader and his slightly odd resin fetish!!

[trickyrich]

....ignoring the Budge smuggling cheer squad...... 

 

this should actually be a really nice straightforward build actually. I've spent quite some time going over the instructions for the Trumpy kit and conversion and it's really quite a straightforward most of which I can do in modules. So it should with luck go together quite quickly, the main work other joining the fuselage to wing will be the cockpit and engine.

 

I think the painting and weathering will be the biggest job...literally! I plan to do some extreme pre-shading sort of like I did on my Tomcat. Plus these aircraft consumed gallons of oil, range and loiter time were often depended on engine oil levels rather than fuel levels!! There were often comments like if it didn't come back empty of oil then there was an issue with the engine! 

 

Extras so for order are the Zoukei-Mura US Weapons set #2, the Trumpy ones are rubbish........plus I have a bag of wee 2mm magnets that will be used with them!! 

 

I'll probably replace the wheels and a few other bits as well.

[Hockeyboy76]

Dear Aunty Budgie Smuggler Rich,

 It’s a lovely starting build thread, but there’s a few things I feel I must point out. 

1, we all know you will never finish this and it will take up valuable space on your top shelf among your other queens and tissues. 

2, you haven’t finished your builds in Pats GB, proving my concerns laid out in point one. 

 

Yours laughing

H

[wimbledon99]

Really hope you get to finish this - Looks epic!!

[trickyrich]

5 hours ago, Hockeyboy76 said:

Dear Aunty Budgie Smuggler Rich,

 It’s a lovely starting build thread, but there’s a few things I feel I must point out. 

1, we all know you will never finish this and it will take up valuable space on your top shelf among your other queens and tissues. 

2, you haven’t finished your builds in Pats GB, proving my concerns laid out in point one. 

 

Yours laughing

H

Haven't you got some models you're meant to be building??? Poor Little H now spends more time building your models than she has building hers!

[Hockeyboy76]

3 hours ago, trickyrich said:

Haven't you got some models you're meant to be building??? Poor Little H now spends more time building your models than she has building hers!

So now your being out built, quality and quantity by a 10 year old girl? 

[trickyrich]

...well resistance was futile and I did buy some AM stuff, replacement resin Prop and wheels form AMS Resin. Interestingly this aircraft had the Navy wheel hubs and not the later Airforce ones!

 

I baled on the Eduard PE, it's only for the Cockpit and Engine, cockpit is useless and the engine.....well in this scale lead wire is better plus I won't be opening up the engine covers.

 

Roll on Saturday!!!!!!  

[Greg B]

Oh dear, another Budgie Smuggler.......

 

will look forward to the build, got to love a Spad!

[trickyrich]

4 hours ago, Greg B said:

Oh dear, another Budgie Smuggler.......

 

will look forward to the build, got to love a Spad!

may we rule the world! 

[helios16v]

5 hours ago, trickyrich said:

...well resistance was futile and I did buy some AM stuff, replacement resin Prop and wheels form AMS Resin.

Don't kid yourself.  I don't think anyone here ever had any doubt.  

[modelling minion]

10 hours ago, trickyrich said:

may we rule the world! 

Good God, I sincerely hope not!

[Alan P]

This looks delicious. Very glad you’re going to build this rare collectors item Rich 👍

[trickyrich]

Just an update of the arrival of some goodies…..

 

The new bits from AMS resin have arrived…..

 

 

….as can be seen the new hubs & wheels are a vast improvement over the kit ones….I do hate those rubber tyres they usually start to fall apart after a couple of years……..

 

 

…… those blades are a completely different shape!! Surly Trumpeter didn’t get them that wrong….will have to do some more investigation into their correct shape.

 

 

Ok I may need some help here, I have a set of Master Models Gun Barrels for the Skyraider, but when compared to the kit supplied ones (they may be a wee bit over sized or not) they appear tiny! To me they almost look like they’re meant for a 1/48th model! I may have to buy a set from another different maker just to be sure.

 

 

There are a couple of things that are of concern with the conversion…..firts the fuselage is a bit skew….a bath in hot water should bring it all back in shape.

 

 

The second, well a hot bath won’t fix this….

 

 

…the main fuselage appears to be wider than the lower fuselage insert! I have had a model where the fuselage mould has spread which caused alignment issues, but it doesn’t appear the case here. Having a general look at the main fuselage the moulding and width looks to be ok, though there is a wide bit in the middle of the trailing edge of the rudder. The rudder unit on these aircraft was kinked 3° to help counter prop torque!

 

 

As can be seen I can’t use the kits rudder as a replacement! I will have to reshape the trailing edge of the rudder.

 

 

It’s a shame the lower inserts going to be an issue, nothing major luckily, it’ll just need some careful plugging with scrap resin first before filling.

 

I won’t be starting this one for a couple of weeks yet. 

 

Plus I just found out my order for weapons set I wanted was cancelled on me….not happy as they’re out of stock everywhere else on the net!!!! 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

@trickyrich is this the set you are after ? 
 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/zoukei-mura-sws03-m01-us-aircraft-weapons--129399

 

If so they show in stock in Canada ? If its available you might be able to get it shipped to Australia ? 

[trickyrich]

3 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

@trickyrich is this the set you are after ? 
 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/zoukei-mura-sws03-m01-us-aircraft-weapons--129399

 

If so they show in stock in Canada ? If its available you might be able to get it shipped to Australia ? 

nah it's the other set they often refer to it as the Air Force set, has napalm, guns and rocket pods. Pretty much what was the standard load (well nothing was standard) for the rescue op birds. Trumpeter supplies them in the kit, but like most of their supplied weapons they're pretty much crap! Will just have to keep a careful eye out for them.

 

I checked up the 20mm gun barrels, after looking at lots of reference photo's the Master Model ones are correct, the barrels do appear tiny on the wings. The Trumpie ones are actually quite over scaled......so I have saved myself $50 odd on the Zorkei-Mura set I was going to get.

[helios16v]

The Skyraiders are actually quite large birds.  In pics you think they are pretty small because they are a single prop plane...but that's not the case.

[trickyrich]

tell me about it, did a quite throw together to see how she looks....she's huge!!! Makes my Sea Fury (and even the Hind) look quite small!

[trickyrich]

just some comparison photos with the original fuselage and beside said Sea Fury.

 

 

 

 

[Triet Cam]

That's way too cool. Wish I didn't wait around when Fisher Model was still running. I wanted display that next to the ZM A-1H I did 6 yrs back. Paul did outstanding researched on the E version. I think the tail rotated 2 degree to the left of the plane, if you're looking down vertically. It was not symmetric. I don't think any kit manufacturers ever got that right. 

[trickyrich]

Well I’ve made a tentative start on this one, the chopper is being a bit of a pain so I’m having a break from it.

 

Just done some basic stuff plus lots of test fitting to see how it’ll all go together.

 

The kits control surfaces aren’t too bad though to fit they do need some extra work……..wouldn’t be a Trumpie model without extra work!

 

 

The A-1E had a slightly different setup for the main wheels. They didn’t have main gear covers, instead the main wheel wells had a round opening just big enough for the wheels to fit. These blanks actually fitted quite easily with next to no gap. I just need to do some final sanding to finish.

 

 

The oil cooler vent on the underside of the fuselage was also deleted on this version as well, so new blank fitted here as well. Plus I've fitted the wingtip light mounts.

 

The catapult bridal mounts on the wing were also removed from the wings and moved to the main gear. These leftover holes are going to be a bit harder to fill cleanly. I can’t just use filler as it’ll shrink as soon the lacquer paint hits it. So, I’ll fill it with plastic (started already) then finish it with CA cement. That should give me a nice smooth and shrink-free surface.

 

 

Finally, I’ve started building up the main wheel wells, I needed to slightly reduce the height of these due to the new wheel well openings. There’s next to no detailing in these which is fine as it won’t be seen.

 

 

I have now come to a dilemma, at the moment I can’t for love or money find/get the required stores loadout this aircraft carried. They had a reasonably specific weapons loadout for their missions and the stores provided in the model (besides being typical Trumpie rubbish) other than the centreline tank arn’t suitable.

 

No Napalm tanks, SUU-11 Minigun pods, etc. The ones I need are only available in a Zoukei-Mura set, which isn’t available anywhere……though I did find some on the Modellbau Koenig site but for now they’re not sending stuff to Aust due to Covid!!!!!  

 

This is driving me spare at the moment!!!!   I am very tempted to put this build to one side for the moment until I will be able to finish her properly…..need to have a good think about this one.