Gulf Warrior, Kuwaiti A-4KU Desert Storm 1991. Finished!

[modelling minion]

2 minutes ago, John Masters said:

This'll look excellent Craig.  

Thanks John, I guess thats another vote for the aggressor then!

[modelling minion]

Right, I have spent far too long faffing around and trying to decide what to do with my build so have decided to get on and build her as I first wanted to, as a Kuwaiti A-4KU. One of the reasons for this choice is that I want to show the A-4's wide use and to eventually have a Skyhawk from every user in my collection and I already have two from the US Navy in it and one of them is an Adversary. So Kuwait it will be and if I find time I might build my Hobbycraft  N as the brown Adversary one, or even just as an Israeli N.

 

So decision made and ANZAC GB build waiting for decals to dry before getting a matt coat (ironically a RNZAF A-4!) it was time to get started. I have started by slat recess on the wings sorted, as has been pointed out by others that are building Hasegawa kits they are moulded with a step to the wing surface which is incorrect as it should be flush so following the lead of others I decided to bite the bullet and cut out the slat area on the upper wing parts and reposition them so that they are flush, i was a bit worried about how this would work out but they came away without any hassle and you end up with this;

 

I then glued the upper and lower wings together.

 

I then offered up the previously removed slats and they fitted quite well with just a smear of filler needed at the joint with the upper wing and the inner face;

 

With that done it was time to tackle another problem area of the Hasegawa kit, the airbrakes. Now my method isn't as robust as the one used by @spejic nor as neat as I ended up having to do some sanding when it was fitted. I tried heating the airbrakes in some hot water and giving them a bend but the plastic is that thick because of the internal details moulded onto it that it didn't work as well as I had hoped, but it did work a bit. I then put some spare sprue into the airbrake well so that it made a support for when sanding the airbrake itself. I decided to get the best fit on the lower portion of the airbrake as this is the part which has some scribed detail on it, the fit at the top portion definitely needed re-profiling so out came the sanding stick and pretty soon we had this;

 

Not too bad at all really and you can just about make out that the scribed lines are still there. The filler you can see on the back of the area above where the exhaust will be is to remove some panel lines which aren't present on the KU.

 

Which brings me nicely onto dealing with unwanted panel lines and holes for bits the M which again aren't present on the nose of the KU, I have filled them with filler in this shot and shall be smoothing everything out when it has dried properly.

 

The intakes are another area on this kit which could be better fitting so I have started on them too, the three part assembly has been put together and when fully dry I will start to sand it into shape, and then there will no doubt be a small amount of filling and  more sanding, and then there will be fitting the intakes onto the fuselage which will no doubt involve more filling and sanding. Here's a picture of one of the intake assemblies;

 

I have built up the two large fuel tanks too as they are carried in many of the pics of Kuwaiti A-4's I have seen, they go together pretty well but for some unknown reason have raised panel lines on them instead of recessed like the rest of the kit;

 

The joints need sorting once it is all dry but no nasty gaps.

 

And that is where she stands at the minute, as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[planecrazee]

Nice work on the build so far Craig and I'm pleased you've decided to stick with the Kuwaiti scheme as it's different and I think it looks really smart 

Kris

[modelling minion]

6 minutes ago, planecrazee said:

Nice work on the build so far Craig and I'm pleased you've decided to stick with the Kuwaiti scheme as it's different and I think it looks really smart 

Kris

Cheers Kris, it is a unique scheme and seeing as this is the 30th anniversary of the Gulf War I thought it was the right thing to do.

[spejic]

That looks really neat. If I was starting a new A-4, I would use techniques a lot closer to yours than what I used.

 

[modelling minion]

18 minutes ago, spejic said:

That looks really neat. If I was starting a new A-4, I would use techniques a lot closer to yours than what I used.

 

Thanks mate that is very kind of you to say so but I think your method got neater results.

[Dansk]

All brilliant stuff craig. Nice solution on the wing step 👍

[John Masters]

9 hours ago, planecrazee said:

it's different and I think it looks really smart 

 

Ditto!  

[RJ-WobblyHands]

Great start to fixing the 'problems' 

 

Are those fuel tanks similar to the Tornado Hindenberg tanks which have raised welded  seams .. though all scale model versions make them about 6inches raised !  , just a little more sanding

 

[modelling minion]

8 hours ago, Dansk said:

All brilliant stuff craig. Nice solution on the wing step 👍

Thanks Paul. it was actually a lot easier than I had feared.

1 hour ago, John Masters said:

Ditto!  

Cheers John, I think it is the right decision.

29 minutes ago, RJ-WobblyHands said:

Great start to fixing the 'problems' 

 

Are those fuel tanks similar to the Tornado Hindenberg tanks which have raised welded  seams .. though all scale model versions make them about 6inches raised !  , just a little more sanding

 

You know you might well be right about the raised weld seams, can't see much of them surviving the sanding process though.

[Hewy]

 👍Nice bit of surgery !

[modelling minion]

6 hours ago, Hewy said:

 👍Nice bit of surgery !

Thanks mate, so far so good!

[coneheadff]

Great start!! Can't await to see the next step

[modelling minion]

29 minutes ago, coneheadff said:

Great start!! Can't await to see the next step

Thanks mate, I shall hopefully get some more progress shots up tomorrow.

 

I think I have found which airframe to build though, whilst trawling through pictures of A-4KU's on desertstorm.eu (the only source of really decent pictures of them, especially one of the links at the bottom of the Skyhawk page) I came across this one;

 

https://www.dstorm.eu/pictures/nose-arts/a-4/827_1.jpg

 

I like the replacement slat in what looks (to me anyway) to be the colour carried by USMC A-4M's in their low vis scheme. Now this aircraft carries the "Free Kuwait" slogan painted on it's sides and I do not have any specific Kuwaiti A-4 decals which usually come with this on them, what I do have however is a set of markings for Mirage F.1's which includes a Kuwaiti example with this slogan painted on the nose and by doing a quick measurement along the side of my A-4 it would seem that they are the right size, presumably the same stencil was used on both the Mirages and the Skyhawks, well thats my excuse anyway!

[zebra]

Nice work on the wing step and the airbrakes Craig. Going to have to give both of these techniques a go.

[modelling minion]

21 hours ago, zebra said:

Nice work on the wing step and the airbrakes Craig. Going to have to give both of these techniques a go.

Thanks Julian, the slats actually worked out a lot easier than I feared and the airbrakes aren't too bad either.

 

A bit more progress to report whilst keeping up with all your excellent builds.

 

The intakes and nose section have been fitted and the few tiny gaps dealt with and cleaned up, the nose was glued in sections as it wasn't the best fit straight from the box but it is okay now, as you can see in the picture below the nose and intakes are in a slightly different coloured plastic;

 

The cockpit side walls have been dealt with and I have copied Mark's idea of adding the fabric pouch on the starboard side;

 

You can see some of the weight that I have added into the nose, there's more in the other fuselage half.

I have painted up the cockpit tub too, I prefer to use the nice raised detail provided by Hasegawa rather than etched brass as I feel that when it is dry-brushed it gives a great effect;

 

The instrument panel has also been painted;

 

The resin seat bu Quickboost is part way through it's painting process;

 

 

 

I prefer to use seats with moulded on harnesses as they look a lot better than I am able to achieve with etched brass. The Escapac seats used in the Skyhawk come in either grey or black and looking at pictures of Kuwaiti KU's they seem to have the black ones fitted. There's a lot still to be done on the seat including fitting the ejection handles and lots of painting.

 

And that is how she looks at the minute, next job will be closing up the fuselage. You may have noticed that I haven't bothered painting the white on the intakes or the piece with the compressor face on it, that is because I have ordered a set of resin blanks to fit in the intakes which not only saves me some time and paint but will make for a more realistic model as you don't leave your aircraft parked up in a desert environment without the intakes and exhaust being blanked off, at least not if you want to keep using them.

 

Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[coneheadff]

The cockpit looks great! Love the IP

[RJ-WobblyHands]

The cockpit looks fantastic , the kit details there are really good, and that is a good looking resin seat

[modelling minion]

17 minutes ago, coneheadff said:

The cockpit looks great! Love the IP

 

8 minutes ago, RJ-WobblyHands said:

The cockpit looks fantastic , the kit details there are really good, and that is a good looking resin seat

Cheers guys, the details in the kit cockpit are actually pretty good, just need some painting to bring them out, but the resin seat is a lot better than the kit one.

[Lex77]

Nice choice building a Kuwaiti one and some good progress aswell.

[modelling minion]

4 minutes ago, Lex77 said:

Nice choice building a Kuwaiti one and some good progress aswell.

Thanks Lex, seemed like the right thing to do to build a Kuwaiti one and it is a unique scheme for the Skyhawk.

[Dansk]

Nice work craig the tub looks much better than all photoetch

[modelling minion]

1 hour ago, Dansk said:

Nice work craig the tub looks much better than all photoetch

Thanks Paul, I prefer it but I know that others prefer the etch, to each their own and its good for people to have a choice of what to use.

[modelling minion]

Decided to do some painting before the fuselage was closed up as it is easier now than later.

I gave nearly all the bits of wing/ fuselage and undercarriage a blast of Halford's Appliance White that needed it, I say nearly all because I forgot the nose gear bay, doh! When that was dry I sprayed some red onto the flaps, slat area and the intakes on the fuselage so that I can mask them off later for the intake warning area as decals really struggle with all the curves in this area and to be honest Hasegawa's idea of red is,well, not red, at least not at all like the one used by any aircraft manufacturer for warning markings.

Here are a couple of pics, starting with the wing ;

 

 

And the port fuselage half, strangely enough the stbd one looks very similar;

 

And with that done I can now start on joining the fuselage halves together.

 

Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[planecrazee]

Looks like you're making great progress Craig and I've got to applaud you for the excellent job you've made with the painting at the front of the intakes - that straight line between the white and the red is absolutely perfect - fantastic workmanship 

Kris