1:72 Airfix Douglas A4D-2 (A-4B) Skyhawk

[Learstang]

Nice choice, Bill! I need a Scooter for my ever-growing and unbuilt Vietnam War collection (actually a few are built, just not finished).

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

[busnproplinerfan]

6 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

Not sure, but I have two photos of 142874 in 1968 (these are the colour photos referenced in the Xtradecal instructions) and the aircraft has the late wheels, as depicted in the Aires aftermarket set.

 

 

Where? Send me a link so I can follow too!        Just kidding - thanks for the compliment in advance.

 

Cheers,

Bill

I don't know when they were changed, just thinking since it's a B version, but then these were used for a long time so the wheels should be ok.

[Fritag]

Excellent.   Lovely looking aircraft and the prospect of more beautiful modelling.

 

On 1/15/2023 at 11:32 PM, Navy Bird said:

Well aren't these just loverly...

 

Those trench-like lines around that nose (avionics?) hatch look jolly similar to the trench-like lines around the nose avionics hatch on the Airfix BAE Hawks that were frankly a disfigurement!  I gave up trying to make them respectably finer and just filled em in.  

 

[Navy Bird]

13 hours ago, Fritag said:

Those trench-like lines around that nose (avionics?) hatch look jolly similar to the trench-like lines around the nose avionics hatch on the Airfix BAE Hawks that were frankly a disfigurement!  I gave up trying to make them respectably finer and just filled em in.

 

They don't look anywhere near that bad without the magnification by the camera. Comparing them to my Airfix Hawk 100 kit, there is a world of difference. But there are some that need to be filled in (like the hatch on the starboard side of the nose) as it wasn't there on the aircraft I've chosen to model. Plus, the panel lines on the actual Skyhawk are not all that easy to see in real life, so I'm seeing some Mr. Surfacer in my future. Along with some Mr. Dissolved Putty, Mr. Color, Mr. Hobby, Mr. Leveling Thinner, Mr. Brush and eventually Mr. Mark Setter and Mr. Mark Softer. I've never met the two Marks, but I have spent some time with Mrs. Setter and Mrs. Softer.   <cringe>

 

I should have some cockpit photos before long.   

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Navy Bird]

Did somebody say cockpit photos?

 

 

 

This is the usual Mr. Hobby Dark Gull Gray and the Eduard PE for the instrument panel, side consoles (which are an odd dark grey instead of black) rudder pedals, ejection handle, and the seat harnesses. The quilted insulation bits (either side of the rear seat bulkhead) are CMK resin and I painted them RLM02 as my photos showed them as a light grey-green colour.

 

The kit parts aren't bad, but would have taken some more work, and I'm lazy.    

 

The weight required to keep her on her feet is stated by Airfix as 5g in the nose. I'm not sure there is room for 5g in the nose, so I suspect I'll be adding weight behind the cockpit but prior to the kit's parts for the intake ducting. Besides, I have some nose reshaping to do which will no doubt remove some of space for any weight up front. Too much fun.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. I'm not sure it's possible to get the nose completely accurate as I'll run out of plastic.

[giemme]

Look at that cockpit!  

 

Ciao 

[Terry1954]

1 hour ago, giemme said:

Look at that cockpit!  

 

Ciao 

 

Ditto .... and some!

 

T.

[Navy Bird]

Silly old sod - I forgot to show a photo of the instrument panel (seat removed).

 

 

This is the typical two piece pre-printed Eduard instrument panel. When gluing the bits together (with Gator's Grip Thin Blend) I used a magnifying glass to help align the instrument panel faces with the opening in the panel. I like the effect, it looks good in this scale.

 

Note the typical Eduard mismatch of the grey in the panel to the Dark Gull Gray of the cockpit itself. Mr. Hobby H317 paint is a good match for DGG, but whatever Eduard uses is not. Note the difference in the black on the panel and the "black" on the consoles. Eduard apparently printed them with the same colour they used on the panel. I'm pretty sure the consoles were black in real life (clearly shown by the photos in Ginter's Naval Fighters Vol. 49) , but trying to fix that by painting around all those controls would destroy the last tendrils of my sanity. So they is what they is.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[giemme]

IP looks perfectly good to me.

 

Ciao 

[Learstang]

Lovely work on the cockpit, Bill! Now you just need an aeroplane to put around it.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

[Fritag]

Lovely cockpit.  Neat as a pin.

 

3 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

Note the typical Eduard mismatch of the grey in the panel to the Dark Gull Gray of the cockpit itself. Mr. Hobby H317 paint is a good match for DGG, but whatever Eduard uses is not. Note the difference in the black on the panel and the "black" on the consoles

 

Colours work for me, Bill. But then I’m not a rivet counter when it comes to colour (does that even make sense?); no doubt a personality flaw in me 

[David H]

Cockpit looks nice, Bill.

 

-d-

[Navy Bird]

3 hours ago, giemme said:

IP looks perfectly good to me.

 

Yeah, I kinda like it myself. Some of the other choices for instrument panels (Yahu, Edward LööK, etc.) can be even better, but really - who is going to poke their nose into a 1:72 Skyhawk? And if you do, you'll probably break off the canopy and then I'll be rather cheesed off.     😠

 

3 hours ago, Learstang said:

Lovely work on the cockpit, Bill! Now you just need an aeroplane to put around it.

 

Patience, my son. Good things come to those who bribe the right officials.    💰

 

2 hours ago, Fritag said:

Colours work for me, Bill. But then I’m not a rivet counter when it comes to colour (does that even make sense?)

 

It makes sense. After the pit is installed, it's usually devilishly hard to ascertain the pit colours properly. Unless, of course, the colour is way off. Some of the Eduard pre-painted panels are horrendously wrong. Now, I'm a bit more of a stickler for the exterior colours, although I admit it seems somewhat pedantic to fret over the exact colours when you intend to weather the bejeezus out of it.

 

*****

 

Before the fuselage halves go together, I need to paint the intake trunking and the jet pipe, along with the fore and aft engine faces. The CMK cockpit and nose gear bay fit nicely inside the Airfix fuselage with no further modification. What a interesting departure from those made by Aires!   

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Pappy]

G'day Bill,

 

I agree about the colours being mismatched but I can't see how they can get black wrong so I think in this instance it may have been an attempt at 'scale, black, or some faded effect rather than a true black as the backing plate is printed in a more saturated black so they can obviously print something closer to a pure black,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[Volant]

Colours aside, that cockpit looks fantastic. Really impressive. I love the A-4, and as you mention in the OP, ‘proper’ US Navy colours.

 

Very interested to see how you get on, and how the Airfix kit builds.

 

(Slightly) off topic, but I also have a Hobby 2000 A-4 in the stash - mine being the A-4E as I hadn’t decided if I wanted to do the ‘hump’ or not. I like what Hobby 2000 do, you can get otherwise long-gone good plastic, with good decals at good price.

[busnproplinerfan]

It looks like Eduard saved the day.

[Navy Bird]

An aeroplane is beginning to encapsulate the cockpit...

 

 

I filled in the spurious hatch on the nose, and removed the strengthening plates at mid-fuselage on the starboard side. Luckily, I have two colour photos of the VC-5 bird, one from each side, so I can tell that the little intake scoops on the sides are there, so they won't be removed. The antenna behind the cockpit is too short and will be replaced by Eduard PE. I used some Mr. Surfacer 1000 on the main intake seam as it needed to be brought in line with the other panel lines. There is also a vent hole on the port side that Airfix missed and we'll have to add that.

 

I neglected to take photos of the fore and aft engine faces, and the intake trunking. Oops. In any event, those items fit very snugly in the fuselage. The engine faces will never be seen again, so my negligence robbed me of your adulation. Or, more likely, your "meh."

 

Airfix say to put 5g in the nose which I wasn't able to completely do - maybe 1g went in. If I did my fulcrum calculations correctly, the 12g I added behind the cockpit should be enough. I taped everything together, and this looks to be OK.

 

 

The fit of the fuselage halves was pretty good. I know some folks don't like working with this soft plastic that Airfix is using, but I don't mind. It sure sands easy. I've test fit the wings and the fit of the bottom wing is superb - just snaps into place. Eduard provide some nice PE to go on the top wings underneath the slats. As the upper wings are moulded, there is a step in the rear of this area, but on the real plane there was none. I hope the PE can fake replicate that. Ta for now.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[David H]

Bill, if its from a Composite squadron, did you think about mounting a towed target under a wing?

[giemme]

Looking good already, Bill!

 

Ciao 

[Fritag]

Neat progress Bill.

 

10 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

I filled in the spurious hatch on the nose

 

I have a feeling that when Bill fills in a spurious hatch it gets filled once and stays filled adequately and for ever.  I always seem to have to go back and apply just a bit more filler, and then maybe a bit of Mr Surfacer, and then maybe some filler primer and then - just maybe the spurious hatch is adequately filled….

[Terry1954]

Looking good Bill.

 

My filling experiences are not dissimilar to Steve's @Fritag. Maybe I'm just a shy filler ......... 🤭

 

T.

[heloman1]

On 1/16/2023 at 1:32 AM, Navy Bird said:

Well aren't these just loverly...

 

 

 

I would recommend that the tooling design engineers be sacked.    😠

 

(Not really. These may look nasty, but due to the softness of the plastic used on this kit they're actually pretty easy to remove. Oh, here's a comparison of the kit's gear bays and the CMK resin (sorry for the bad photo):

 

 

As you can see, there is not a lot of difference. The detail in the resin is a bit deeper, but Airfix actually comes closer to the real thing (at least in the photos I looked at). I think the kit bay will look fine under a wash. Also, the CMK resin omits the small wing fence that Airfix included in this area. I guess the question should be who's right? Back to my references...

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

Hi bill. just picked up on your Scooter build, just why I missed it up until now is a mystery!

Anyway, those mould gates look more like holes in a fence, drive a combined harvester through there , you could!

The second decal sheet, is a vast improvement over the kit offering, as is the newish kit over the original.

I'm building the Sea King Commando elsewhere in the GB's (Salty Dog GB). It too is from the same era and suffers from missed/inaccurate and overscale detail. Airfix need to up their game!

Those am goodies look the biz.

I'll follow with interest.

 

Colin

[Navy Bird]

23 hours ago, David H said:

Bill, if its from a Composite squadron, did you think about mounting a towed target under a wing?

 

I thought about something similar after I saw this photo:

 

 

However, I have no idea what is on the fuselage centre station - anyone know? EDIT - Never mind. I believe this is just an open access panel on the bottom of the wing. It's hinged right near the centre pylon.

 

13 hours ago, Fritag said:

I have a feeling that when Bill fills in a spurious hatch it gets filled once and stays filled adequately and for ever.  I always seem to have to go back and apply just a bit more filler, and then maybe a bit of Mr Surfacer, and then maybe some filler primer and then - just maybe the spurious hatch is adequately filled….

 

Ha! Actually, there were two rounds of filling on the spurious hatch. The red glazing putty I use always shrinks just a bit so two applications are almost always necessary. I put up with this behaviour as I love the way this putty wet sands - beautiful feathered edges. I suppose I could just put down an overly thick application - great globs of red putty - but that would be wasting it, and I've only got about 1kg of the stuff.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Note the late wheels in the photo.

[Navy Bird]

Another exciting episode of Adventures in Photoetch!    

 

Most photos of the Skyhawk show the flaps down when parked. Ailerons seem neutral though. Airfix has moulded the flaps entirely on the upper surface of the wing, and Eduard have done the usual job replicating the flaps in photoetch. The following photo shows the raw materials on the right, and the semi-finished (not folded) item on the left. One thing to realise is this not only represents the flap, but also the top surface of the wing. Accordingly, there are some other greeblies that need to be added, plus there are two folding operations, as the flap is hinged at the bottom of the wing. There is a section of the PE that should be the same height as the thickness of the Airfix wing. Make sense? You can see the two folding lines in the middle of the large piece on the right. That's what I'm talking about - the distance between those two parallel folding lines.

 

 

The structural detail duplicated consists mostly of rows of raised rivets. This looks to be reasonably correct based on photos. Nothing is assembled yet in the photo, the bits on the left are just setting on top of the larger piece. However, I want to assemble this to make sure it will work! Once I hack out the flaps from the wings there is no going back...    😬

 

I mentioned earlier that Eduard give you photoetch to go on the wing where the slat sits prior to activation. The photoetch piece must be curved to match this area, which is fun as the radius of curvature is different from one end to the other. I don't have one of those fancy rolling jigs, so I "curve" the bits against different sized paintbrush handles. Really. Works for me. Here is what it looks like in place (and this time it is glued in):

 

 

The top of the PE matches the top of the wing, so that little step is eliminated. Which is great, because there is no step there on the real thing. However, Eduard have again festooned the piece with raised rivets - oops, they should be flush rivets as far as I can tell from photos. It will look just fine. Science!

 

OK, that was enough fun for today. Time to go watch Star Trek TOS "Amok Time".     🪐

 

Cheers,

Bill

[busnproplinerfan]

Will this PE set fit a Fujimi kit?