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ESCI French Air Force 1:48 Skyraider


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Dear All.

Having admired everyone else's fabulous work, I felt it was time to put my humble offering to the Modelling Gods up for constructive review

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And yes, it really was an ESCI kit originally. Took a bit of manhandling to get it to fit together, but in the end with some PE and resin goodies it looked about right.

Look forward to your comments.

Edited by Icarus
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Nice job for the ESCI offering. I thought it was a Tamiya offering to start with but after I saw the box art and then had a closer look at the raised panel lines it gave it all away. Very nicely done all the same, a little bit of a different scheme to keep us on our toes as well.

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Thank you for the kind comments. The French colour schemes are certainly easy on the eye. In my reference search for this model, I found some Chad Air Force versions - now that would be an unusual build.

This is the second old ESCI model I've built in the last 3 months (A-7H of Hellenic Air Force appearing on these pages soon) and I must say dimensionally the kits are pretty good. They're a bit of a fight, and do need resin and PE to bring up to speed, but where's the challenge in beautifully-engineered OOB Japanese builds?

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Nice

A good option for markings too..........the tyres........and wheels look very real........nicely done........are they after market ?

They are indeed aftermarket resin. The wheel wells were from Aires - AIRE4174, whiilst the wheels themselves were from True Details - TD48047.

Icarus

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Hi

If you are interseted in this period of war ther is tonight on the French TV channel France 2 the movie "L'ennemi intime" .

Patrick

Thank you, Patrick. My televisual net hasn't yet been cast as far as French TV channels. However, I suspect that few people knew the French Air Force flew Skyaiders until the recent appearance of the restored sample on the airshow scene. Judging by the background reading for this model, the Algerian campaign was a sustained one.

Icarus

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Very nice, it looks good in French colours

I agree. It was incredibly difficult to decide whether to go for the yellow-tipped "Ouarsenis" , green-tipped "Aures Nementcha" or red-tipped "Oranie" escadrons. In the end, my wife chose!

Looks good Icarus, I've got one on the bench in that scheme nearly decalled up, should be done soon.

Don't know if I'll bother posting now!

Pete

Thank you, Pete. It will be good to see your take on this kit.

Icarus

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Nice job. Always love a Spad, and it's good to see them in unusual colour schemes. I love the panel weathering, you've really made a good job of it even with raised panel lines. If I had to offer one thing as criticism, it would be that you can see a couple of sink marks just forward of the ventral airbrake; a bit of putty should sort those out.

Looking forward to seeing your next Spad soon, then! :)

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True. I'm also a bit unhappy with the somewhat spartan outer weapons pylons. I'm not averse to revisiting models later on to improve them, but there is a very famous phrase in the surgical world - the enemy of good is perfect...

Icarus

Edited by Icarus
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You live and learn! For now, just use the lessons you learned with this one to make your next one (which it sounds like you are building at the moment?) even better. Then you can go and re-visit this one if you feel the need to bring it up to the standard of the second one. :)

I didn't want to put this one down for a moment though; a great build and lovely weathering!

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