I have only recently returned to
the ranks of model builders. In high school and college I used to be quite
prolific with my model building. But as my career took precedence, I have
neglected my hobby. Over the course of the past 37 years, I have built all types
of models primarily in the realm of US Navy aircraft and ships of all scales
(1/350th through 1/48th).
While on a recent trip to visit
my father, a retired Rear Admiral Naval Aviator, he mentioned he was lacking a
number of models of various aircraft he had flown throughout his career. Of
special interest was his favorite aircraft, the A-4. He asked if I would make
him a model of an A-4 for him in 1/48th scale. I had been working on
a few small projects to pass the time mostly 1/350th scale
representations of modern Naval Aircraft (thanks to Tamiya). But I thought a
return to 1/48th scale might be a fun challenge. An understatement at
best, especially since I have no airbrush, a proper workspace, nor many of the
other requisite tools of the trade at my disposal.
But trepidation be damned! First
off, I didn’t want to construct just any ole A-4. I wanted to build an A-4
that my father had flown and if possible one with his name on the rail. My
research began with my father’s flight logs where he noted that his final
flight with VA-94, The Mighty Shrikes, in 1964 was in #406 (Bu 149515). He
wasn’t sure if his name was on #406 or #407 at that time so I may have taken a
small liberty in assuming his name was on #406. So now I had a starting point.
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I continued my
research on the web stumbling across a plethora of fantastic A-4 references.
Yet, hands down the king of the A-4 sites that helped the most was the Skyhawk
Association (www.skyhawk.org). One of the
largest coups of this site is that Otto Krueger, the former CO of VA-94 (in 1964
and 65) is one of the principals of the organization thus the VA-94 reference
pages are some of the most complete of any squadron listed. It is here that I
even found photos of Hoboken 406 (149515) though probably in 1965 not in 64 when
my father last flew her. I again assumed (based on other photos from 1963/4)
that not much had changed with the markings and used these photos accordingly.
The Model:
After reading numerous articles
on ARC and some other (to remain unnamed web sites) I knew I had to start with
the Hasegawa A-4C. Due to limited space and countless acknowledgements to the
quality of this kit I will refrain from review type detail here. Suffice to say
the kit was wonderful in most every way! Ordnance would be nice however!
I built the kit pretty much OOB
including the cockpit since my father specifically requested a closed canopy and
therefore not much detail would be visible. I did add some brake lines to the
main gear, but not much else on the aircraft itself. I added the Hasegawa
weapons kit (as most everyone else does) with a few custom modifications to the
MER’s Sway braces and wiring. I also created a thermal coating on the MK82s.
As for the A-4 itself I am obviously a bit rusty on my skills. I think I sanded
off more panel lines than I re-scribed but I am leery of performing this task
without more practice. Thus the plane lacks some of the line detail I have
noticed and admired on most all of the other contributions to ARC. Oh well,
maybe my next project. For the most part the plane came together quite well with
excellent fit in most places. A critical note here… DO NOT forget to weight
this plane’s nose! I forgot and tried to subsequently put the weight in the
nose of the drop tank, to little avail. I ended up cutting the nose of the plane
off and placing a small fishing weight where it should have been in the first
place! Thus the lack of panel lines, and the scratch built AOA instrument on the
Port Side. Live and learn!
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Painting and Decals:
As mentioned before I am without
airbrush (and due to limited financial resources at this time will remain this
way for the foreseeable short-term future). Thus I was happy to learn that MM
makes a Gull Gray FS 36440 in a spray can (as well as white of course). I
sprayed the white first, waited a day or so, then masked with regular scotch
tape being careful peel back the edges where I wanted to feather the demarcation
line. This method seemed to work fairly well. The rest was all hand brush
painted.
Initially I purchased A-4E
edition of VA-94s markings from Superscale even though I knew the color of the
shrike was wrong and a bit too detailed for the 1964 bird. But I was unaware of
any other VA-94 markings for A-4’s (much less the A-4C in 1964). Low and
behold! One day in my continuing web searches I ran across a small decal company
that was making a decal sheet for 10 Vietnam era A-4’s. I took a look at the
image and too my shock and wonder there at the top of the page was Otto
Krueger’s VA-94 CO’s bird from 1965! In all the proper colors! So what if I
was going to have to do some small manipulations to build Hoboken 406 from
401’s decals! This was PAYDIRT! All I had to do was remove the mission
markings, change the carrier name (VA-94 was on board the Ranger in 1963/4), and
change the numbers. Hot dog! Bless you Victory Productions! (victorymodels.com).
These decals were later reviewed I believe on ARC. They are indeed a pleasure to
work with.
The rest of the decals were
either created on my laser printer or snipped from the Hasegawa sheet. I had a
little trouble with the Stars and bars on the starboard side I accidentally
scratched the decal off and thus had to recreate the wrap-around effect over the
refueling probe by hand painting the lower portion of the insignia. What a pain!
I won’t make that mistake again!
The base is made of stained pine
(I know it will probably warp but I haven’t yet found a good plaque shop here
in Denver for a hard wood one) with sheet styrene on top, weathered and scored
to look like the apron at NAS Lemoore.
I’m not entirely finished with
this plane (are we ever?) but I was borrowing my friend’s digital camera for
the week and this was as good of time to take a few shots as ever. I plan on
giving this plane to my father, Hoagy Carmichael, for his 70th
birthday in November of this year. I hope he likes it, as I hope all of you
fellow plastic magicians do. It has been a pleasure reading the ARC submissions
every day and learning from the experiences many of you have had. I thank all of
you for your wise words. And as for ARC… Steve, Bravo Zulu to you and all of
yours, this is a great site!
Thanks,
John
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