Some of my fellow modeller and I
have started on a group build on Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) A-4
skyhawk to be submitted for the Singapore's national day on 9 August 05, but
alas, Murphy dictates otherwise. So here is my Academy 1/48 AH-64D Apache
completed as a Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) AH-64D Apache. The RSAF
Apaches are still overseas in the States on training and will only be brought
back to Singapore soil sometime later. So the model does not have any
squadron markings and only have the RSAF lion head insignia plus other general
stencils. So you can call the model a "what-if" if you like.
The kit is built OOB except for
some improvements here and there to make construction easier. The kit is not a
high scorer in the accuracy department, but overall it still resembles a
Apache
once finished. I have been working on the kit on and off for more then 1 year
and intended buying it to use as a "familiarization"
kit before I started on the Hasegawa kit. The breakdown and construction is similar
and the experience gained with the Academy kit I hope will
really make working on the Hasegawa kit almost trouble-free :)
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As mentioned,
accuracy is not one of the strong points of the academy kit but at 3 feet away,
it sure does looks like an Apache. So for the cockpit, the kit pats are used and
painted to look, well, like a cockpit.
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images below to see larger images
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The rest of the construction went
almost trouble-free except for the bigger parts like the avionics bay and
fuselage halves needing some coaching with an extra dab of super glue to get them
to meet properly.
The construction of the cockpit windows takes a bit more
effort as there are no positive locating place to fix them. All the placements
are eye-balled and super-glued using risky "surgical" precision.
One wrong move and you'll end up with frosted clear part !
The other tricky part is the
cannon. Too many small fiddlely parts. I end up breaking and losing the
parts for the wire "cage" around the cannon and have to
fabricate new ones from copper wire.
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The rotor hub is also spruced up
with some copper wire to make it busy looking.
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The kit part for the
"disco" light is discarded and using a thin copper sheet cut to the
correct length based on the part diameter, squares are scribed on and the part
rolled into a tube and both ends were capped with plastic card. The copper
colour does make the "disco" light more realistic then the plastic kit
part.
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images below to see larger images
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I have also
fabricated a pair of warning receivers to be placed on the tail boom as per what
I found on photos of RSAF Apaches found on the Internet. The rest of the
construction went without any major hitches.
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images below to see larger images
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For painting, I used Vallejo
airbrush colours for all the airbrush work. For brush work I also used Vallejo
paint with the white cap.
Jer Wei
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