Building
As this is an older
kit, I should have sanded the entire surfaces and scribe the panel lines, but I
simply was too lazy to do this job, so I left the existing panel lines just as
they were!
The overall fit of the kit is fairly correct, with just a bit of changes to get
the Top Gun A-4E instead of the Vietnam A-4E. The wing roots had to be
changed, all antennas had to be sanded away and the flare dispenser covered.
The interior of the cockpit was super detailed, I used the Escapac IC Ejection
seat from Cutting Edge, the wheel wells were also super detailed, both front as
main landing gear, my good friend Luc Van den Ende made me the oleos for the
landing gear and they give just the look of the real thing. The landing
lights and the navigation lights were reworked, et voilà, that was all!
To add a bit of colour to the diorama, I scratch built ladders, fire
extinguishers, wheels blocks, an ACMI pod with the specially adapted pylon
and the pilots helmet!
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Painting
Painting was based
on the TwoBobs “A-4E Top Gun Tinker Toys” set and checked with the different
photographs in the superb publications “Navy Attack – Spads, Scooters &
Whales and Superbase 8 Fallon”.
These Top Gun aircraft were well maintained and flew generally in perfect flying
conditions, so the weathering had to be limited, even to the landing gear and
the wheels.
First I gave an
overall coat of the light Sand colour whereafter I sprayed the darker colour in
the typical wavy pattern. Then the bottom Light Gray was applied.
For the application of the decals, I gave the entire model a coat of gloss
varnish. Once the decals were applied, I sprayed an overall coat of almost
matt varnish, just like the aircraft on the mentioned photographs.
I used Testors – Model Master paints and the varnish was from Microscale.
Weathering
I weathered the aircraft with a
very, very diluted wash, which was repeated several times on the places where
the real thing shows weathering (hatches on fuselage, panels on the wings, etc)
and I gave the wing walks and the spine of the aircraft the dirty traces from
the maintenance crew. Finally I used different tones of pastel powder to
simulate the airflow dirt traces.
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References
- Squadron/Signal Publications
A-4 Skyhawk in Action
- Aeroguide McDonnell
Douglas Skyhawk
- Famous Airplanes of the World
– Douglas A-4A/F Skyhawk
- Superbase 8 – Fallon
- Navy Attack – Spads,
Scooters & Whales
- Twobobs Aviation Graphics A-4E
Top Gun Tinker Toys
Luc
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