1/72 Gabon Air Force Skyraider 

‘Last Spads

by David Fredericks

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My model was made from the Hobbycraft kit 1/72nd scale kit HC1368 – French Skyraider. When I saw it in my local shop, my intention was to buy it and build it as an aircraft used by the French, adding it to my collection of post-WW2 aircraft operated by the French Air Force or French Navy.

On opening the box at home, I discovered that the kit had decal options to make it in the colours of either the Gabon Air Force or the Chad Air Force, both from the mid-80s. These little known air forces tend to operate aircraft discarded by the French Air Force as they near the end of the serviceable careers. The Chad Air Force uses roundel colours similar to the French Air Force, being red, yellow and blue (it would seem that the standard French tricolour merely had the white ring painted over yellow). The Gabonese roundel is green, yellow and blue with a white ring on the outside. Interestingly, each Spad operated by the Gabonese not only had a different two letter identifier on the side, but also a different colour cheat line in either yellow, blue, green or red.  Very colourful!

From a little research on the internet, I discovered a site dedicated to a French pilot by the name of Jacques Borne who flew these aircraft over a 30 year career, for both the French Air Force and the Gabon Air Force – he even saw combat while with the Gabonese. You can read more about him and his adventures, with some great shots of his ‘spads’ at his website of http://skyraider.org/skyassn/otherpics/borne/borne.htm. This site became a key reference in my choice of modelling my Skyraider as one of the type flown by the Gabonese.

Click on images below to see larger images

Anyway, I made the kit basically out of the box, with the normal additions inside the cockpit as the kit was very sparse on detail. I also had to modify the kit by adding in the windows in the access door on either side of the aircraft as well as a few different aerials and an air vent on top of the fuselage. None of these were provided in the kit but were clearly evident in the photos from Jacques Borne’s website.

The colour scheme and weathering was the best fun. The red cheat lines were painted using an airbrush as the decals provided weren’t a good fit to the fuselage without a lot of fiddling. And then I went crazy with the weathering, especially the engine exhaust trails. Some of the photos that I found showed these aircraft to be in pristine condition, while others showed them to be in a filthy condition – I assume that as they came closer to their useful operating life with the Gabonese Air Force, their maintainers started to neglect the need for keeping them ‘spick and span’. I chose to model my aircraft in this latter condition, just to experiment with some weathering techniques.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this Spad as operated by one of the types lesser known operators.

David

Photos and text © by David Fredericks