jeroen_R90S

Thanks! Thanks, also for the pictures of the MERs -now that it's been seen, it can't be unseen, so I'll change them to a metal colour. They remind me of the "stahlflex" brake hose on my BMW motorbike Thanks Jari, I'd been trolling through the cruise books as well, and this page is particularly interesting, as it not only shows open speed brakes, but also shows the interiour appears to be red, and the actuator cilinder and the brake itself appear white. In the cruisebook of the ill-fated 1967 Forrestal cruise there is a picture showing "USS Forrestal" being painted, that also shows dark bay interiour, with white hydraulic lines. That will surely add a splash of colour This page also shows how feelble my GRU-7-to-GRU-5 backdating is -what a mass of stuff on those ejection seats! Interestingly it also appears to show those upright (shields? those things with all the rivets on it) that appear black on most models, seem to be the same colour as the rest of the cockpit. I'm just too busy and worn out to make some proper progress these days... (hospital IT-networking guy for a job) Hopefully some paint progress later on... Jeroen

Thank you! It is a good kit so far, and even from the box with some inaccuracies it will build up into an impressive model. There sure are a lot of parts, though, though I guess about half of it is weapons. And most of these are only fit for the spares bin... Thank you! Yes, there's always something -though it would be less work to build NH-505, as that's pretty much the A-late configuration from the box. If desired some modifcations would still be needed to the fuselage and such. Personally I'd rather not have the bird-cage internals and radar and set of decent GRU-5 seats.... Thank you! THanks! Thanks! Though they were a lot of work, I'm happy with the ordnance too, though they're still not all that accurate.

#28 is neat, I'd pick that one! Having just read through the whole thread, this is exactly the kind of setup with forced perspective I had in my mind for a long time. So nice to see this being excuted, and being executed well, too!

I started reading back to front and have bookmarked this thread, as there's much more to read. Very impressive work, and persistance should pay off

Very nice, one of these is on my wishlist as well, so good to read about it's pitfalls. For some reason I've always liked the Trojan, and nice to see one with pilots in them.

Really nice, what a great time we live in so that such models are available

It may be a combiation of both, as I tend to put on Alclad very thinly the colour does seem to matter. Matt-versus gloss also matters, having just painted the exhausts of my Intruder with Alclad Jet Exhaust over Mr Surfacer 1200 grey I noticed some areas are more shiny then others. I polished the Surfacer beforehand, but, apparently not evenly everywhere. Fortunately not a lot to be seen on on Intruders' exhaust, but it is something I have to keep in mind.

I suppose with the threat of nuclear war and Soviet invasions it probably didn't matter all that much Back on topic, having just read through the whole thread, some fantastic modelling and great resources being shared as well! I'm not particularly fond of the Starfighter as I'm too young to have seen and remembered them, though I have some old photos of me and my father on Soesterberg with F-15s and F-104s, but I was about 5 then (early 1980s) so I don't remember anything -though somewhere it must have made an impression as I've always had an interest in aviation. This thread makes me want to build a Starfighter...! Jeroen

Thank you all for the warm welcome! I'm currently working on the sink marks of the slats and some last wing bits, and my Verlinden PE seatbelts/buckles finally arrived today so hopefully I can finally get along on the interiour. Feels like I've been filling and sanding for ages now... time to glue some stuff together I also really to find some time to read and comment on all the other great builds going on here Jeroen

There is larger resolution photo of this aircraft on Pinterest (it's actually an well-known original colour photo, there are some others of this series in the WingnutWings gallery for the F2B) Lots of details (look at that fuselage roundel!) which make this an interesting model to make! I've made it a link as I'm not sure how the forum copes with pictures this big? large photo A 7194 The apostrophe is not that unusual, if you look at the WingnutWings gallery for the SE5a for example there are more than a few examples. I once built a Roden Sopwith 1/1/2 Strutter "comic nightfighter" that also had it. (B'762) Jeroen

The aircraft doesn't do much for me, but that is some seriously impressive modelling!

One last installement (oops) for te lower avionics bay cover. This had the ALR-29 dispensers filled with Evergreen, as the dispensers from the kit sit deeper and are flat, making filling the holes more difficult. I then marked out the shape of the bulge and set up some Evergreen scraps to make it a bit firmer. The shape was then slathered with Milliput and roughly sculpted, and, like the wingtips, several rounds of filling, sanding and priming followed. The flange was recreated by marking the shape with doubled-up tape and brushing Mr Surfacer on it. With hindsight I should have airbrushed it, as it's a bit uneven. Not perfect but I'm not ready to start over again, and again, I leared quite a lot from this little adventure! The final result, the bulge itself looks pretty good IMHO, the flange, especially at the rear, could have been better But I find it acceptable for now Now to read up on all those great inspirational builds here...! Best regards, Jeroen

The last installment are the wingtips, these had the original navigations lights added as well as the ALR-15 RWR recievers. I could not find a lot of good pictures, but I found some images in a book and made a best-guess. I marked out the navigation lights and cut them off with a JLC saw. However, I mis-measured somehow and had to add some back with Evergreen. I also kind of mis-jugded how big these lights actually are, and after cutting them off I found out I did not have single bit of clear sprue that was big enough! Eventually I found some acrylic rod I used for in-flight 1/72 models, and a bit of testing showed this is much tougher than normal clear styrene, but can be used. It can even be glued with Tamiya Extra Thin. After the lights were done I had a bit of a reference for the ALR-15 antenna's, these were made from card, sprue and Milliput, aftwards needed more blending with CA and Mr Surfacer. Eventually I think they look OK, if not a bit too large. I also filled the panel lines indicated for the newer formation lights. Finally done, after a lot of work. Obviously nobody but A-6 experts will notice, but I found it a lot of fun to do and learned a lot!

The next part were the modifications to the fuselage as indicated in the AoA instructions -these are really superb, by the way: ALR-18 chaff dispenser, it is really helpful if I had done this before I glued the bulkhead inside de fuselage, as it makes creating the slot much more difficult! This still needs some cleanup I'm not sure if this is prototypical for the kit, but mine had loads of sinkmarks on the flaps, slats, slat tracks (including pinmarks) and speedbrakes. This was filled with Mr White Putty as somehow I can't get CA to work on these shallow areas.

Cool stuff! It looks like there is an apostrophe (please excuse the spelling...) between the A and 7? best regards, Jeroen

First of all I'd like to point out that I've been a long-time lurker that has gotten a lot of information on large scale aircraft here and figured it might be time to send something back. I'm actually a mostly 1/72 modeller, but after finishing a beautiful WnW Fokker D.VII as my first 1/32 kit in ages, I kind of picked up the bug again. My last 1/32 somewhat modern aircraft was a Revell F-14A in VF-1 markings that I put on the television back then -until my mom dusted it off and it fell off, despite the rubber grippy tires! As it would fit nowhere near on a modern TV I guess that tells something about how long ago that was... (I'm 42 now and live in the Netherlands). Some may know me from the Dutch Modelbrouwers or WW1 Aircraft forum there I go by the same name. The Intruder has always been a favourite with 1/72 builds of Italeri, Hasegawa and Fujimi kits, but I'd never gotten one as it was too big and expensive... however, when I discovered AoA decals I got a set for VA-65, and somehow managed a nice deal on an A-6A, mostly still factory sealed. It's this set: My kids want me to do the camouflaged version, but bought it for NL-413 or AA-511, though as you can see later I finished the MERs already and it'll have to be NL-401 or NL-413 now. I can decide later on, but it does feel like a bit of a waste of decals to only use so few on top... I started our with ordnance, as one of the things I dislike about modern aircraft is just that. The kit only comes with 12 simplefied Mk82 Snakeeyes and 2 MERs, but a fellow modeller who would replace them with aftermarket gave me another MER and 6 Mk82s. I'll be loading the A-6 up with 2 MERs outboard, and 1 on the centerline, leaving the inner pylons empty as I saw on a photo of this cruise. As I can't justify the additional costs of 18 Mk82s and 3 MERs in aftermarket I set about to improve what came with the kit. These Snakeeyes fit poorly and required a lot of work to get them to look acceptable. I poked the hinges (which should extend much more to the rear and be much taller as well) with a drill bit and needle, and used a JLC saw and a scriber to open up the fins. The rear part was modified with some punched card disks. Accurate? Not quite, but IMHO a lot better as what came with the kit. I'll be using pins to attach all of it to the model once done so if my lottery ticket proves a winning one I can always replace them. I used black basing and mottled purple red, yellow and some green, deliberately painting some parts more than others. This was then overcoated with olive drab and the noses painted yellow. All of this was Revell Aqua Acrylics, except the glosscoat, which is my trusty Tamiya X-22. The decals are from the kit and worked well, but don't have any letterin on them, they're just yellow squares and rectangles... better than nothing I guess. The fuses are Revell Aqua "Eisen" (#91) with an oil wash and satin varnish. The MERs needed a lot of filling and sanding, and had the extra wires for the top positions added, for some reason Trumpeter supplies only the lower ones. These were also painted black, mottled with medium grey and pure white, then painted with my Insignia White mix (95% Revell Aqua 04 gloss pure white with 5% Revell Aqua 43 medium grey mixed in) I wish I replaced the lower wires as well, they do look a bit different now. The VA-65 decals are from the AoA sheet and worked well, final finish was another glosscoat, some washes with oil paints and a satin coat finished them. In case you're wondering why one of the decals is angled, I saw that on a photo and figured it would be a nice little detail. I'm now working on a few more mods to the wings and fuselage, so more to follow! Jeroen