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For the "In the Navy" group build I pulled a very old kit from the loft: Hasegawa TA-4J Skyhawk in 1/32 This kit was one of the first 1/32 Hasegawa kits (after their F-104) that was released around 1981 along with their single seat A-4E Skyhawk. I am sure many of folks here know or even have made this kit, but the last decades I have only seen a few made. It is still the only TA-4 trainer in this scale. As it is so long ago, I thought it would be nice to first show the contents of kit #S024: The sprues are in white plastic with some common sprues with the single seat A-4. Most notably is the longer fuselage. You get a few less "stores" in the TA-4 kit with only the wing fuel tanks. The few panel lines are raised and very tiny raised rivets are seen as well. That was the technology those days and it does not look bad at all. The decals in this kit are for a single US NAVY VF-126 "bicentennial" bird in 1976. The decals have "yellowed" over the years. I will stick them on a sunny window for a few weeks to brighten them up again with sun light. Or will make another scheme with different decals. This kit has a good outline and although the cockpit interior is basic (with optional 2 very crude pilots), it does have instruments and side panels with raised details. Very nice. But I will use an AVIONIX (probably ex- Black Box) resin cockpit set #32040 that I found in the loft as well. The resin parts are seen here and look good but the bottom mould block at the floors is rather thick. The consoles have very fine raised detail for the instruments. These are very tiny and a paint challenge. The ESCAPAC seats seem to be of type 1G-3. ============= For this Group Build model I will follow some suggestions during constructions as nicely explained by Mike for a TA-4G seen here at LSP (2014 article): https://www.largescaleplanes.com/articles/article.php?aid=2072 Some of these are: - inscribe panel lines - remove the "step" at wing nose with drooped slats - open main air intakes - improve cockpit interior - add detail on landing gear and in bays Other nice improvements would be: - to droop the trailing edge flaps - lengthen exhaust pipe - add detail inside the canopy I have plenty of reference books at home. But will also look at the many walk around photos that my modelling friend of WWW.IPMS.NL Cees made seen here: https://www.ipms.nl/walkarounds/walkaround-jets/561-walkaround-a4-skyhawk Many details on the single seat A-4 and TA-4 are similar. ================ Still I do not know what NAVY scheme to make the model in for this Group Build.... I have a few aftermarket US NAVY decals sets but also decals also to make an Australian Navy TA-4G. But first I have to sort out a few unknowns and may ask some questions here at LSP. Cheers, Meindert