A-6A Intruder

[Dukie99]

Since there is still plenty of time left on this Group Build and with the Easter week-end coming where we are very strongly encouraged to stay home despite the gorgeous weather, I thought it would be great to start another build after finishing the Panther. 

 

My next project is the Trumpeter A-6A Intruder in Vietnam, which I plan to depict in a bombtruck configuration with 28 Snakeyes hanging down from five MERs. I have plenty of aftermarket for this one, videoaviation snakeyes, AOA decals, AMS resin wheels. I decided against the Avionix resin pit as I want to detail the cockpit using the anyz knobs and switches. My issue at the moment is I cannot find good pictures of A-6A cockpits showing not only the IP but the side and middle consoles so I can try to replicate it. Anyone has good pictures of A-6A cockpit to share?

 

Box shot and aftermarket:

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

David

 

[Dragon]

Pulling up a chair in the front row! 

[mozart]

A different kind of build to your last one David, should be good, you’ve obviously been saving this one up! 

[CZPetrP]

You have a lot of accessories. What company are the intakes from? Thank you.

I'll watch.

 

Petr

[blackbetty]

i have some pics somewhere from my build, i will go have a look

are you going to correct the ip angle?

[Dukie99]

11 hours ago, blackbetty said:

i have some pics somewhere from my build, i will go have a look

are you going to correct the ip angle?

Thanks Karl. If you have pictures that you be greatly appreciated. Did you correct the ip angle on your build? If I can get good info on the ip angle I will certainly try to correct it.

11 hours ago, CZPetrP said:

You have a lot of accessories. What company are the intakes from? Thank you.

I'll watch.

 

Petr

Petr, the intakes are from Rhino Model works which I got on e-bay a few years back. I know that GT-Resin does A6-intakes and looking at GT-Resin website they look identical (in terms of engineering solution, where you cut the kit to fit the intakes, etc) to the Rhino Model works.

 

Because this bird will have a full load of Snakeyes and building and painting ordnances is not my favourite job, I decided to start with that. I will depict an A-6A from VA-75 Sunday Punchers in their 1972 cruise out of the Saratoga, I needed Snakeyes with the fire retardant coating. I placed a special order at Videoaviation for 30 Snakeyes with the ablative coating, the quality of the casting is absolutely great and the prices are much more reasonable than the eduard brassin (which does not do Snakeyes with ablative coating)

 

.

 

Well, that's a start. More progress soon.

 

Cheers,

 

David

 

  

[CZPetrP]

Thank you again for your reply, David.

"Rhino" is unavailable. The solution for me will be GT-resin...

[CZPetrP]

The Snakeys bomb look great.

I wish a lot of strength to work.

 

Cheers

Petr

[Dukie99]

Progress are slow on this one and it is a bit of a grind to build, paint and weather 30 snakeyes (I will only use 28). I have build the Eduard MER. I need only one but build all six of them.

There there was a little problem: I realised they were too short

So I decided to sacrifice one of the 6 MER and cut 8mm section to extend the other 5, then careful blending and sending, trying to avoid losing as much detail as possible. I cut each MER at a place where the cut will be mostly hidden by the bombs so even if I lose some details not biggie, it is more important to get the length right.

 

I made some progress on the kit itself but nothing picture worthy yet but soon.

 

Cheers,

 

David

 

 

[Finn]

Nice project David, however as for the bombs, i think the ablative coating wasn't added until after Vietnam, the early thermal protection was applied on the inside of the bombs before before filling with explosives. The second yellow band was added to those bombs:

 

 

as you can see the bombs have a relative smooth finish to them. Plus it took some time for the TP bombs to make their way into the inventory, here is a line up of bombs on the Kitty Hawk in 1972:

 

 

you can see most are still the old stock of bombs. Here are bombs ready for loading on the Saratoga during 1972 deployment to Vietnam:

 

 

you can't see the front of them but they all look to have relative smooth surfaces on them.

 

Jari

[blackbetty]

hi David,

i posted how i corrected my ip in this thread:

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/47834-hawks-marine-intruder-nam-phong-1972-finished/page/2/#comments

scroll down. you can still view the pics if you go right click/view pics

[Dutch Man]

Great how you love the length problem of the MER. 

Keep this in mind for me, to build some. 

NICE build so far.

 

Robert Jan

[Dukie99]

On 4/20/2020 at 4:14 AM, Finn said:

Nice project David, however as for the bombs, i think the ablative coating wasn't added until after Vietnam, the early thermal protection was applied on the inside of the bombs before before filling with explosives. The second yellow band was added to those bombs:

 

Hi Jari,

Thank you for the info. I had no idea that Vietnam era ablative coating were inside the bombs. I had read that after the 67 Forrestal fire, ablative coating had been introduced and since this is a bird of the 72 Saratoga cruise I thought that the snakeyes would have the ablative coating by then. I think I will still use the bombs I prepared, I don't have the courage to build, paint and weather another 30 bombs.

 

I have found some more information on the bird I am portraying. The AoA instructions indicate that this bird was lost on 21 December 1972 from possible AAA fire on an attacks on airfields in Haiphong. Everyone knows that AoA decals are very high quality but what I find really amazing is the quality and depth of the research which find its way in the instructions sheet, very impressive. This build was partly inspired by my reading of the book "Launch the Intruders" by Carol Reardon (subtitled a naval attack squadron in the Vietnam war, 1972, Kansas University press, 2005) which was a fascinating read. The book indicates that the bombing run on the Haiphong airfields was to occur at night at an altitude of 200 feet (gasp!) which would tend to indicate that snakeyes had to be used. Not sure whether they carried a full load of 28 snakeyes but I like to bombtruck look so I will go with that.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Dukie99]

On 4/20/2020 at 7:36 AM, blackbetty said:

hi David,

i posted how i corrected my ip in this thread:

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/47834-hawks-marine-intruder-nam-phong-1972-finished/page/2/#comments

scroll down. you can still view the pics if you go right click/view pics

 

Thank you Karl for the link. The least I can say is that is quite a complex modification that you have done and you pulled it off beautifully. I don't think I will attempt it but the one thing that bothers me is that the IP appears to be at a right angle with the cockpit tube where in reality it is a bit angled. It will try to change the angle of the IP without making too much of a mess.

 

Progress has been slow because working remotely and helping my kids with their remote school means that modelling becomes more and more remote...

 

I was able to work on the intake. A bit nerve racking to cut into this expensive kit but all went well.

 

Hopefully more progess soon.

 

Cheers,

 

David

 

[Lothar]

Hi David,

I'm following your build with great interest. Out of interest, which aircraft from the  AoA sheet will you depict? I guess a "Sunday Punchers" aircraft?

Lothar