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A-6E VA-65 Desert Storm "500"


Marcel111

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Hi guys,

 

I have been tinkering away at this build for some time. Sine I managed to mess up my Mig-29 build on the final stretch, I've now switched to this being my principal current project.

 

The Trumpeter kit is really fantastic! The shape is spot-on, the fit is incredible to the point where parts kinda just click in. The wing fence location is wrong but that is easy to forgive since that differs from A to E. There are very fine rivets all over the surface which shouldn't be there but I will choose to ignore those.

 

This is the exact bird I'll be making, except mine will be loaded with 12x Mk20 on outboard MER's, a pretty common VA-65 Desert Storm load-out (pic is classified as free to use):

 

TkaKm9.jpg

 

Here are some pics of the cockpit. I used the Eduard color photo etch, then drilled tiny holes to accommodate ANYZ dials and switches. It's important to slightly overspray the Eduard photo etch with dark gray else the black and detail on those looks far too stark.

 

qkEEN7.jpg

 

lMKIJl.jpg

 

Under even higher magnification:

 

h93X8D.jpg

 

I've weathered with oils and only used a gray wash here and there and very sparingly. Small sidenote: Notice how the pilots rudder bottom surfaces are covered with anti-slip, I noticed that little feature on some pics.

 

One downside to this approach is that it's all very fragile, if you look very very closely you'll notice that some switches have already broken off as a result of me dry-fitting the cockpit into the fuselage.

 

I've watched the Doogs A-6E videos on youtube... apart from them being super entertaining, they are a huge help for the construction of this kit. The build sequence shown there should save a lot of heartache compared to following the instructions. It makes far more sense to attach the nose halves (and later wings) to the fuselage before gluing that together,  like so:

 

ENEcwr.jpg

 

Cheers,

 

Marcel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for the encouragement guys!

 

Jari, that middle pic is also interesting, it shows the standard boat hunting loadout, I think.

 

Unfortunately this kit does have a feature of some kits for example also the Academy F/A-18 which I find hard to look at, namely truncated intakes (i.e. a reduction in intake C/S area as you move towards the engine). You don't have to know anything about Intruders or Hornets to know that this is nonsensical. 

 

I initially accidentally scratch-built the J52-P-408 engine with 14 guide vanes but was fortunately corrected by Rich over here on LSP. I'll be using this on my A-4F whenever I get around to building that. Note the size between the kit engine and my version (also relevant for my P-8 rendition):

 

acrX1q.jpg

 

Here is what my J52-P-8 stack with 18 guide vanes looks like (components are dry-fit on top of each other):

 

WXDe8P.jpg

 

The front-most ring will form that sort of step in the intake in front of the engine.

 

The really painful part of all of this was enlarging the actual intake. I used a Trumpeter Superhornet external tank as the end piece to shape the intake to:

 

Wuu7yN.jpg

 

If you happen to do this yourself, be sure to dry fit more than I did. My enlarged intake interfered with the front wheel well a little, I could fix that by sanding the wheel well but it would have been a lot easier to just sit the enlarged section to the outside and down, I don't think there should be any interference then although you'll need to sand a bit of plastic to make it fit that way.

 

It all ends up stacking together like so:

 

DSsEJL.jpg

 

I used Tamiya ceramic putty to build up the transition to the Superhornet tank section, getting a smooth finish took a lot of work:

 

I2qDWc.jpg

 

Had to cut this part out to fit the intakes but that doesn't matter at all:

 

oKugHm.jpg

 

At this point the intake is glued in with the engine ready to be seated. Note the yellowish inside color which reconciles which pics I have seen of 500.

 

pFSLjw.jpg

 

Final very important note, be sure to follow the Doogs Models assembly steps and not the instructions. This way you can fit the nose very nicely, sand flush as needed and then place the intake. There will be a seam to fill between the nose halves but that's a straight line which is easy to work on. If you follow the instructions you'll end up with a major curved seam to fix which runs right along the intake splitter plate... not an easy fix at all.

 

Cheers,

 

Marcel

 

Edited by Marcel111
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