Completed - Desert Storm Air to Air refuelling: KA-6D&A-7E

[wardog]

Well look at the bright side, It's easier to (trim to fit) the doors than adding material to them and then having to blend the joint. Fitment of the forward doors may be a bit more challenging but I'm sure still within your level of expertise to accomplish successfully.

 

 

 

-Elmo

[red Dog]

This is interesting, I plan on closing the engine doors on mine so I will follow along. The Corsair build was fantastic and I am sure that this will be just as great!

thanks Dave,

Forward and rear end doors fit are pretty good. Dunno if it was my internal surgery but the middle door is too long. Fixing it is really no problem, it needs to be shortened by 1mm and the rear lip need to be redone for perfect fit with the rear door. Very easy to do.

I have a feeling the middle door also doesn't rest on the intended fuselage part close to the main gear well. That's no issue for me because i closed the gear doors but it may be in the case you want to close the engine doors but have the model on it's gear. not quite visible but do further check that one before gluing anything.

 

 

Well look at the bright side, It's easier to (trim to fit) the doors than adding material to them and then having to blend the joint.

Very true.

Thanks for the kind words.

[Eagle Driver]

As always - brilliant progress! 

[red Dog]

Thank you Mitko.

 

I have not much to show as an update

I spent the last few rare hobby moments sanding and mating together the belly of the intruder, sanding more, cleaning, polishing, compounding and riveting and fixing lost details.

One of the least enjoyable part of the hobby, but we have to go through that part i'm afraid. the worst was clearly all gear doors, these were a nightmare to close.

 

 

 

Speaking of which: My sequence for this part of modelbuilding is sand from coarse to fine. I usually stop at 1000 grit. Then I am a ferven user of tamiya compound to polish the plastic before the primer coat.

it's time consuming because the compound fill the rivets and the existing panel lines and i usually go through each one of them separately to remove the dried compound as if i was re-rivetting single rivet or reengraving panel lines. Except I don't push and just clear the paste out.

Is there a quicker way to do that?

 

i once read that humbrol thinner was great to remove the dust from the sanded panel lines suppressing the need to make an extra cleaning pass with the needle.

I confess i never tried after using compound, but is there a similar technique that maybe could dissolve the compound without attacking the plastic?

That would be a time saver.

 

 

 

According to Jari's information earlier in this topic, KA-6D had chaff and flare ejectors retrofitted forward of the hose reel fairing.

This is not foreseen in SB conversion and must be scratched.

The parts are supplied by trumpeter but initially i considered using PE (from the A7 corsair leftovers)

 

 

the PE parts haven't the right shape so they were rejected and the plastic parts will be mated with the picoti picota technique

 

 

Placement isn't accurate.

I have no choice but to take some artistic licence as the support rod is in the way of the accurate position of these chaff and flares ejectors

 

 

Once both hole were done and squared, a sheet of plasticard was glued inside the fuselage and the ejectors parts were glued in (after being holed).

Then comes mode sanding, puttying, sanding …

 

 

getting ready for primer, some details were corrected on both fuselage side, these (amongst other minor things) were hidden as they are specific to the A-6E

 

Hopefuly i can get the airbrush soon out of its drawer

[Mark M]

This is a cracking thread, well done

[Gazzas]

That is some great modifcation.

[Kagemusha]

Fantastic work, have the KA-6D conversion, so greatly appreciate the trailblazing.

[dustiepal]

Looking really good on the closed engine bays. I am still debating if I should close mine or leave them open but you have given me a lot of inspiration!

 

Thanks;

Dave

[ziggyfoos]

Spectacular build progress. Shame about the ill-fitting panels/doors in order to be closed but looks like you got them nicely (A-6 especially looks best wheels-up!)

 

 

getting ready for primer, some details were corrected on both fuselage side, these (amongst other minor things) were hidden as they are specific to the A-6E

The circle to the upper right corner near where the left fuselage air brake location should still be there but slightly raised not recessed like the kit had (the right side's should be filled and removed though). It's common to all A-6s (including EA-6Bs too). It's a small air pressure gauge relating to the arresting gear as I recall, it has a large-ish circular mount around it the gauge itself. In the high viz grey/white schemes it's often hard to see since it's in the dark blue area of the insignia but it will be there.

I'm sure there's better pics but these were handy:

-

Edited June 13, 2018 by ziggyfoos

[red Dog]

Thank you Ziggy for that bit of information, I missed it in my research.

Nothing PE can't fix for me, so that will be easily done

 

I put some time into finishing the decals I miss. As Ziggyfoss pointed earlier The AOA sheet has most of what I need but lettering is in dark grey rather than black.

So I spent some time on the computer to create the missing decals.

 

 

One area I really don't want to mask and paint is the red part of the intake.

Since the intake is white, printing a custom decal in red should't be a problem

 

Haven't decided yet if I'll paint the red lightning or use decals, we'll see later on.

Edited June 16, 2018 by red Dog

[Guest Maxim]

Coming along nicely. I usually remove sanding dust from panel lines by running a soft toothbrush alone the panel lines. If that doesn't remove it I use water and the toothbrush method.

[red Dog]

Thank you MAxim,

 

i knew i was missing Something obvious

 

 

Question to the experts?

I do jets in flight to avoid the propeller issue. But that D-704 buddy refuel pod has a ram air turbine which bring the problem back to me

I have seen pictures of that refuel pod with the ram air turbine feathered in flight when the pod is not in use.

when the pod is in use the prop is turning.

Am I right to think that the pod has to be activated in the cockpit and that un-Feather the prop and only then the ram air turbine energize the pod?

the question obviously is what should I do with that prop? Feather it or replace it with a transparent disk.

 

from the picture below, it looks like i can feather it

[Guest Maxim]

Yes, when the hose is deployed the rat kicks in. You have a switch in the cockpit that activates the hose real.

Edited June 18, 2018 by Maxim

[Anthony in NZ]

Absolutely stunning project/s

 

Do you mind me asking what you plan on using for the D-704?  I am thinking of putting one on my A-4K

 

Thanks for showing us your skills

 

Cheers

Anthony

Edited June 18, 2018 by Anthony in NZ

[red Dog]

thanks MAxim, glad to hear that, it will be much better for me to Feather the prop than to make it turning.

 

Anthony, i plan on using the SAC 1/32 D-704. ref 32095

it's full resin (hard one) so quite heavy. It needs a lot of sanding as there's a moulding step. But it's the only guy in town if i'm not mistaken

 

(picture from IPMS USA - all crédits to them)

Edited June 18, 2018 by red Dog