819 Progress

Cockpit is in and fuselage glued together.  Avionics hump and barrel also glued.  Now working on seams to blend everything together.  Wing and landing gear are not glued in yet, just like putting plane together.

So far its been an easy and fun build.  Even attaching the barrel went on quickly and so far no major fuss.

Indonesian Skyhawk

Remember my talk of possibly building one of the Israeli A-4Es that were sold to Indonesia?  Here we go on the start of the build.  Once again the basis is the Monogram A-4E model.

But I have sawed off the sugar-scoop for the installation of the barrel.  The barrel is a leftover from the Hobbycraft A-4N/AF-1 kit.  The DEFA 30mm guns are coming from the spares box also, the ESCI A-4N kit since the Hobbycraft 30mm fairings are far too long.

The wing, intakes, speed brakes, and avionics fairing have been glued together.  All the ECM fairings and various antennas have been removed.  Will replace with needed and correct items later in build.

Paint and markings - as originally delivered to Indonesia.  Light gray, medium gray, and medium blue top colors.

A Scoop on Scoops

Finally got around to making a new scoop to represent an aircraft equipped with the J-52P-408A engine.

Top to bottom

1. The white scoop on tan fuselage I made from sheet plastic, X-Acto, and judicious use of files and sanding sticks.
2. The light gray large scoop is from the Hasegawa A-4M kit I used as the master.  
3. Finally the small medium gray scoop is what normally comes on all Monogram A-4 kits to represent the J-52P-6/8 engines.

As for what has been distracting me is the building of another earlier Douglas product the TBD-1 Devastator.

Going a bit detail crazy on the still excellent Monogram kit in 1/48th scale.