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George Williams
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Vietnam Scooters Eduard 1/48 A-4E

February 28, 2016 · in Aviation · · 24 · 3.4K

I recently re-watched one of my favourite movies - Good Morning, Vietnam - and thought I'd like to try build something from this conflict. Being impressed and inspired by the A4's recently posted on this site, and after talking to my good friend Craig, I decided on this kit, which, I think, is a re-box of the Hasegawa kit and includes some extras including etched cockpit panels, canopy mask, Cartograf printed decals for six different options, resin seat, and quite a number of other small etched details. The instructions are re-printed by Eduard, and give full page colour illustrations of the six different options. I chose the A-4E Blue Hawks, partly because I preferred the sleeker look of the A-4E, and also I thought the colour scheme was simpler (this is only the second aircraft kit I've built since I was in short trousers).

I don't think it's necessary to go into the history of the here, A-4E 149993, VA-72 "Blue Hawks", USS Independence, 1965 is the title of this one. VA-72 would see combat over South East Asia deployed aboard CVA-62 from June through December of 1965. It was during this deployment that VA-72 was credited with the first successful attack against an SA-2 missile site. The squadron would lose 2 aircraft to enemy fire during the deployment. Later in the deployment many of the squadrons in Carrier Air Wing 7 would have mission marks applied to both sides of their aircraft as well as having applied the "Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" badge in 1970. Unfortunately 149993 would be lost over the South China Sea during an inflight refueling accident while assigned to VA-152. Thanks to Eduard for this information.

Onto the kit. I started a WIP, but due to the spare time I had available during the Chinese Spring Festival/New Year the build went quite quickly, and I forgot to take the photographs necessary to keep this up to date. Due to my haste, and not being able to purchase anything over the holiday period, I realised I didn't have the light grey paint necessary to finish the model. I hoped to be able to use Tamiya white and grey primers, while the white primer was fine, the grey was far too dark. What to do? Wanting a slightly worn, faded finish, I tried a bit of pre-shading using Tamiya's panel liner, then experimented with slightly spraying matt white over the grey primer to try and end up with a light grey finish, and the pictures show the result. I then used Mr Clear Gloss before applying the decals. Here I had a big problem, I was painting the model in its major parts before final assembly, and the clamp I had holding the fuselage came loose, I grabbed the fuselage and of course ended up with three big fingerprints. I gave up and left it for a couple of days. Looked at it, tried to sand down the damaged areas and started again, I got to the same stage again and managed to apply the decals, which went on without any proglems. Another coat of gloss, followed by a coat of matt to quieten it down a bit. The kit includes two drop tanks but no armament, maybe I'll try to get one of the Hasegawa armament sets and add some, can anyone advise me which is the best set to get, they seem to do so many!

So, that's it, I hope it's been good practice for the forthcoming Phantom! Thanks for looking, George.

Reader reactions:
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8 additional images. Click to enlarge.


24 responses

  1. SUPER SCOOTER George…always been one of my favorite subjects. Very nice work.

  2. Nice job, George ...I love it...(and glad you were able to post it without any "issues"). I think Hasegawa makes a 48th scale weapons set, but I also think that too much "stuff" hangin' under it would detract from that "sleekness" you spoke of. I hope I can do as well with my Eduard offering of the Academy F-4 that also includes all those extra 'goodies' you mentioned.

  3. George your A4E Scooter looks awesome. I can't believe that Eduard didn't include any weapons. I guess that's Hasegawa's fault at trying to sell their weopon sets. Well done!

  4. George: Aircraft Weapons : A has a selection of "dumb" bombs in various calibres, 2 napalm tanks, and 2 MERS and 2 TERS. B has 2 kinds of Bullpups, Mavericks, TERs, and LAU 10 and 3 rocket pods, and ECM pods, ALQ-87, ALQ-131, and 119.

  5. Nice Scooter George. You've done a great job with the paint!

  6. Nice naval hot rod. Turned out very nicely

  7. George, did you realise you built something with wings? I'm still looking for the F1 motif somewhere, go-faster stripes, slicks...

  8. Great work! Love the fact that you had to go "unconventional" to end up with the paint scheme you wanted. Looks to me like you still have the chops for aircraft, so the Phantom should be a nice addition to sit amongst it's four-wheeled brethren!

  9. Your A-4 is a work of art, George! Well done!

  10. Thanks for your kind comment, Drew, I always enjoy looking at your work.

  11. Despite the problems with paints your A-4 came out as a real beauty !
    Weathering looks fine and its well presented !

    Well done 🙂

  12. Very, very nice. Like that a lot.

    Ian.

  13. It looks beautiful ! So we're waiting the Phantom

  14. You did a great job on this Scooter, very well done!

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