1/48 TA-4PTM conversion

This is a Classic Airframes TA-4J, modified into a TA-4PTM, by the fitting of a Hasegawa A-4C nose cone. Also, they carried a windscreen wiper, so I added a spare one I had from a Hasegawa A-4E kit. The Classic Airframes TA-4J was released at a time when there was no indication that Hasegawa would release the two seat Skyhawk as part of their A-4 family, so I bought 8. They are decent kits and have well detailed resin seats. It is the only 1/48 kit of the Skyhawk that has the leading edges of the wings rendered correctly. The other kits all have a “shelf” that allows the slat when closed, to fit level with the wing surface. On the real aircraft, there is no such shelf, and the slat slides along the top surface of the wing. There is one issue with the CA TA-4J that is not readily noticed. The canopy tapers slightly as you move aft, on the real aircraft it does not. Also, the fairing at the rear of the canopy does not have the right cross-section, so I made a master for all my CA TA-4J kits to cast a resin part to correct this. You could also use a Hasegawa TA-4J to build a TA-4PTM by substituting an A-4C nose cone for the TA-4J one.

The real TA-4PTM (Peculiar To Malaysia) was constructed by splicing a cockpit section/canopy from a TA-4J (including intakes) onto an A-4C or L airframe. Also, the TA-4PTM retained the A-4C/L windscreen wiper, so I added a spare one I had from a Hasegawa A-4E kit. I had always planned to paint it in the later TUDM jungle green scheme. In most of the images I had seen of TA-4PTM's in the jungle scheme, they show that they had the square Malaysian national insignia. I read that the jungle scheme started with the square insignia, and later reverted to the roundel used on the S.E.A. scheme. After finding a picture that confirmed this, I knew I could use spare Hobbycraft markings to help with the jungle green scheme.

I could not find decals of TUDM 6 Skuadron markings or airframe markings for the jungle green TA-4PTM scheme. As you can probably determine for yourselves, aftermarket decal manufacturers will not have much call for producing a sheet for the obscure TA-4PTM. There were some TUDM A-4 sheets produced around the time of the HC A-4C/PTM kit release. After that, one produced in Malaysia as far as I could find out. None of them accessible today. I hand painted the 6 Skuadron markings on the tail and cobbled together the correct sized lettering for the airframe markings out of my spares to fill in the blanks that the Hobbycraft A-4C/PTM kit decals could not supply.

I have also included a shot of the Wings Magazine I used to help with research. Free to anyone who might want it, as I am done my TUDM skyhawk builds now.

12 additional images. Click to enlarge.