IA-58A Pucara Fuerza Aerea Argentina in the Falklands

Started by Tom Cleaver · 26 · 3 years ago
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    Tom Cleaver said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    @eb801 - I just used a different final number I found in the stash that was the proper size.

    Jennings Heilig says the font on "Fuerza Aerea Argentina" is wrong, and he's correct when I looked at his comparisons. He is designing a decal for that. Other than that, you only need different numbers for the serial, and there are airplanes that had it overpainted, so you only need a serial on the underwing if you do one of the "field camo" schemes.

    Attached is a photo of A-515 (the airplane that was mysteriously "lost" for a number of years and is now for sale as a "restoration project"). All numbers overpainted, the Fuerza Aerea Argentina lightly overpainted, and all you need is the underwing number, which can be created with scissors to the kit decal sheet. Pablo Calcaterra tells me the white area on the wing is upper and lower. This is one of the airplanes painted when they got to the islands, so the underside is the "anodized" look.

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    So tempting to leave it anodized, my friend @tcinla...

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    Tom Cleaver said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    @fiveten - I stuck to the plan. Camo paint now drying.

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    Tom Cleaver said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    Painted. Now to attach the TERs and the ordnance and done.

    6 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Colin Gomez said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    Wow, very convincing field-applied paint, Tom! It looks exactly like in the photo of the real thing. Did you brush paint it? I am also impressed by how much subtly the tones vary from pic to pic, again like the real thing. Super job.

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    John Healy said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    This is really cool, Tom. Great paintwork.

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    Tom Cleaver said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    @coling - airbrushed with really thinned paint.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    Yep, this is some AMAZING painting, my friend @tcinla!
    Looks exactly "field painted with whatever was handy"

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    Bryan W. Bernart said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    Very nice. I lobbied hard to paint my Aconcagua example in this scheme, but was overruled. You've done a great job.

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    Tom Cleaver said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    Finito!

    Here is the Pucara in final configuration. I used the 6-bomb MER and the 250-lb Mk 81s from the Hasegawa Weapons Set A and the LAU-3 rocket pods from the Weapons Set B. This was the "standard load" for the Pucaras in the Falklands/Malvinas.

    Every once in awhile, you get to the end of a project, and the result is really close to the original vision you had when you decided to go down this road. That happened here. I am really happy with this result. The quality of the kit is at least 50% of the reason there's such a good result.

    Full-build review at Modeling Madness next Thursday, March 25,

    4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Paul Barber said 3 years, 8 months ago:

    Build is stunning Tom, so glad to see you doing more WIPs too - your process is great - the research here is so impressive. This will spawn a whole bunch of Pucaras - from the reference material you've provided! Thanks!