As a child growing up in the 1980's, I cut my modelling teeth on Airfix and Matchbox kits. A Saturday morning was often spent at the local Hobby shop where I marveled at all the kits on display. Matchbox kits always had the best box art and their A-20 Havoc offering in 1/72 scale, depicting the "Green Hornet" on an attack run, called out to me. Many years later modelers lamented the fact that their were no 1/48 scale A-20 Havoc. AMT answered their call with their release of the A-20 Havoc. AMT was probably in a rush to release the kit as it has excellent details in the cockpit and rear dorsal turret but the engines and undercarriage bays were devoid of all the details that one would expect from a 1/48 scale kit. Italeri later re-released the AMT kit. I bought the Italeri offering and decided that it had to be in the markings of my childhood favourite "Green Hornet" of the 675th BS, 417th BG.

I decided that it would not be an OOB build and that I will add scratchbuilt internal details to the undercarriage bays and the engines. Eduard released a detailed PE set which contained some internal structure for the undercarriage bays but not enough detail to my liking. I always go a bit overboard with scratcbuilding as I find it a very rewarding exercise.

10 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Thanks for the nice comment. The internal details for the undercarriage bay were made using Evergreen styrene. The ignition harness for the engine consists of 0.7mm soldering wire and 0.3mm jewelry wire. Scratchbuilding is a time consuming effort but a must for the A-20 Havoc.

Hi Tom. Your A-20's sure are excellent! Thanks for the vote of confidence! I have filled the nose with enough weight. I just hope the undercarriage can carry all the weight! I will replace the nose guns and turret guns with Quickboost perforated barrels for that added bit of realism.

Thanks Erik!

Thanks John. The gear bays are crying for attention. Sad that AMT neglected this part of the kit. Granted only small part of it will be visible but it sure looks nice!

Fabulous. Takes a whole lot of patience and a steady hand and mind to do this work. As Louis says, give us more.

Thanks David. Takes a great deal of patience to do scratchbuilding. Took me 5 days to get this far and that's just one of the gear bays done.

Your scratchbuilding will make all the difference in this kit. I have built this kit a couple of times but never took the time to do the detailing that will bring it up to a higher level. Looking forward to the rest of the build.