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1/48 HOBBY BOSS FAIRCHILD A-10 THUNDERBOLT II Wing Commanders Jet - Tiger 1 - 23rd Tactical Fighter Wing Desert Shield and Desert
Storm 1991 |
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Yet another model aircraft
with a "Sharks Mouth". Gotta love a shark mouth on a
aircraft.
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The Kit |
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Along with the Hobby Boss A-10 kit. I used the Eduard Colour PE set, replaced the crappy vinyl tyres with the excellent Royale Resin weighted wheels and used Tiger Wings Decals. There is a full build thread at ARC so rather than regurgitate the build Click HERE to check it out. But I've added a few pictures of the significant parts in the photo's below. For the paint I used Mr Hobby No's 301, 302 and 303. The gloss coat was Mr Hobby Super Clear. These are the best paints I've used to date. One trick though, you need to use Mr Leveling Thinner. Without this I got lots "spider webs". The gloss coat is thin and dries hard and very glossy. The decals were form a Taiwanese mob, Tiger Wings. The decals performed very well, but were tricky to put down as the carrier film was so thin. I spent a lot of time trying to unfold bits of carrier film. One disclaimer, I do have some doubts over the size of the tail codes and the Stars and bars. |
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The wash (as usual) was Promodelers Weathering Sludge Wash for the wash. I like this stuff as being water based it's forgiving, cleans up easy and doesn't need to sealed prior to decaling. Final flat coat is Gunze Flat. This kit gave me plenty of stress, it was dropped twice (only once by me) breaking the tails off one time and and engines the other. I broke the original windscreen, so now I have kit without a windscreen. One thing for those with this kit to watch out for is that every one I've seen has a hairline crack down the front the windscreen That is disappointing. I also touched several sections multiple times trying to get it perfect. This anal retentiveness meant the build was as much fun as usual. But I am extremely happy with the final result. It my best build to date. Finally, I'm 80% sure that the wing commander never flew this jet in this configuration. When researching this project I'm sure I stumbled across a web site that said as much. But I was to far down the track to change the plan and as there isn't that much information on Desert Storm A-10 operations out there I decided not to let it bother me. |
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References The Modern Hog Guide: The A-10 Warthog Exposed - Jake Melampy World Air Power Journal - Gulf Air War Debrief - Aerospace Publishing Lock On0 No 7 - A-10 Thunderbolt - Verlinden Walk Around 017 - A-10 Warthog - Squadron Signal Aeroguide No 23 - Fairchild Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II |
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Photography These where taken with a Canon 400D digital SLR camera. I used the Aperture priority and Auto depth of field modes. Lighting was 5 white energy savers fluorescent bulbs with a white card as background. Images were resized with Paintshop Pro IX with some minor brightness and sharpening adjustments. |
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The Pictures Click on the thumbnail for a better look. There's lots of them because I had to try out the new camera.
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