Subject: Trumpeter 1/32 OA-10B
From: Mick Alderson <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:49:29 +1000

Gallery Article Template

*"1/32 Trumpeter OA-10B OZHOG" *

by "Mick Alderson"
  Cairns, North Queensland, Australia
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I have always been enthralled by the A-10NAW since reading the article 
about it in flight magazine back in the early eighties.  I normally work 
in 1/72 scale, but with an up-coming model competition, I decided to 
step out of my comfort zone and combine the trumpeter 1/32 A-10NAW with 
a in-club theme for 'what-if's'.  I have to be honest and say that while 
i was impressed with the size of the subject, I think Trumpeter 
needlessly over-engineered the kit in area's that were not totally and 
100% essential, thus complicating the build to no good end.

			

I decided against opening the gun and engine bays, refferences I checked 
show that way too much work was needed for the time frame available (2 
months of weekends and the odd weeknight), so I contented myself with 
doing what would have been a production standard OA-10B in RAAF service 
(yes I know, but it is a WHIFF(flight mag pic).  This required a fully 
detailed cockpit (aarrgghh!!) and new canopy as the the prodcution 
variant would have been a full clamshell instead of the two piece of the 
prototype (not so much arrgghhing here (pic8)).  I was quite happy with 
the kit seats, but the interior, egad!! That had to change big time so 
off with the scratchbuilding and parts modification we go.  I think the 
end result was worth it (pic 3&4). I also extended the wheel sponsons as 
per the refferences to include the radar (port) and TV/FLIR LST/TD (strb).

			

The construction, once all the fiddling around the officewas out of the 
way, was pretty much straight forward.  However, I felt that the wing 
join required strengthening so i inserted aluminium tubing in both the 
wings and fuselage to provide for a mounting for a continuous tube spar, 
inserted at construction end. The parts fitted reasonably well with 
little need of filler barring the dreadfull underfuselage/wing join 
(fixed with card and filler and sanded to shape followed by the 
inevitable rescribing).  The various di-electric panels, avionics bumps 
and whatnot were likewise scratchbuilt and fitted.
I ellected to go with a variant of the 3 colour OZCAM light 
green/tan/black (fs34102/30219/37038) by incorporating a dark green 
(fs34079) for a four colour scheme (again its a WHIFF)and airbrushed on 
over a week of nights.  Decals came from the spares box and/or laser 
printed.  The squadron i chose to represent the operator was No12, 
formally a Chinook squadron until being disbanded in the late 80's, 
hence the waterbuffalo emblem on the fins.
I didnt want to hang too many stores and chose the ALQ ecm pod, 2 rocket 
pods, 2 mavericks, 6 snake-eye mk82's on TER's and 6 mk20 CBU's on an 
MER on the centreline (I did want to do a GPU-5 30mm geopod but ran out 
of time). Naturally the serial is completely spurious but just couldnt 
get past the nose art of 'Raging Bull' (well it is a WHIFF) as well as 
/Magnificent Obsession/ on the inside of the crew ladder door.

In all I was very happy with the result with what is a very large and 
beautiful, yet ugly (something only a parent could love), subject.

/*"Mick Alderson"*/