Para: submissions@arcair.com

"Wooden 1:17 Fairchild Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II" 

by "David Landívar"
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Hi. I’m an enthusiastic of aviation models and I’ve been checking out ARC page long ago. Well, I’ve been building wooden-aircraft models since I was 10 years old. But over the years I improved my skills and tried to build more-accurate models time after time.

The story of this warthog began back in late 2007 when I bought a 1/72 Revell A-10A kit, and I decided to build my own one just as accurate as I could. Hence it was necessary to “resize” the Revell warthog into a new “big one” and give the basic shape to wood pieces. Thus the model was built in three major “sections”: the main central fuselage and the tail stabilizers, the wings and landing gear compartments and finally the two engines. Every section was previously shaped and sanded before fitted to the others. I used plastic glue, nails and screws to fit sections in the right way, trying to harden every joint as well as making them invisible unless you know where I placed them.

This warthog has a long overcoming-problem history. Actually, I was about to give up its building twice, because the landing gear was not strong enough to deal with such a heavy model (about 15 pounds) and also had problems to make it movable, as the first landing gear also lacked stability. However, pride was a good motivation and over the years some substantial changes took place and the basic shape of a warthog was born. Now the landing gear was made to be retractable, strong and stable, as well as accurate as possible. The original wooden wheels were replaced by rubber ones and the aircraft was covered entirely with putty (to create a flat-uniform surface, standard for every wooden model I built since 2005. Also, this warthog has a variety of materials (of course wood is the main one) such as plastic, steel and even a heavy two-pound lead counterweight.

Regarding the ordnance, I made it entirely with wooden “bodies” and metal/plastic fins. This warthog is supposed to carry two AIM-9 sidewinders, two AGM-65 mavericks, four Mk-20 Rockeyes, an AN/ALQ-119 ECM pod and four CBU-58 cluster bombs, as well as a detailed model of a GAU-8 Avenger gattling gun.

As no piece or part of this model is off-the-shelf, I had to build everything on my own, based on the 1/72 Revell A-10A and other models I found on ARC and pictures from AIRLINERS.NET. The paintjob was particularly rigorous, because I had to mix basic colours to match the three-tone European One cammo scheme. Furthermore, as there is no decal for such a big model (at least no one that I can purchase) I decided to create my own ones too. Most of them are painted over the fuselage but some are certainly “plasticized” high quality images, stuck on the right places to increase accuracy of the model. In this case, I decided the warthog to represent the 92^nd Tactical Fighter Squadron “boss bird” as it should have looked back in 1990, at RAF Bentwaters, UK.

Enjoy the pictures.

"David"

Photos and text © by "David Landivar"