Here’s my take on the A-7E. For some reason I like the more unfashionable aircraft, the SLUF certainly isn’t pretty but it has a certain functional beauty. This is the Revell boxing of the Hasegawa A-7E. I picked it up cheap at a swap meet; those of you who have read about my other models will see a pattern forming here :-) . Building this model meant several firsts for me, printing my own decals and using Pastel Chalks for weathering.

I decided on the Desert Storm aircraft in the kit, particularly as I had International Airpower Review Vol 1 which has a good article on the A-7 in Desert Storm; it even included a picture of the aircraft chosen by Revell.

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Desert Storm was the A-7’s last war and it performed very well. It delivered HARM’s Walleyes and plenty of dumb bombs. Originally I wanted to do an 8 X Mk 20 Rockeye loadout but I didn’t have enough TER’s. As I’m saving my HARMS for Desert Storm F-4G I decided on 4 MK 83’s. The mission marking for 302 show she delivered plenty of MK 82/83's. The excellent photos in that article showed several interesting details,
most A-7’s only flew with 4 of there 6 racks, and that certainly near the end of the war A-7’s only flew with 1 AIM-9L 

The kit is a typical Hasegawa 1/48, well made with fine recessed panel lines. The only problem with these fine lines is that they are easy to fill up with paint, particularly when you are heavy handed like me.

The Revell instructions were good but I’m sure they were wrong in certain places, one of the main landing gear struts looked like it was shown opposite from the photos of the real thing, so I went with the photos of the real thing. Also it seemed to include decals for the main landing gear wells but the instructions didn’t call for them, but again I had enough reference material to make an informed guess. The Decal sheet also had 1 glaring error, for the Sqn Name it had CLANSMAN, not VA-46 CLANSMAN. This meant I had to make this decal; this was actually pretty easy once I found a font that resembled the actual USN one. I ended up using the USAF one as it was available free on the net. I just wasn’t prepared to pay $20 USD for 24 letters (there’s that pattern
again :-) ) 

The kit was built out of the box except for a true Details ejection seat, The LOX bay was also rebuilt as the kit one looked particularly lame. I added the Remove before flight tags and the bombs were from the Hasegawa weapons set but I used putty to make the newer style fuses on the ends.

The kit went together fairly well but I had some problem with the airbrake, it seemed narrower than the airframe itself. Also I was unsure about the intake seam. So apart from a few coats of Mr Finisher I left it basically as it was. 

Again, I agonised over choosing the paint. As my local toy shops only stock Tamiya and Humbrol so I generally use those. I prefer the acrylics but don’t mind using enamels. My references said the Desert store A-7’s were painted in FS 36320, this equated to Humbrol 128 but this looked way to dark. So I used about 2 mls of white to lighten it. I think it turned out well.

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After the model was painted with the lightened Hu 128 it was airbrushed with a couple of coats with Future (one go) and then washed with a blue/grey mixture of enamels and turps. My references indicated that was the colour of the anti corrosion compound used by the USN. A flat coat was applied and then I used a mixture of grey pastel chalks to try and get the looks USN aircraft get after a long time at sea. Again I’m pretty happy with the result. As this decal shows an impressive mission tally the mission 302 is prepared for would have to be one of the last of the war :->.

Another coat of Flat was applied, once this was dry I added the RBF flags, the AIM-9L complete with SNURF and the 4 bombs. To the get the  rippled effect of the ablative coating applied to USN bombs I wet the bombs with cement and used a toothbrush. It turned out ok but made painting the yellow rings difficult.

Once fully assembled there was one more coat of Gunze Flat, the clear pieces were unmasked (or added) and she’s finished. 

Overall I’m pretty happy with the model and I tried some new techniques which I will definitely use again. I needed something for her to sit on so I painted a ceramic floor tile grey, not very convincing as a carrier deck but it'll do for now.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and thanks for reading. See my other models at www.gibstuff.net/models

Calum

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