1/72 Testors Douglas F4D

Douglas F4D, the delta of the records

Gallery Article by Tigre del Aire on Mar 22 2017

 

      

Greetings to all from today's rainy ARC offices in Colombia, today I bring you the Douglas Skyray, a delta that broke several records during its operational life (only 8 years) and was later renamed as F6.

It's design was mainly led by Ed Heinemann, who then continued his successful career with the A4 Skyhawk, some of the work and research carried out by engineer Alexander Lippisch; Likewise, the idea of the new airplane was that it could intercept enemy aircraft no later than 5 minutes after the alarm signal.

It had 5 records of climbing, equipped 11 squadrons of the United States Navy, 8 of the Marines and 3 of the Reserve but none in operational situations.

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The model is from Testors, quite basic, was the product of a garage sale; The first thing I did was to pierce the landing gear wells, since it did not have them; Second, to make a plastic piece so that the interior of the fuselage could not be seen; Third, to make new subalar supports to equip it with armament, as well as to drill the alveoli of the cannons.

Later, I proceeded to do some scratch work in the cabin, I put an ejection seat of an old kit that had not employed and already gave it more life; The closing of the fuselage was simple, but it did use a lot of putty and enough sandpaper to make it acceptable.

For the painting was very easy, the gray tone of the Navy was used in the part superior and in the lower part a white tone, as it was used in the time; For the part of the nozzle, a mask was made with plasticine and with the airbrush a tone gun metal was applied; Was passed to the lacquered with Future and after a whole day of drying it proceeded with the decals.

I can not speak well of the decals, unfortunately they do not have a good fixation, some were quite rebellious and used to use a bit of diluted glue to achieve their final position, after a night of drying, proceeded to the last hand of Future and finalized the model.

The cockpit was protected with a transparent liquid that protects it from the effects of the paint, highly recommended.

As you can see, the model is quite noble and is allowed to work, you must have a great dose of patience to make the modifications, if done well, you will have a very good model for your collection.

I hope you liked the work, greetings from Colombia, the land of Juan Valdez!

Saludos desde Colombia, la tierra de Juan Valdez!

Tigre del Aire

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Photos and text © by Tigre del Aire