The Kit
1/48 (1/50?) Academy/Minicraft A-4E Skyhawk Kit No. 1657 | 1:48
The Build
Having worked on Skyhawk's in the RNZAF, the A-4 is a favourite of mine. This kit is a very basic A-4E missing plenty of the little details. Thankfully I am currently building some Hasegawa A-4's and they have plenty of spare bits to add detail e.g. the Pitot probe, TACAN Antenna, Drop Tanks and LAU 7as example. I decided to build this as a flying kit because the slats were up, and rarely if ever are they that way on the ground.
Except for the rocket launcher I used weapons from the Hasegawa weapons set as the ones supplied weren't that flash. As A-4's always look better fully loaded, I decided to load the aircraft with 3 MK82's on a TER, a AIM-9G and 2 300 gal drop tanks.
Painting
The RAN scheme of Light Admiralty grey (blue) and Dark Sea grey is IMO one of the most attractive A-4 schemes. Finding paints that match was difficult but I settled on the Tamiya Acrylics (XF23 Light Blue and XF54 Dark Sea Grey) I still haven't mastered them as yet, they, particularly the clear, seem to take a while to harden and I ended up with finger prints in some areas.
Decals
I used some of the Hasegawa decals but the RNZAF decals are the excellent Gecko Graphics A-4 Decals. If you want to build a Kiwi A-4 these are the decals to get. I'll be using them on the other 3 A-4s I intend to build. Overall though I think it has turned out OK.
The Photos
