Ed Sunder
SMF Supporter
This has been on my "Shelf O' Doom"® for a couple years. I'm not actually sure why I put it there. I normally love the Fujimi A-4's, though I think this is my first two seater.
It has resin seats (not sure where they came from) with custom ejection handles out of wire. I originally was going to do this as a fancy 1976 paint job, but decided I wanted a bit more color and chose the IAF option instead. Once I went down that road, I realized that IAF A-4's have an extension to the tailpipe, which doesn't come with the kit. So I turned some plastic tubing to the correct inner/outer diameters on my mini lathe and it came out really nice. I added a Sidewinder and an ECM pod to the bottom as I've seen them fly with a similar loadout.
Unfortunately, once I pulled out the IAF roundel decals they disintegrated. Pretty much all of the decals broke apart or didn't conform to the curves... I wound up cutting paint masks for the roundels and the numbers (732). I had some issues pulling the masks off and had to hand paint some small paint issues to clean things up. It's probably not going to win any competitions, but I'm super happy to have it on my "Shelf O' Victory"® instead of its previous location.
(incidentally, the interior of the airbrakes looks like that on the photos I've got - not sure why, but I feel like it's pretty accurate.)
It has resin seats (not sure where they came from) with custom ejection handles out of wire. I originally was going to do this as a fancy 1976 paint job, but decided I wanted a bit more color and chose the IAF option instead. Once I went down that road, I realized that IAF A-4's have an extension to the tailpipe, which doesn't come with the kit. So I turned some plastic tubing to the correct inner/outer diameters on my mini lathe and it came out really nice. I added a Sidewinder and an ECM pod to the bottom as I've seen them fly with a similar loadout.
Unfortunately, once I pulled out the IAF roundel decals they disintegrated. Pretty much all of the decals broke apart or didn't conform to the curves... I wound up cutting paint masks for the roundels and the numbers (732). I had some issues pulling the masks off and had to hand paint some small paint issues to clean things up. It's probably not going to win any competitions, but I'm super happy to have it on my "Shelf O' Victory"® instead of its previous location.
(incidentally, the interior of the airbrakes looks like that on the photos I've got - not sure why, but I feel like it's pretty accurate.)
