Italeri 1/72 A-7D "Sluf", VMA-323, F4U livery

[srkirad]

Hello friends,

This is my first "in-progress" topic on this forum, so, let's see what's cooking in my modelling kitchen

As I have in plan to acquire HobbyBoss A-7 in some future to make it as real-life bird, I decided to 'spare' this "oldy" for a what-if theme.

I already have 2 Italeri F4U-4B kits - one is destined to be Honduras bird from "Soccer War", while other is going to be what-if - in some of A-7D liveries from this kit! Sooooo....this A-7 will get F4U-4B VMA-323 markings and it will be painted in FS15050!

This "livery_swap" idea seems very interesting in artistic sense, so this is not going to be the last adventure of this type for me!

Anyway, here is the boxart of this kit



And here are the sprues...







Aftermarket parts include Eduard SS185 ZOOM set for Italeri (ESCI) A-7E, and resin ejection seat SJU-7 - as this is going to be what-if, I don't care much about 100% authenticity



OK, this just an intro, I hope to start with work in decent period of time
(I'm waiting for Gunze H328 Blue FS15050 to arrive from LuckyModel)

See you soon with official start of work on this one!

Regards,
Srdjan

[Howard of Effingham]

hmm, should be good.

i have seen a 1/48 A-7 kit finished in FS15050, WW2 era bombs and 1943 red bordered national markings which was different.

trevor

[Sauragnmon]

Looking forward to this - the colouring should be rather cool really.

[Weaver]

Looking forward to this for two reasons:

1. I like your livery swap idea: could extend to Typhoons, Thunderbolts, Whirlwinds and Phantoms too. 

2. I've got the exact same A-7 kit, so I want to see how you get on with it!

[Weaver]

Few more livery swap ideas:

1. The P-47 and A10 Thunderbolts is a no-brainer, but as an alternative, since "Viggen" means Thunderbolt and the Swedish airforce had Seversky P-35s, how about whiffing the history so that they had P-47s too, and then doing an AJ-37 in WWII Swedish colours (lots of choices) and a Jug in "modern" splinter camo?

2. Do a P-38 Lightning in NMF with extravagant '60s RAF-style tail markings and a "Frightening" in USAAF colours. Backstory could be that they're special schemes for some anniversary connected with the name.

[srkirad]

thanx for ideas Weaver - first idea is very interesting, but I don't have sweddish models/markings at the moment, but it's good to have this idea on mind for some future

regarding to livery swap, F-14/18 would look interesting in some WW2 markings, as also would F4U/F4F/F6F in some low-vis grey cammo

[Army of One]

Whooooaaa.....some good ideas here....loving the USN swap.....ooh...an F4U as either VF142/143....oh yes....got those markings....might have an F4U somewhere.....oh dear.....something else to add to the growing list of wanna do's.......

[Howard of Effingham]

it might also be an idea to consider some of the 1950's USN/USAF a/c types in low vis colors.

i have tried this with an cutlass [F-7U-3P] and the end result is quite convincing.

one thing to consider, is the fit of the decals, especialy if adapting colorful unit markings. what looks good one way
won't necessarily look better the other way around.

[srkirad]

one thing to consider, is the fit of the decals, especialy if adapting colorful unit markings. what looks good one way
won't necessarily look better the other way around.

exactly Howard - that's the reason for carefully picking of kits for "livery swap"

I tried to imagine decals from F4U on A-7 and it shoudl fit OK - both in size and esthetically!

Also, A-7 low-vis USAF roundel should look great on F4U....

Sorry, for not having anything new to post about this project, but it's the end of the year, and I work in digital printing "shop", so it's quite busy these days... I barely have time to take a rest

I hope to officialy start work on this model during NY holidays

Cheers and have great and pleasant Christmas & NY holidays!
Srdjan

[srkirad]

Happy New Year to all WHIFers!  

I finally started work on this one.  

I cleaned fuselage halves from small amount of flash, and checked whether cockpit assembly fits well into fuselage halves - it's OK!



Cockpit is assembled, etched side instrument panels, control stick and resin seat are glued to their positions.





Next step is painting of cockpit and cockpit sides of fuselage into grey, and instrument panel into black, and after that I can glue printed instrument sheet onto instrument panel...

Dry fit of fuselage halves shows some minor missalignment on belly side, but it's nothing that cannot be fixed with some sandpaper

Cheers,  
Srdjan

[srkirad]

Today was "The Cockpit Day"...

I managed to paint all parts of cockpit, to give them coat of matt varnish, and to glue front etched intrument panel together with instrument printout "film"....

I tried to do my best regarding to painting instruments on side panels as they are microscopic in 1/72!









Now it's time to find proper balast to put it in nose section, as this kit is tail-sitter!

[ChernayaAkula]

Damn nice work on that cockpit!

[chrisonord]

I am definitely watching this one with interest, as I love the A-7's 
Cheers
Chris.

[bearmatt]

Good start mate! 

[srkirad]

Thanx for kind word guys

As I've been busy at work during past few weeks, I had some break in modelling this kit.

Well, let's see what's new since last update...

I made balast from melted tin, while its "bed" was made from plasticine - with this method I avoided using of any glue for fixating of balast, as plasticine when "dried" becomes very hard, and it won't melt on normal temperatures, except if you put it on very heated surface (bulb cover for example).



On following photo I already covered balasts with more plasticine so this is their final look.

I also glued cockpit and front wheelbay onto right fuselage half...



This is close-up of thinned sprue glued to rear section of front wheelbay - there was a small gap behind it, so I decided to fix it in this way



I put everything to dry well now, as next step is joining of fuselage halves...