Author Topic: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba '62 FINISHED  (Read 40520 times)

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
FAA Skyhawk - Cuba '62 FINISHED
« on: February 28, 2015, 11:38:54 AM »
Okay FINALLY I have something to show on this build.... ::)

It's going to be a Fleet Air Arm Skyhawk, from the same background as my FAA Panther, as illustrated by Cliffy B:



Mine will have it's gear down, the idea being that it's on deck alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis, with a live Red Beard on the centreline... ??? the A-4C radar nose and the Red beard come courtesy of Freightdog.







No serious problems so far. The fit of the cockpit parts is far from exact, and the decals for the side consoles are too long: the length of the moulding instead of the length from the bulkhead to the control panel. One of the console decals started peeling but I think I've got it secured using glue as clear varnish.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2015, 02:46:46 AM by Weaver »
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2015, 11:40:24 AM »
Question: how would you fill a panel line on a resin piece? I presume the usual fillers wouldn't stick because they're solvent-based.
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline jcf

  • Global Moderator
  • Turn that Gila-copter down!
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2015, 02:30:21 PM »
Thick super glue or epoxy.
“Conspiracy theory’s got to be simple.
Sense doesn’t come into it. People are
more scared of how complicated shit
actually is than they ever are about
whatever’s supposed to be behind the
conspiracy.”
-The Peripheral, William Gibson 2014

Offline Cliffy B

  • Ship Whiffer Extraordinaire...master of Beyond Visual Range Modelling
  • Moderator
  • Its ZOTT!!!
    • My Artwork
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2015, 07:55:05 AM »
One of my creations is becoming a reality??!!   :o :-* 8)

Don't forget the retracted flash hood for the pilot  ;)

Try an acrylic putty.  I use Elmer's wood putty.  Water based and sticks fine from what I've seen.

"Radials growl, inlines purr, jets blow!"  -Anonymous

"Helos don't fly.  They vibrate so violently that the ground rejects them."  -Tom Clancy

"If all else fails, call in an air strike."  -Anonymous

Offline kitnut617

  • Measures the actual aircraft before modelling it...we have the photographic evidence.
  • Holding Pattern
  • *
  • I'd rather be dirtbike riding...
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2015, 10:13:03 PM »
Harold, I don't see any photos -- what third party storage place do you use ?

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

  • Unaffiliated Independent Subversive...and the last person to go for a trip on a Mexicana dH Comet 4
  • Global Moderator
  • His stash is able to be seen from space...
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2015, 02:19:41 AM »
Harold, I don't see any photos -- what third party storage place do you use ?

Link to the main page of Harold's Skyhawk WIP images: Photobucket - hws5mp's Bucket / The Whiffery / FAA Skyhawk 1

Hope that works for you Robert. 
"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

Offline kitnut617

  • Measures the actual aircraft before modelling it...we have the photographic evidence.
  • Holding Pattern
  • *
  • I'd rather be dirtbike riding...
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2015, 03:01:57 AM »
Link to the main page of Harold's Skyhawk WIP images: Photobucket - hws5mp's Bucket / The Whiffery / FAA Skyhawk 1

Hope that works for you Robert.


Nope it doesn't Jeff, but now I know it's Photobucket related.  What's confusing me at the moment is I use Photobucket too, and I can see my pics I've posted quite well

Offline KiwiZac

  • The Modeller Formerly Known As K5054NZ
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2015, 03:37:56 AM »
I use Photobucket, and I'm at work(!), and the photos are fine here  :)

I'm liking this! Will definitely follow. I'm keen to do an FAA A-4C based on Jennings Heilig's profiles from a while back, using the Airfix kit because it looks so good - where can I get the nose from?
Zac in NZ
#avgeek, modelbuilder, photographer, writer. Callsign: "HANDBAG"
https://linktr.ee/zacyates

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

  • Unaffiliated Independent Subversive...and the last person to go for a trip on a Mexicana dH Comet 4
  • Global Moderator
  • His stash is able to be seen from space...
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2015, 03:55:01 AM »
where can I get the nose from?

the A-4C radar nose and the Red beard come courtesy of Freightdog


Link to FreightDog Models

"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2015, 04:21:04 PM »
where can I get the nose from?

the A-4C radar nose and the Red beard come courtesy of Freightdog


Link to FreightDog Models


Cheers Jeff - I don't think he's got the Skyhawk nose in production at the moment, but it's always worth asking because he sometimes has extras or seconds or part sets.
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #10 on: March 03, 2015, 09:36:13 AM »
Okay, nose on:



That was surprisingly troublesome.

Firstly, when you cut the original nose off, you lose the front edge of the nosegear bay, which means there's very little to positively set the width of the fuselage, i.e. it can very easily crush in.

Secondly, I couldn't get the Freightdog nose to fit on straight. I carved off various bits of plastic and resin until I eventually sussed the problem. The nose gear well/cockpit floor project slightly beyond the panel line where you vut the original nose off. To accomodate this, the Freightdog nose has a recess in it's rear face, but unfortunately, the walls of this recess are way too thick and irregular, so they force the nose off-centre. The eventual solution was to carve the recess deeper and wider with a Dremmel until the walls were the same thickness as the kit fuselage. Even then it needed a bit of sanding, which was helped no end by the presence of the moulded-in hockey-stick aerial just in front of the windscreen.

The crack in the cockpit coaming keeps springing open no matter what I glue it with, so I'm going to wait unti the wing is glued in (which fixes the fuselage spacing) and then fill it. I also had to fill the panel line right at the tip of the A-4C nose which defines the smaller dielectric area seen on most of them. The line is perfectly correct, but I wanted the earlier, larger radome, because I'm going for the fibreglass-nose-on-white-fuse look of the Buccaneer S.1. I filled it with superglue (cheers Jon) and it sanded smooth very nicely.
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Old Wombat

  • "We'll see when I've finished whether I'm showing off or simply embarrassing myself."
  • "Define 'interesting'?"
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #11 on: March 03, 2015, 09:40:02 AM »
Looks like the work was worth it, though.

Build is looking very nice! :)
"This is the Captain. We have a little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and, ah, explode."

Offline FAAMAN

  • 'bin building for years ....... and it feels it!
  • Always thought of himself as a 'straight' modeller
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #12 on: March 03, 2015, 12:12:36 PM »
Great WHiff!! :) :) :) 8)

Great use of the new Airfix A-4 kit as it's pretty poor for shape and details :o, I've been accurizing two of these to correct ALL it's faults .... there's lots BTW ..... and it's a long process :icon_crap:

It really amazed me when I opened the box and felt nothing but disappointment :(, how could Airfix get it so wrong when they had the real aircraft to measure? :-\ ??? At least you can Whiff them as it's not very good for scale. :)
"Resistance is useless, prepare to be assembled!"

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #13 on: March 04, 2015, 04:00:38 AM »
More "interesting" bits.

The intakes:


First off, these are numbered wrongly on the instructions, with left and right numbers exchanged. Next, there is no way the intake location lips would fit between the fuselage and the trunking without carving a whole lot of material off both. Lastly, the joint line between the intake and the fuselage comes out too big because the two faces are not at the same angle - more fettling.

I wanted to find out if it needed extra weight before fitting the wing, since the lower wing covers the only place to add it (behind the cockpit, since the new nose is solid. This required the use of my super-high tech computerized laser balancing as follows:



Inclining trials on an aeroplane eh? Well it is a Navy aeroplane..... ;)
« Last Edit: March 04, 2015, 04:03:02 AM by Weaver »
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline KiwiZac

  • The Modeller Formerly Known As K5054NZ
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #14 on: March 04, 2015, 04:09:14 AM »
Thanks guys! Looking at another potential product I see I actually need two.

Great work with what seems a tricky conversion - Airfix's goof doesnt help. I'll bear that in mind when I get one/five.
Zac in NZ
#avgeek, modelbuilder, photographer, writer. Callsign: "HANDBAG"
https://linktr.ee/zacyates

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #15 on: March 05, 2015, 02:37:15 AM »
As a result of the inclining trials, I decided that it needed a little more weight behind the cockpit, but not as far as filling the whole compartment, and I was also worried about PVA seeping through the gaps at the corners of the cockpit bulkhead, so I made a ballast bucket and stuck it in place with a load of sprue:




Wings and tailplanes are now on:

« Last Edit: March 05, 2015, 03:04:16 AM by Weaver »
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Buzzbomb

  • Low Concentration Span, oft wanders betwixt projects
  • Accurate Scale representations of fictional stuff
    • Club and my stuff site
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #16 on: March 05, 2015, 05:32:01 AM »
Terrific project
Nothing like some practical experimentation from time to time to fix stuff

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #17 on: March 05, 2015, 11:12:27 AM »
Getting near to the point where some paint can go on.... :)

I'll give Airfix this: the fit of some parts is superb. I dropped the airbrakes into the wells with no trimming and needed a scalpel to tease them out again.


Loadout question:

My FAA Skyhawks have five pylons. On a nuclear strike mission like this, with Red Beard on the centreline and drop tanks on the inners, what woulld be a good loadout for the outer pylons? My original thought was a pair of AIM-9B Sidewinders, but I'm now wondering if some combination of chaff dispenser pod, chaff rocket pod, early ECM pod and/or Sidewinders would be more appropriate. Thoughts?
« Last Edit: March 05, 2015, 11:15:59 AM by Weaver »
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline FAAMAN

  • 'bin building for years ....... and it feels it!
  • Always thought of himself as a 'straight' modeller
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #18 on: March 05, 2015, 01:32:06 PM »
I'd probably hang an AN/ALQ-119 noise and deception jamming pod on station 1 and put an AIM-9B on the correct type of launch rail on station 5 for a bit of self defense as the 20mm cannon were notoriously inaccurate.
Another early ECM pod option is one of the ALQ-71 family of signal jammers.
Chaff and flares could be added under the rear fuse ala A-4E/F and later, this negates the need for a pod taking up a weapons hardpoint.
Keep up the great work, hope this helps 8) 8)
"Resistance is useless, prepare to be assembled!"

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #19 on: March 05, 2015, 01:56:46 PM »
I don't think AL/ALQ-119 was available in 1962, and since this is a rush job, they probably wouldn't be able to do fuselage mounted chaff (bundles in the airbrakes like SHARs in 1982?).
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline GTX_Admin

  • Evil Administrator bent on taking over the Universe!
  • Administrator - Yep, I'm the one to blame for this place.
  • Whiffing Demi-God!
    • Beyond the Sprues
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #20 on: March 05, 2015, 03:49:21 PM »
I would go with ECM/Chaff etc (if anything).  No time/desire to be dogfighting with those AIM-9s on a nuclear strike profile...
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it.

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

  • Unaffiliated Independent Subversive...and the last person to go for a trip on a Mexicana dH Comet 4
  • Global Moderator
  • His stash is able to be seen from space...
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #21 on: March 05, 2015, 04:12:15 PM »
I'd probably hang an AN/ALQ-119 noise and deception jamming pod on station 1 and put an AIM-9B on the correct type of launch rail on station 5 for a bit of self defense as the 20mm cannon were notoriously inaccurate.
Another early ECM pod option is one of the ALQ-71 family of signal jammers.
Chaff and flares could be added under the rear fuse ala A-4E/F and later, this negates the need for a pod taking up a weapons hardpoint.
Keep up the great work, hope this helps 8) 8)

ALQ-119 was not available until the 70s so it would have to be a much earlier countermeasures pod of some kind.  Maybe some type of UK produced countermeasures would be possible as an alternative on the FAA Skyhawk? 

If it has a military designation, then Andreas Parsch has it listed at Designation-Systems.Net.  His page pertaining to anything 'ALQ' is at this link: AN/ALQ - Airborne Countermeasures Multipurpose/Special Equipment
Another possible resource to consider for a UK/Commonwealth system would be at Chris Gibson's United Kingdom Aerospace and Weapons Projects.  Plenty of code names with definitions. 

I would go with ECM/Chaff etc (if anything).  No time/desire to be dogfighting with those AIM-9s on a nuclear strike profile...

Have to agree with Greg chaff and flares would probably be more practical for a strike aircraft that is flying low level until reaching the target at which point it would perform the toss bomb maneuver and return to low level to escape the blast.  Look down-shoot down radar systems were not available for widespread use at the time (1962) for any fleet of defending aircraft.   
« Last Edit: March 05, 2015, 04:28:21 PM by Jeffry Fontaine »
"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

Offline FAAMAN

  • 'bin building for years ....... and it feels it!
  • Always thought of himself as a 'straight' modeller
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #22 on: March 06, 2015, 09:45:42 AM »
"Resistance is useless, prepare to be assembled!"

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

  • Unaffiliated Independent Subversive...and the last person to go for a trip on a Mexicana dH Comet 4
  • Global Moderator
  • His stash is able to be seen from space...
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #23 on: March 06, 2015, 10:23:40 AM »
Didn't see the Cuban Missile Crisis time period  :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[
Highly embarrassed I withdraw .........  :-[
By the way there are quite a few Attack Squadron A-4C conversions on Ebay right now, here's links to two;

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Attack-Squadron-72035-1-72-Douglas-A-4C-Skyhawk-resin-nose-conversion-for-Airfix-/331474696692?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4d2d6e79f4

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Attack-Squadron-Models-1-72-A-4C-SKYHAWK-Resin-Photo-Etch-Conversion-Kit-/361150182406?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item54163a7406

No need to be embarrassed my friend.  We all frequent this forum for the purpose of corresponding with others of a like mind in this hobby and in the process try to learn something about history and applying that towards the hobby.  So consider it a good day if you learned something you did not know before, then share that information with others at the appropriate time and place.

There were or are chaff and flare warheads available for the Zuni 5.0"(127mm) rockets that were carried by the Skyhawk and other aircraft.  That same pod containing four rockets was also used in a modified form to launch illumination flares for air support missions at night but these were ejected to the rear while the chaff and flare versions were forward firing.  In some instances the pilot would fire a flare rocket to light his way at night while flying low level so it would seem that the flare rocket served more than one purpose.  The version of the Skyhawk that Harold is building is an early version with only three stores pylons so with the Red Beard on the center line pylon the other two stores pylons would be carrying fuel tanks for the necessary range. 
« Last Edit: March 06, 2015, 10:29:49 AM by Jeffry Fontaine »
"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: FAA Skyhawk - Cuba
« Reply #24 on: March 06, 2015, 11:38:05 AM »
Okay thanks for the input folks.

My Skyhawk may be based on an A-4C for the radar nose, but being a specifically British-built version, it has an Avon engine, 30mm ADEN cannons and five pylons, the latter at the RN's request in order to maximise flexibility from small air groups.

I've been reading about early '60s ECM and it seems that the USAF and USN had very different philosophies. The USAF adopted the QRC-160 pod, but the USN prefered an internal fit and had one for the Skyhawk that that consisted of two suitcase-sized boxes that sat in the ammo bay, displacing some of the cannon ammo. That caught my attention because when I was writing the back story, I did contemplate having the RN delete the guns in favour of ECM or fuel; after all, the Buccaneer had no guns. Eventually I decided that they'd keep them for the same reason as they wanted the outboard pylons; flexibility.

I think that an external ECM pod would probably be anachronistic on this build. I'm therefore going to look into having a small rocket pod on one pylon for chaff rockets, and a chaff dispensing pod on the other. I think I'm right in saying that flares wern't much considered until MANPADS began to proliferate at the end of the decade. I think for the sake of "Britishness" that I'd like the RPs to be 2" Microcell ones (i.e. RN standard in the real world) but I don't think I want the big 32-round pod: more like a 7-round one, which I'll probably have to make myself.
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith