Platz

1/144 A-4E/F Skyhawk

Kit Number: PD-18

Reviewed by  Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP: ¥2000 ($22.10) Website: www.platz-hobby.com The Aircraft The A-4 was developed by Douglas Aircraft’s Ed Heinemann as a lightweight, simple attack aircraft for operation from aircraft carriers. The overarching thought in the Skyhawk’s development was to keep it simple and to save weight. The aircraft is so small it can fit down a carrier elevator without having to fold the wings, saving the weight of the wing fold mechanism. Since the A4D (original Navy designation) was designed in the 1950s, it wasn’t supersonic, but with the light weight and small size it was quick and maneuverable, earning it the nicknames "Scooter" and "Heinemann’s Hot Rod". A-4s have served with the US Navy, US Marines, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Malaysia, and New Zealand. They are still in service with Israel, Brazil and Argentina. The US, Argentina, Israel, and Kuwait have used the A-4 in combat. The biggest visual difference between the "early" Skyhawks, A through E and "late" Skyhawks is the avionics hump, which was introduced with the F models, but also retrofitted to all E’s and some C models. If it doesn’t have a hump, it could be an A, B, C or E. As and Bs had a shorter nose than the C and later models. IPMS produced a 1/72 conversion nose for the early Skyhawk many years ago, and I still have one in the stash. The Kit You get 2 A-4s in the box. Both models are identical, and have the avionics hump. Therefore this is an E or later, with the possibility of a retrofitted C. There are only 3 sprues, two gray and the canopy. As befits a 1/144 model, the parts are petite. Well many are tiny, actually. All parts are flash-free, complete, and someone was thinking about us when they laid out the sprues, as the connectors to the parts do not come into the wing leading or trailing edges, nor the tail, either horizontal or vertical stabilizers. Decals are provided for 3 operational aircraft VA 192 (Oriskany and Ticonderoga) and VA-195, Oriskany, plus the gate guard at NAS Atsugi. Assembly, Painting and Decals There are only 10 major parts to the aircraft. Fuselage halves, Wing top/bottom, horizontal stabs, intake splitters and intakes. The instructions do not make it clear, but the assembly steps for step 1 should be: Open the holes for the under wing stores in the wing bottom. Assemble wing top and bottom. Add a bit of weight to the nose of the fuselage, and assemble the fuselage halves to the wing assembly. Left and right intakes and splitter plates. Horizontal stabilizers. Underwing pylons, if desired. Fuel tanks are pretty much mandatory. The neat idea is that if the gear fails, the A-4 is designed to land on the fuel tanks, minimizing damage to the aircraft. The reason for the first 2 steps is that the lower wing section has the nose gear well, and the upper wing section has the leading edge extensions for the wing. The fuselage halves need to trap the gear well, and you can’t just slip this into the fuselage halves after they’re glued. Fit is good between the wing sections and the fuselage halves. The only putty required on this model was where the wing and fuselage didn’t quite meet cleanly on the underside. The seam where the wing root tops meet the fuselage required no filling, and neither did the intakes, an indication of supreme skill in mold design by Platz. The placement of the arrestor hook on the rear fuselage would have made sanding the back seam on the wing/fuselage joint a finicky job, as that really fine, thin hook was right there as I sanded, just waiting for a misstep to give it an excuse to break. I used a cotton swab and acetone nail polish remover to "chemically sand" this seam. A quick follow up with a small file, and the joint was OK. Painting was fairly simple. Platz gives the color references for the operational Scooters in FS 595 format. 36440 Gull Gray and 17875 White are all you need, except for the black tires, the exhaust pipe and the seat. The 5-view painting reference is good, although I’ve done dozens of USN aircraft. But it’s always good to have the memory jogged, just in case. I painted the lower areas and control surfaces with Floquil Reefer White. I then masked the control surfaces on top and painted the top with Testors 35440 Gull Gray. The camouflage works out so that I could freehand the line between top gray and bottom white. As is my usual practice, I put the clear gloss coat on and put on the decals before I did the landing gear and other fiddly bits. The decals are from Cartograf of Italy, and they’re just awesome. The markings are perfectly on register, the film is thin but strong, and the decals are opaque enough to straddle a paint color change without showing the demarcation line. I took 2 sessions to put the decals on, as there’s just no place to handle a model this small without taking a chance of putting a finger on a fresh decal. Another wait, then put on the clear flat. Final assembly was pleasing. The only thing the instructions don’t show is that the nose gear doors need to be separated, and the rear half of this assembly is already on the nose gear rear strut. I’m kind of proud that I remembered this and figured it out from when I did my "Free Kuwait" A-4 back shortly after Gulf War 1. The gear doors need to be cut apart, and have little tabs which fit into slots in the openings, which made it easy to determine which door went where. If you want to show a flying model these tabs are removed, and the fit problems are minimized because the doors are molded in the correct position for gear up. The main and nose gear are strong, and the struts have one round end and one square, making it almost impossible to put them in backward. Add the fuel tanks, the nice looking seat, put on the canopy, and it’s almost finished. The only thing left was the refueling probe. It’s really thin, scale thickness. And I broke it. The parts responded well to liquid cement, but the front apparently is sensitive to changes in barometric pressure, bending a few degrees one way or another depending on the weather. Overall Highly recommended. This is one of the best fitting kits I have ever built. The instructions are merely good, the weakest part of the whole kit. Basic design is well thought out, and it was just a pleasure to build this little gem. And you get 2 tries to get the refueling probe right. My thanks to Miwa Matsubayashi and Platz for a great little build.