A RAN special, 2 for the price of one.

[rm6239]

Hi Guys

For this Group Build I will be building 2 kits, one in 1/72 and one in 1/48. The first build will be the 1/72 Cyber-Hobby Sea Venom FAW.21 and the second will be the 1/48 Italeri A-4 Skyhawk.

Link to a review of the Sea Venom kit.

http://www.hyperscale.com/2012/reviews/ ... ewgp_1.htm

Link to a review on the Skyhawk kit.

http://www.hyperscale.com/2008/reviews/ ... ewbg_1.htm

As you can see there are a few drawbacks with both kits. That doesn't bother me; all that much though, these kits will allow me to build models of the last fixed wing combat aircraft that the Royal Australian Navy operated.

The Sea Venom will be built OOTB but for the Skyhawk I have a few extra's, Pavla Models ESCAPAC II seat and a decal sheet from Aussie Models.





cheers
Rossco

[rm6239]

A little something to get you started.

Sea Venom.
[youtube]SBhUzKLbuDc[/youtube]

The Ship they operated off.
[youtube]dy9fsxLPwsQ[/youtube]

cheers
Rossco

[rm6239]

First up the Sea Venom.

Should be a simple build, not to much in the way of plastic.

The obligatory sprue shot. Not bad quality, engraved panel lines, no flash to speak of and everything looks crisply moulded.


Decals, Canopy and 2 pieces of etch.


The Suez version would of been nice and colourful, still never mind.

Surprise, you don't start with the cockpit.


Now for a little information before the glue meets the plastic.

De Havilland Sea Venom
The de Havilland Sea Venom was a British post-war carrier capable jet aircraft. It served with the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm and with the Royal Australian Navy. The French also operated the Aquilon, a version of the Sea Venom FAW.20 built under licence.

The Sea Venom was a navalised version of the Venom NF.2 two seat nightfightere and was used as an all-weather interceptor by the Fleet Air Arm (FAA). Some modifications were made for use on Carriers. These included: folded wings, a tail hook, strengthened long stroke undercarriage and finally the canopy was modified to allow ejection from underwater.

Sea Venom's were operated by 805 Squadron RAN and 808 Squadron RAN from HMAS Melbourne and were flown by 724 Squadron RAN. At the time of their arrival in Australia they were the only Radar equipped all weather combat aircraft in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia operated the FAW.21 variant and used the designation FAW.53. 39 aircraft saw service with the RAN.

They were taken out of service in 1967 and were replaced by the McDonnell Douglas A-4g Skyhawk, the subject of my other build for this GB.

General Characteristics
Crew: 2
Length: 36 ft 7 in (11.15m)
Wingspan: 42 ft 10 in (13.06m)
Height: 8 ft 6 1/4 in (2.60m)
Wing Area: 279.8 ft sqaured (25.9m squared)
Max Takeoff Weight: 15.800lb (7,167kg)
PowerPlant: 1x de Havilland Ghost 105 Turbojet 5,300 lbf (23.6kN)

Performance
Maximum Speed: 575 mph (500 knots, 927km/h) at Sea level.
Range: 705 mi (613 nmi, 1,135 km)
Service ceiling: 39,500 ft (12.040 m)
Rate of climb: 5,750 ft/min (29.2 m/s)

Armament
Guns: 4x20mm (.79 in) Hispano Mk.V cannon, 150 rpg
Rockets: 8x "60lb" RP-3 unguided rockets
Bombs: 22x1000 lb (450kg) bombs

Not a bad little plane for the time.

cheers
Rossco

[rm6239]

Steps 4 and 5




A nice little jet engine, pity it won't be seen. So I haven't done anything except paint it.



Typical Dragon instructions, a couple of the pieces were misnumbered but as they have a sprue map on the first page the parts were easy to find.

cheers
Rossco

[rm6239]

Starting to get the internals in. Just dryfitted at the moment.



Decals for the instrument panel.




Time to line everything up and fit the top half of the fuselage.

cheers
Rossco

[Nige201980]

Looking good mate.

[rm6239]

Cheers Nige

Well closed up the fuselage added the twin tails and fitted the canopy.





Time to close up the engine bay and work on the rest of the wings.

cheers
Rossco

[rm6239]

A funny thing happened while painting and decalling this kit. I got to thinking about it as more than just one of the last Carrier operated aircraft that Australia had. It was significant in a number of ways.

NOTE: Following is a flow of BS that came to me as I was working. So don't say you weren't warned.

1. During the period that the Sea Venom was in service (Also RAAF Vampires and Meteors), guns on aircraft started to become secondary armament. Missiles became the weapon of choice. This can be seen as the replacement for this aircraft, the A-4 G Skyhawk was adapted to use the Aim-9 Sidewinder as it's main armament.

2. During the next 30 years or so, Australia started to go her own way (or you could be cynical and say we went the US way). Lets explore this further.

RAN:
Sea Venom - A4G Skyhawk
Fairey Gannet - Grumman S-2 Tracker

I think even the RAN's surface fleet and submarines are based on US or European craft these days.

RAAF:
Fighter: Vampire, Meteor - Sabre - Mirage, F-4 Phantom II - F/A-18 Hornet, F/A 18 Super Hornet - F-35 Lightning II

Bomber: English Electric Canberra - F-4 Phantom II - F-111

The RAAF still uses the BAE Hawk for Training though.

Australian Army:
Infantry Rifle: Lee Enfield - FN L1A1 - F88 Austeyr
Machine Gun: Bren - M60 - FN MAG 58
APC: Alvis Saladin - M113 (including the Fire Support Vehicle, FSV, M113 with Saladin turret mounted)
Tank: Centurion - Leopard - M1A1 Abrams

Towed Artillery and Mortars are still British though. Australia currently doesn't have any Self Propelled Guns .

Helicopters are either European or American.

Anyway I hope I haven't bored you too much with this recital of the evolution of Australia's Defense Force equipment.

Back to the what brought all this on in the first place.

Painting and decalling.



A few more Australian themed decals to go on then all the stencils.

cheers

Rossco

[peppie]

Looking good up to now

[Coen]

Very cool subjects Rossco! So far looks awesome!

[rm6239]

Peppie, thanks mate.

Coen, cheers mate.

Last few decals on and a protective coat over, so can begin to do some weathering tomorrow.

cheers
Rossco

[rm6239]

Well calling the Sea Venom finished.









1/72 is not really my scale, next up back to 1/48.
cheers
Rossco

[OliveDrab]

Very NICE Sea Venom I'm starting to really dig these things with wings after building only armor for the last 10 years!

[Nige201980]

That's a real nice looking sea Venom. Well done.

[rm6239]

Olivedrab, yeah wingy things can grow on you, if you let them.

Nige, cheers mate.

cheers
Rossco

[rm6239]

With the Sea Venom done, now I turn to the other build.

Douglas A-4 Skyhawk



The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a carrier capable attack aircraft for the United States Navy and Marine corps. The delta winged, single engined Skyhawk was designed and produced by the Douglas Aircraft Company and later by the McDonnell Douglas. It was originally designated the A-4D under the US Navy's pre- 1962 designation system.

The Skyhawk is a light weight aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight of 24,500 lbs (11,100kg) and has a top speed of more than 600 miles per hour (970 km/h). The aircraft's 5 hardpoints support a variety of missiles, bombs and other munitions and was capable of delivering nuclear weapons using a low attitude bombing system and a "loft" delivery technique. The A-4 was originally powered by the Wright J65 turbojet engine; from the A-4E onwards the Pratt & Whitney J52 was used.

Skyhawks played key roles in the Vietnam war, the Yom Kippur war and the Falklands war. Fifty years after the aircraft's first flight some of the nearly 3,000 produced remain in services with several air arms around the world, including the Brazilian Navy's aircraft carrier, Sao Paulo.

One of the users was the RAN (Royal Australian Navy). The Australian Skyhawk was based on the A-4F variant and was fitted with slightly different avionics and the capacity to operate the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile to become the A-4G. The RAN had 20 Skyhawks and operated them from 1967-1991. The flew from Australia's last aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne (interesting ship, it sunk 2 allied ships). With the decommissioning of the HMAS Melbourne the RAN had no need for most of it's fixed wing aircraft and the A-4G's were sold to New Zealand.

General Characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 12.27 metres (40.3 feet)
Wingspan: 8.38 metres (27.5 feet)
Height: 4.62 metres (15.2 feet)
Empty weight: 4,581 kilograms (10,100 lbs)

Performance:
Maximum Speed: 1, 086 kph (675mph) at sea level
Cruise Speed: 788 kph (490mph)
Combat Radius: 644 kilometres (400 miles)
Service Ceiling: 14,600 metres (47,900 ft)

Armament:
Guns: 2x20mm (0.79 in) Colt Mk 12 cannon, 100 rounds/gun
Hardpoints: Five with capacity of 3.629k (8,001lbs) and provision to carry combinations of:

Rockets: Up to five 127mm Mk 32 Zuni rockets or 2.75 FFAR rocket pods
Bombs: Three clusters of 3 250 or 500 lb bombs, five single 250 or 500 lb bombs or 3 single 1,000lb bombs

Missiles: 2 x AIM-9 Sidewinder

The A-4G was operated by 724 and 805 Squadron's Royal Australian Navy. 10 of the 20 A-4g's were lost during service with the RAN. This gave the Skyhawk a poor safety record but the loss rate can be partially attributed to the dangers of operating from an Aircraft carrier. Two pilots were killed in these accidents.

cheers
Rossco

[rm6239]

As I said I have a couple of extra's for this first up the Pavla Models ESCAPAC II seat and some Aussie decals.



This is the scheme I'm going with.



Here is the kit's seat.



Nothing much to it, so in goes the Pavla Models version. First problem, it's a little to wide. So a little surgery and it fitted in.





With the seat being the only thing you will see through the cockpit I think it was worth the extra trouble.

cheers

Rossco

[rm6239]

Well seat mounted and painted and drying from a protective coat of Future.









Not the greatest of cockpits but the addition of the seat gets the most bang for my buck.

Now to paint the red on those pesky air intakes.

cheers

Rossco

[rm6239]

Cockpit fitted, weight added and fuselage closed up.

Another problem developed, the main canopy now won't fit, as the kit's canopy is not made to be open I will have to make some adjustments so I can show it open. I've primed the wings upper surface and the flaps so I can paint them first. They are painted and protected so the flaps can be painted when the base coat and camo go on. Also I've painted and protected the intakes.



The undercarriage and wheels have been dryfitted, I like to do this so that any supporting struts can properly positioned and to check the angles.

cheers
Rossco

[patrickroos]

1/72 sure is challenging, I think the Sea Venom is looking really good!
Great work!

[Danta2er]

The builds look great and I love the running historical commentary. Nice to learn about military organizational histories

[rm6239]

Patrick, totally agree mate, 1/72 is not a scale I do much in and that was the last I have of that scale.

Danta, cheers mate, just a little sidetrack .

Well spent the weekend painting. Had to tone down the preshade a lot; as after the first coat, the second camo colour seemed to fade into the preshading as you can see on the underneath shot.

Still I really like the look of the colours now.











It's sitting under a coat of Vallejo Gloss at the moment, waiting for the decals, should be fun getting them to fit on the raised panel lines on the wings... NOT.

cheers
Rossco

[rm6239]

Next Stage:

Decals have gone on. I have to say the Decals from Aussie Decals were brilliant, tough but thin, settled down over and into everything. The only problem was as expected on the wings with their raised detail but I settled them down as best I could.









cheers
Rossco

[Avgas]

Great work. Watching with interest as I have the Skyhawk in my stash.

[kiwigav]

Nice kits, Skyhawks are so iconic in our part of the world

[rm6239]

Avgas, cheers mate, I've enjoyed the build, have to keep my eye out for the Hasegawa kit as they say it's the best of the them. What kit do you have in the stash?

Kiwigav, that they are mate.

Well calling it finished if you want to see the finished article it will be in the finished thread.

cheers
Rossco