Trumpeter 1/48 A-37a Dragon Fly

Post by **Paul** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 11:59 am

Liked the look of this kits since i saw it released a few weeks back, it was either this kit or Tamiyas Skyraider, this won though

Looks a nice little kit and should hopefully be a nice quick build.

Ive got some nice resin figures to add to this too making a little dio i reckon, ill add some pics of them later.

Heres the box art

Camo scheme

Box contents

Instructions

And the main fuselage sprue

The Cessna A-37 Dragonfly were developed from the T-37 trainer for the military action in Vietnam.A series of new components such as one GAU-2B/A 7.62mm minigun,two drop tanks on the wing tips,three weapon stations under each wing,stronger landing gears and two more powerful J85 engines were applied to the aircraft.
The new A-37A were named by the pilots as 'Super Tweet'.They were send to Vietnam as the 3th Tactical Fighter Group,604th Air Assault Squadron on 17th July,1967.

In August 1967, 25 A-37As were sent to Vietnam under the "Combat Dragon" evaluation program, and flew from Bien Hoa Air Base on USAF "air commando" missions, including close air support, helicopter escort, FAC, and night interdiction. Combat loads included high-explosive bombs, cluster munition dispensers, unguided rocket packs, napalm tanks, and the SUU-11/A Minigun pod. For most missions, the aircraft also carried two additional external fuel tanks on the inner stores pylons.

During this period, the A-37As flew thousands of sorties. None were lost to enemy fire, although two were wrecked in landing accidents. The A-37A was formally named the "Dragonfly", but most pilots called it the "Super Tweet". The Combat Dragon program was successful, but unsurprisingly the combat evaluation revealed some of the deficiencies of the A-37A. The most noticeable problem was that the aircraft lacked range and endurance. Other concerns were heavy control response during attack runs (the flight controls were not power-boosted) and the vulnerability of the aircraft's non-redundant flight control system.

The A-37 excelled at close air support. Its straight wings allowed it to engage targets 100 miles per hour slower than swept-wing fighters. The slower speed improved bombing accuracy, enabling pilots to achieve an average accuracy of 45 feet.[2]

The A-37 required a relatively low amount of maintenance compared to contemporary fighters—only two hours of maintenance for each hour of flight time. This was partially due to multiple access panels in strategic locations.[3]

Post by **Lee** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 12:20 pm

Looking forward to see how this turns out mate

Post by **LudvigN** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 12:25 pm

Great choice! Does your kit have color call outs for the armaments? All Trumpeter 1/72 Ive checked hasnt. It really bothers me

Post by **Nige201980** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 12:25 pm

Looks a nice kit mate looking forward to seeing what you do to it.

Post by **Paul** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 12:26 pm

LudvigN wrote:Great choice! Does your kit have color call outs for the armaments? All Trumpeter 1/72 Ive checked hasnt. It really bothers me

Yeah its on the reverse of the camo callout

Post by **BlackSheep1** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 2:36 pm

Nice choice Paul.

Post by **bluebottle** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 2:48 pm

Simple to maintain due to a lot of components carried over from it's early business jets.. just like the current Scorpion

Post by **UKguyInUSA** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 4:16 pm

Great choice, as everyone else seems to go for the obvious choices of aircraft for the Vietnam war; Phantoms, Intruders, Thunderchiefs etc

I look forward to seeing you apply your magic to this one!

Post by **EasyEight96** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:32 pm

nice choice Paul

Post by **Paul** » Sat Sep 20, 2014 11:54 pm

So some progress on this tonight while on the hangout.

Got some weight in the nose, using fishing weights and pva glue ensuring the front wheel bay still fits

Got the cockpit tub, instrument panel and seats assembled and painted in Mr hobby H317, the instrument panel has some real nice detail

Once painted vallejo flat black and dry brushed in a medium grey the detail really shows through

Photo etch belts glued in place on the seats and painted white and all test fitted together. Ill gloss it al tomorrow then give it an oil wash to bring out further detail.

Post by **chief5437** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:20 am

UKguyInUSA wrote:Great choice, as everyone else seems to go for the obvious choices of aircraft for the Vietnam war; Phantoms, Intruders, Thunderchiefs etc

I look forward to seeing you apply your magic to this one!

Glad you didn't include my Crusader in that statement! Lol

Post by **HIghAltitudeScale** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 4:46 am

Im looking forward to watching this build Paul. I'm trying to get this kit myself but its sold out everywhere. Good choice.

Post by **snappercity** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:37 am

Good progress Paul.

Post by **LudvigN** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 12:22 pm

Love these aircrafts with the big canopy. So much more fun to do the cockpit when you know youll be able to see it

Post by **Paul** » Wed Sep 24, 2014 9:34 pm

Some more progress on this from the last couple days

Fusalage all glued together with minimal filler needed, just some mr hobby dissolved putty then mr sufacer 1500 black (which is ideal for checking seem gaps) and finally a few dabs of CA glue for stubborn seem gaps. Overall the kit is good fit wise, not a good as say a tamiya kit but nothing some slight sanding work cant fix

Wings test fitted, again superb fit no filler will be need on the roots

All sanded and polished and airbrushed flat black along the seems to check for hidden lines

Post by **LudvigN** » Wed Sep 24, 2014 9:53 pm

Sweet looking cockpit you got there. Canopy open or closed?

Post by **Russ72** » Wed Sep 24, 2014 10:04 pm

Nice work Paul. The Mr Surfacer Black seems like a good call.

Post by **Paul** » Wed Sep 24, 2014 10:56 pm

LudvigN wrote:Sweet looking cockpit you got there. Canopy open or closed?

Undecided right now, trying to find a seated pilot

Post by **gaz45** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 1:50 am

Very nice work as usual Paul

Post by **UKguyInUSA** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 5:53 am

Well that came together super-fast! Looking great so far!

**Felis Barcinonensis YouTube Channel** · Post by **felisbarcinonensis** » Mon Sep 29, 2014 7:59 pm

Looks cool! kind of an outerspace look

Post by **Hillbilly** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:10 am

Super clean build so far (as usual

)

Post by **Deacon** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 7:03 pm

I am taking notes as I have this in the stash.

lovely work so far mate and quick too!

Post by **Paul** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:11 pm

Cheers guys

Its a really nice little kit, plenty of detail and the fit is great, I've only used a tiny amount of filler in a couple places and mr sufacer on the rest.

All the aircraft is together, sanded, polished and rescibed.

The weapons pylons all glued in place.

And all the ordinance and fuel tanks glued sanded and rescibed too

Canopies masked, just need to paint and glue the frames inside, they can then be glued in place and the whole thing primed

These are the figures ill be using in the dio, they look really nice excellent detail. Just needing a bit of cleanup

Post by **MarkVerploeg** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:31 am

You don't waste time
This is coming along pretty fast and still looks great
An intresting subject as most including me think of the Phantom first when it comes to Vietnam era planes
Keep up the good work
Cheers Mark

Post by **Willem** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 10:21 am

Looking very tasty Paul. Looks like a really nice kit of something a bit different.

Post by **Nige201980** » Wed Oct 01, 2014 8:29 pm

Looks cracking mate.

Post by **Paul** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 12:14 am

Got back to this today, its was primed and pre shaded last week and i got the base camo colours on today, painted with mr hobby aqueous and airbrushed freehand.

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Post by **giannissma** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 4:34 am

really nice job Paul!

also i want to ask you where did you buy the Mr.paintstation?i can't find it.

Post by **grover** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 6:15 pm

giannissma wrote:really nice job Paul! also i want to ask you where did you buy the Mr.paintstation?i can't find it.

Ive found that closed cell foam works awesomely, and there is plenty around for free. It comes with a lot of electronics packaging and doesn't really deteriorate or come apart like I imagine polystyrene would. May be an option instead of a mr paintstation. If you cant get any, go to your local computer parts retailer and see if they have any foam from an Nvidia graphics card lying around.

Oh and awesome work Paul

Post by **Paul** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 7:06 pm

giannissma wrote:really nice job Paul! also i want to ask you where did you buy the Mr.paintstation?i can't find it.

I got them from hobby link japan, I'm guessing lucky models etc would have them too, dirt cheap only a couple £ too

Post by **Tiger131** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 7:14 pm

good god i blinked and its built nice job so far mucker

Post by **giannissma** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 8:58 pm

thanks Paul.i checked out but lucky model doesn't have them..

Post by **Norman** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 9:38 pm

Looking good Paul

Post by **eightfooticeman** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 4:44 pm

What fine work you've done here. Have you ever built a kit that didn't look amazing?

Jerome

Post by **Paul** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 4:47 pm

eightfooticeman wrote:What fine work you've done here. Have you ever built a kit that didn't look amazing?

Jerome

Ha ha thanks Jeremy, and yes I've built plenty of terrible looking models

Post by **JayCub** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 5:03 pm

Fabulous work as always Paul, I was going to say rubbish

but it is dam fine, the cockpit detail alone is killer
Tom

Post by **UKguyInUSA** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 5:12 pm

Nice freehand paint job....I needs a new airbrush this coming Christmas to enable me to do fine work.

Will you be leaving the color demarcation edges soft as they are, or use a hairy-stick and some thinned paints to harden the edges as in the photos you posted earlier?

Cheers

Post by **Paul** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 5:48 pm

UKguyInUSA wrote:Nice freehand paint job....I needs a new airbrush this coming Christmas to enable me to do fine work.

Will you be leaving the color demarcation edges soft as they are, or use a hairy-stick and some thinned paints to harden the edges as in the photos you posted earlier?

Cheers

Ill be leaving them soft edged, but ill sharpen them up a tax when i come to do the paint weathering effects

Post by **Paul** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 11:34 pm

Back to this tonight, got all the camo work tidied up, then panel fading, bleaching and post shading all sorted. I also got all th ordnance painted up and all the detail parts (intakes, exhausts etc) all painted this evening along with the wheel wells it was a lot of making

Great little kit but some of the masking was a right pita

Next up a clear coat then decals

Post by **Paul** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:29 pm

So the Trumpeter A-37 dragonfly has all been decaled and given a Ultimate dark dirt wash. I've then added the three antennas, given it an alclad flat coat and unmasked the canopy. Landing gear and ordinance is ready for a wash
The last 3 pics are a before and after the flat coat was added

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AE90AEB45E81_zps4qqzt1my.jpg.html]

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Post by **UKguyInUSA** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:58 pm

That's a sweet looking plane

Post by **MikeyKb** » Fri Dec 12, 2014 12:15 am

grover wrote:
giannissma wrote:really nice job Paul! also i want to ask you where did you buy the Mr.paintstation?i can't find it.
Ive found that closed cell foam works awesomely, and there is plenty around for free. It comes with a lot of electronics packaging and doesn't really deteriorate or come apart like I imagine polystyrene would. May be an option instead of a mr paintstation. If you cant get any, go to your local computer parts retailer and see if they have any foam from an Nvidia graphics card lying around.

Oh and awesome work Paul

That's what I use too

Post by **Nige201980** » Fri Dec 12, 2014 5:24 pm

That looks sweet Paul love the camo.

Post by **Paul** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 12:00 am

So the dragonfly is all complete. All the landing gear and ordinance was finished and attached tonight. Can't decide whether to have the canopy open or shut yet. Still got the dio base and figure to finish

Post by **Hillbilly** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 12:09 am

Stunning

As far as the canopy goes,I like the looks of it closed.

Post by **Nige201980** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 11:38 am

That is stunning Paul. I too like the look of the canopy down.

Post by **Nev** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 1:52 pm

That looks the business mate really well done

Post by **Snyder72** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 2:47 pm

Gorgeous Dragonfly!!! Such an interesting little aircraft. Well done!!!

Post by **josepedro** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 3:11 pm

Hello Paul!

Fantastic finish end to end!
How were the intakes on this kit? The Monogram were a real PITA.

My best regards!

José Pedro