A-10A

Details of pylons are very nice. They can definitely save some money for resin replacements. 

The overall fit is just brilliant. I mean not Tamiya kinda perfect, but really good. The only place needs some trim is joint between landing gear pod and lower wing. 

Lower surface of horizontal stabilizer shared the same part as GWH’s A-10C, so there is a sensor to be moved. I think they are little bit lazy here for not providing a new part. The plastic got very thin after removal of the sensor. 

I have finished dry fit of the kit. The finished parts of this aircraft were divided into few assemblies. Interior of some of them are waiting to be painted. 

GWH had some great engineering on parts designing. Look on the fan blades, can you imagine it was assembled by two parts? 

Refer to some photos during Desert Storm, I painted and weathered the engine exhaust. I noticed that the exhaust of each side should be the same color as the camo as its own fan cowling. What indicated in the instruction cannot reflect the real situation during war. 

I roughly weathered the engines as they will be covered by the fan cowling. 

The pilot figure was from Reedoak. This 3D printed figure has very good quality and very fine details. Be careful of the headset cables, I cut that mistakenly. War time photos show that the pilots usually apply some tapes or Velcro on their forehead. So I tried to show this feature on this figure. 

GWH provided very nice details of the “bathtub” and nice printed decals. I painted the black areas then applied the decals.  

Now Mr. Pilot can be seated. 

I rendered the black areas with grey and tan oil paints. 

There are two “panels” on Pave Penny rack which is feature on later versions. I sanded it down and made stressed skin effect on it. After all this I added rivets from Quinta(72rd scale). 

Here I would like to share a little trick I used to simulate the mirror. 

I bought Eduard’s resin AGM-65, as they provide decals for both -B and -D various. I actually prefer their classic “resin-brass” combination instead of the new integrated parts — the fins are too thick. 

Refer to reference pictures, I re-did some of the panels lines. An example here is the landing gear fairing. 

I did some researches on the RWR receivers. 

After struggling with the configuration for a while. Finally I picked Shame A. 

This is the modification I did for the receivers on the tail cone. They were made with PVC board, 3D-printed rivet and rivet decals. 

I started painting works recently. Slow but with some progress. 

I found there are two configurations of the refueling door. Config 01 is on GWH kit which is not the case of 78-681. So I decided to modify it into config 02/03. I guess this is the configuration of most of early A-10s in Operation Desert Storm. 

I found this too late so I have to be extra careful to do the retrofit. 

These loads have been sitting in the box for too long. It’s time to put them under the pylons and do a dry fit. 

I added magnets in the pylons so the loads can be easily moved and adjusted. 

This bird is now ready for weathering! 

Before starting weathering, I found another inaccuracy of this kit. The lower fairing of cannon is wrong. But luckily it can be fixed easily with PVC board. 

I added some oil stains on the engines. Reference pictures showed that A-10s’ engines always appeared to be wet on top surfaces. I guess it’s because of the vents on the top of them. 

Some fuel stains and marks were also added. After adding some chipping, I can finally remove the masks. Now let’s say hi to our pilot. 

I designed this placard for the kit.