HB A-6E 1/48 - Flight of the Intruder

1
March 6, 2025
Can’t stress this enough - you will need to wash your Hobby Boss kits with warm soapy water to remove the chemicals left behind for ejection mold release.
2
March 6, 2025
There are a tone of sprues for this kit - with a full complement of munitions. A great value for the money IMHO.
3
March 6, 2025
The landing gears are very intricate and detailed. They rely on plastic to in case the metallic struts..
4
March 6, 2025
The office builds up beautifully! However, there are no decals for any of the dials or screens– so it’s either aftermarket or scratch build for the decals. For those of you looking to put pilots into this intruder, the Hasegawa /48 pilots will NOT fit without excessive surgery - making in-flight posing difficult. I do not recommend attaching the instrument panel to the cockpit at this stage of the build.
5
March 6, 2025
The fuselage comes together pretty well here, with the exception of the air intakes, which may need a bit of massaging. Minimal filling is required here. The details on this kit is sublime.
6
March 19, 2025
There’s no mention of the need to use a ballast up front to keep this from being a tail sitter - so I decided to play it safe and put some in. Given the fact I couldn’t put any weight on the nose code, I had to double up the weight closer to the fulcrum. A quick test shows that the weights should be sufficient.
7
March 19, 2025
Pairing the wings to the fuselage was a terrible experience - clamps were needed to make them fit with minimal gaps.
8
March 19, 2025
If you love rivets, this kit has it in spades. Unfortunately, a lot of it was erased in my quest to remove the centerline sea lines - so out comes the 0.8mm riveter to restore the lines.
9
March 24, 2025
The wings required serious clamping to get the wing roots to join up.
10
March 24, 2025
I chose the Black Panthers w/c served on the USS Nimitz for this build
11
March 24, 2025
Pylons done
12
March 24, 2025
Although the TRAM version of the A-6E came out later, my kit had this option, so I might as well put it in. Historically accurate? No - but neither was the USS Nimitz traveling back to 1941 in the movie: The Final Countdown. ?
13
March 24, 2025
First layer of the white underbelly completed…
14
March 24, 2025
Underside complete!
15
April 1, 2025
Working on the upper half - everything going well till I sneezed…. ?
16
April 1, 2025
The fit on this kit has been… mixed. The fuselage/landing bay fit to the TRAM / Non-Tram section is terrible - so the area has to be masked off and sanded down for a better fit. I would like to know if these guys even bothered to test build their own kits before they release them…
17
April 1, 2025
Using modeling plasticine is great for a feathered look, but it droops down after a while, so I opted to use tape instead. A gap is left at the top to allow for a feathered look. I ran my hands on the edges to make it less tacky, but in the future, I’ll just paint on that area so it will never stick!
18
April 1, 2025
Almost there…
19
April 1, 2025
Stay on target…
20
April 1, 2025
The A-6 has seen a TON of action over Vietnam - so by the time this unit served on the USS Nimitz in the 1980s before it went back in time to 1941 (Final Countdown movie reference), it’s really starting to show a fair bit of weathering. Even the F-14s shown in that move already started to show a lot of mottling - and those were ~10 years old, and definitely washed for the movie!
21
April 1, 2025
The genius who thought up of the radome color+ red air intake painting scheme definitely didn’t think how easy it was to spot and shoot at a slow moving A-6 with the red intakes! I understand it’s not safe to be in front of it, but come on!

Anyways, it would be very difficult for me to mask of the interior intake to get a fine red line, so I opted to overspray the area, mask it off, and then correct the overspray with white.
22
April 1, 2025
Sanity solved. Al thought I used a blow drier to speed up the drying of the paint, it wasn’t enough and the masking tape left the surface a bit textured. This will need to be knocked down with a fine 4000 grit sanding stick later. At least this part is mostly done!
23
April 14, 2025
Note to self, thin decals don’t need the industrial strength Walthers to make it settle. Note the tears on the delicate decals will need to be repaired with pin-point masking, airbrushing and praying…
24
April 14, 2025
Repairs and decals completed, now it’s time to focus on the armaments prior to weathering
25
April 14, 2025
Paul mentioned that the seats should be khaki in color - so I gently lifted them from the build and repainted them to the correct color. ?

Kommentit

48 6 March, 17:24

Thomas Bischoff
I'm in - nice show 👍

20 March, 06:11

Sergej I
Looking good 👍!

20 March, 08:21

Lorraine Lin
[img1]

2 20 March, 14:02

Rich K.
Awesome work! Learning a lot from your posts and looking forward to the final result!

20 March, 14:02

CaptGPF kirjailija
Thank you everyone!

@Thomas! Looking forward so seeing your Douglas build!
@Sergej- your F-35 is looking good! I heard that was a bad kit, but didn't realize it till your post!
@Lorraine - Your builds are always amazing! Using a laser cutter to create your latest Spitfire is brilliant!
@Rich - looking forward to seeing another dual build with you and your wife!

2 23 March, 17:18

Dietmar Bogatzki
Fantastic start Capt. 👍

24 March, 09:04

CaptGPF kirjailija
Thank you Dietmar! I plan to have the maintenance hatches open on this puppy, but not as impressive as your cut-out Millenium Falcon!

24 March, 18:08

CaptGPF kirjailija
Sloooooooow progress, the main painting is done, now onto the munitions!

1 April, 18:26

Paul Moore
Will be watching eagerly!

3 April, 09:07

Rui S
Looking Great 👍

14 April, 18:38

Villiers de Vos
Very nice progress.

14 April, 20:39

Sergej I
In photo 24, are you following a reference with the yellow de-icing surface? I thought they were only yellow on slats...

15 April, 08:14

CaptGPF kirjailija
Thank you Paul for the notes on the A-6!

@Rui - watching you Mariupol build with interest!

@Villers - love your cars, and watching your Maharaja edition with great interest!

Hi Sergei - I referenced it from the paint schemes in the instructions and checked the photos on the internet - and most of them have the yellow de-icing on the leading edge of the wing roots. After taking a closer look, seems like I missed the tail! 😀. Will work on that as I start the weathering. 😀

15 April, 19:00

Adam Gudynowski
Great

15 April, 21:46

Desert Marlin
Looking very awesome!!!

15 April, 21:49

David Taylor
Looking good.

15 April, 22:08

Neil
Agreed! 👍

15 April, 22:17

Paul Moore
CaptGPF,
The build is looking great. As a former A-6 pilot, the only time you'd have both sets of flaparons up and speed brakes out would be on landing roll out. Just so you know. And at times I adjust my builds just because I want to show some various capabilities that interest me. So I get it. But I thought you might be interested in that just in case you had something else in mind.
Paul

1 16 April, 00:12

CaptGPF kirjailija
@Adam - I love your Aston Martin - can't wait to see the final result!
@Desert Marlin - I loved t-your SUFA, Can't wait to see the Ra'am!
@Dave - would love to see your Falkland builds before I start working on my small armor kits
@Neil - don't know how you pulled off that Revell Tomcat, but you did it!
@Paul - I had originally planned to make this n in-flight Intruder, but the Hasegawa pilots wouldn't fit at all, so I opted to have everything flared out and open as if it was undergoing maintenance. Would these be realistic?

1 17 April, 20:27

Desert Marlin
Thanks! The Ra'am is my Summer build!!!

17 April, 21:24

Paul Moore
CaptGPF,
You bring up a good question. During maintenance, there's no telling what configuration you could find! Then of course there would definitely be various panels open. In this case, probably a lot. And of course there wouldn't be any ordnance on the aircraft during heavy maintenance. It's funny for me, sometimes if I'm doing a historical aircraft on a particular mission, it's really important for me to have all the details (down to the BUNO - Bureau Number), and other times I sort of want to show the capabilities of the aircraft. For example, I'm currently doing another aircraft I flew (S-3B Viking). I'm doing it with a buddy refueling store on the left wing (we almost always flew with that) and a Harpoon on the starboard wing. I personally NEVER saw a Harpoon on a "Hoover", but it was an important capability the Hoover had. If it was going to carry a Harpoon in a conflict, it most likely would carry two Harpoons. So is my configuration "realistic"? Probably not. But I'm doing it for a reason. And of course It's my model! At the very least, it's nice to be able to tell a detractor, " yea, it's not "realistic", but I wanted to show off the capability of the aircraft and I think it looks cool". Just my opinion. And the build looks great.

2 18 April, 09:59

Desert Marlin
@Paul Moore, I roomed with a couple of Hoover crew on the USS Independence in 1990 (Desert Shield) on their way to the IO. I provided some training as a "contractor". I really like the "War Hoover" and the guys were great to be around! As a Crew Chief on KC-135's, I gotta say your descriptions are spot on! There is always that pull to show more detail but then that means the capabilities are shunted. Tough choices for sure!

1 18 April, 23:51

Album info

Next up on the flight deck is the venerable A-6E. Sure it looks like a Guppy, and will never win any beauty contest -but this jet has character compared to the newer, sleeker jets.

If you plan to build this jet, be forewarned of the need to give the sprue trees a washing with some dish soap to get rid of the release mold left on the kit. ?

A-6E - Flight of the Intruder

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1:48 A-6E TRAM Intruder (HobbyBoss 81710)

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