1/48 Hasegawa A-4C Skyhawk

by Busolini Massimo

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Here's some photos of my 1/48 A-4C from Hasegawa.  The first thing I noticed is the high quality of all the pieces in this kit.   

On the internet, on various sites, I found some photos of Argentinian A-4's and I have to tell you that I was immediately attracted to their camo schemes.  But I was particularly fascinated with an A-4 with an unusual livery operated during the Falklands/Malvinas war with the help of photos on the Internet and the splendid decals from AZTEC.  One of thier decal sheets (latin eagle 1) is of good quality and gives the modeler the possibility to build a selection of Latin American aircraft including my A-4.

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This A-4C, with military register C-318, belonging to the grupo 4 de caza, May 25 th 1982 which attacked with success the HMS Coventry.  The colors that I used are all from MODEL-MASTER, and I used the brown FS 20118, dirty white FS 27722, medium gray FS 26622 and the turquoise blue.  However, before applying the camo scheme I painted the whole airplane with alluminium metalizer to create the weathered peeling paint effect.  The only improvement that I made to the model was the addition of a resin seat from AIRES.  After I applied the camo scheme I applied a light trail of transparent varnish to prepare my model for the decals.  For the application of decals I used Mr. mark softener from  GUNZE SANGYO followed by a general wash with the black wash followed by the removel of excess wash with a damp cloth.

Finally I gave all the decals a coat of clear coat followed by a overall coat of flat clear coat to give the model the desired look.  After all this I carefully removed paint to get the chipped paint look.....being careful not to remove the alluminium metalizer.  On March 15th. 1999, the last A-4C/P's of Argentinean Air Force (FAA) were deactivated.   

Massimo

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Photos and text © by Busolini Massimo