The A-6 intruder
does not need much introduction, neither the Revell kit. It is a nice 'out
of production kit' (I bought it for $ 35.00 on Ebay) but certainly you´ll need
some putty and sanding here and there. I needed! Still it´s got a very
nice huge model. I built it OOB and only used the Walleye bombs out of the
Aicraft Weapons B set of Hasegawa.
I always liked the Intruder a lot. I think in its Hi-Vis color scheme, it
looks like a giant seagull. Loved by its pilots and feared by its foes, it did a
tremendous job flying at tree top level. Only now that the Navy and the Marine
Corps are receiving their F/A-18E and F´s they have back the pin point fire
power they used to have with their good old A-6´s. Like other great attack
planes it started decades away and ended only recently. The A-6 was developed in
the late fifty's and was taken out of service only in the ninety's. Seeing
action in Vietnam over Libya and in the Gulf, generations of pilots loved their
job on the A-6.
The model here is an early A-6E model of the VA-196 aboard of the USS Coral
Sea. It´s ordnance consists of two AGM-62A Walleye TV guided bombs (likely this
one was on a bridge interdiction mission in Nam) and eight MK.82 500 lbs snakeye
dumb bombs. This element was the wing of at least another A-6 with the necessary
targeting pod.
I used good old AeroMaster light gull gray, brushed by my Badger 175
airbrush. The underside is normal white enamel. The radome tan nose color is
from Gunze. I used Johnson floor wax to smoothen the flat surface before
applying the decals. After putting on the decals and weathering I finished the
model with flat varnish. For weathering I used airbrush spray techniques and
also washing (applying strongly solved black and brown paint in panel lines
etc.). The nicely detailed cockpit got some washing and dry-brushing and got
quite neat too. Boy, this kit took some time (months), but it was worth
it!
