Building the Trumpeter A-10 Thunderbolt II
I have a vested interest in the A-10, my brother is a crew chief for the 104th FW, and living under the ILS approach for runway two-zero for Barnes Municipal Airport, home of the 104th ANG, we see a lot of A-10s around here. The Trumpeter A-10 offered me a change to stretch my model building skills and build a 1/32. Mainly a fan of 1/48th scale and Sci-Fi models, I am one of those model builders that start models and never finish them. This was going to be different – Right.
After purchasing the A-10 I looked around for some after market accessories, and I decided to splurge. I wanted a very realistic model., since I was modeling after the plane my brother has his name on. The after market accessories I purchased were:
After careful examination of the Verlinden sets I became more and more disappointed with the quality of the parts and the design layout. I am very familiar with the A-10 and the cockpit details did not match the an actual A-10. Also many of the parts were too bulky and out of date. (The A-10 has gone thought a multitude of upgrades). The Eduard photo etched (PE) sheets were way too thin; however, they offered some of the detail I was looking for. As I started to build the cockpit, I noticed that the Verlinden 1690 set didn't have the authenticity that I wanted. After asking around a shop owner told me to take a look at the Black Box A-10 Interior Detail set. This was a good suggestion. The Black Box had the correct layout of the cockpit. Almost identical!. Fantastic detail. I looked at the Eduard PE and knew a little kit bashing would give me the detail I was looking for.
Suggestion: Black Box #32005 Cockpit set and Eduard 32061 - Interior Set - these two alone will give you a very nice cockpit interior.
Next came several trips to the 104th and an air show to give me my own reference photos. At the end of all this I will have compiled about 400 to 500 megs of high resolution photos detailing the areas model builders need reference on. Like every square inch of the cockpit, behind the cockpit, the HUD, structural layout with panels open, in essence the photos other reference books leave out. Chances are it I will sell it for $25 including the graphics for the instruments and decals.
I printed my own instruments and punched them out. This is the
front panel before the final coat of gloss and flat finish.
This is a picture of A-10 with one of it's avionics bays open, Next to it is my rendition.
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However, with so many pictures of the actual plane comes the realization of how poorly the model is made. Now I need to correct everything to come close to what I want and expect from a model.