1/72 Revell A-6E Intruder

by Karl Sander

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“The mission of the aircraft carrier is to put ordnance on target. Everything else, including UNREPS, Indian Country, and anything that starts with an ‘F’ is support for that mission…”

This all started quite innocently enough.  A good friend in Virginia came across someone thinning out his collection, and, after e-mailing me a list of available models, asked if there was anything I wanted.  Among other things I picked out this Revell A-6, which I remember building as a child.  I soon came to find out that this offer from my friend was even MORE generous than I had thought, as she intended the models to be gifts, rather than simply acting as the go between for me to buy them!  I believe in the parlance of alcohol treatment that is known as “enabling.”  And really, my modeling isn’t all that much different from alcoholism anyway – other than it’s much safer to drive after a few hours at the modeling table, and my head typically doesn’t hurt as much the next morning.

Regardless, the box of goodies arrived and went to the top of my stack – with my friend waiting to see finished products, it wouldn’t do to have them “wait their turn.”  When it came time to start this Intruder, I was pretty excited – not only do I fondly remember the kit from my childhood modeling days, I also have come to know several former Intruder folks in my professional life.

As I looked at the parts and the instructions, I realized how far my modeling outlook has evolved since childhood!  Yet rather than be discouraged as I looked at the first step of instructions and parts to see what passed for the stock cockpit, I felt excited at the challenge.  My friendly “enabler” had kindly fueled my “addiction” with the gift of this kit, and I became eager to see what I could make of it.

Click on images below to see larger images

First, as with most tactical jet models, came the organic actuator housing (cockpit).  The kit part was a ‘plank’ of plastic with two stubs that were vaguely shaped like seats.  The dash and instrument panel were a single piece, with some faintly raised detail that I suspect was meant to suggest some sort of instrument detail.  With my Detail & Scale A-6 Intruder book handy, I contemplated a scratch-built cockpit.  To the rescue (again) rode a member of the ARC discussion board, who had a white metal cockpit set on E-bay.  A week or so later, it was on my desk. (The picture shows the white metal cockpit test-fitted into the model with the kit-supplied part next to the plane for contrast).

I suspected I would have quite a challenge fitting the new cockpit tub and instrument panel into the Revell fuselage, yet some dry-fitting revealed a pretty compatible fit.  The biggest piece of surgery was removing two tabs – one from each fuselage half – that sat ahead of the cockpit “hole” to both support the kit instrument panel and provide alignment and proper cross-section for the front of the fuselage.  Several light passes with a fresh blade in the hobby knife and these tabs were gone.  I filed and sanded to clean up these cuts, and also to thin out the interior walls of the cockpit area since the metal tub was just a bit of a tight fit.  Some moderate sanding had it squeezing in relatively comfortably.

I cemented the fuselage halves together – with my modifications, the white metal cockpit would be able to drop in.  I test fitted the radome, and could already see where the tab removal I did earlier was going to cause some problems.  I decided to make a little interior bracing to hold everything in the correct cross-section, and also to support the heavier metal cockpit.  Dry-fitting the metal tub again, I marked its bottom edges on the inside of the fuselage halves.  I then cut pieces of Evergreen  strip styrene (.100” x .188” is what I used, but the dimensions are not critical).  I put them lengthwise, just below the marks I had made earlier, with just a little bit extending past the front edge of the fuselage so that the radome would have “mounting pins” of sorts.  I did not measure the length, but eyeballed and test fitted before cementing.  Now the metal cockpit had something to rest on, and the radome had something to mount to.

For support in the aft area of the cockpit tub, I dry fitted the bottom fuselage center to check clearance, then with the cockpit tub temporarily in place, I cut another piece of strip styrene to fit.  This time, I mounted it perpindicular to aircraft centerline, cementing it to the back of the “plates” that block off the intake trunk.  Sometimes we complain about these plates because they present an unrealistic flat, blank face just inside the intake, but this time they came in handy for my bracing needs!  (the picture shows all the bracing before adding the cockpit and radome).

While all this was going on, I was using just a bit of filler to dress some seams (not too bad at all), sanding, and rescribing along the long joint of the fuselage half.  I immediately noticed upon putting the halves together that the nosewheel well was very, very shallow and decided to fix it.  I’m not sure why, since no one will notice it unless I point it out.  I decided to leave it as is until I finished bracing the front fuselage area.  After the bracing strips had set up, I made several light passes with the hobby knife again until the shallow “roof” of the nosewheel well came out.  I measured the width of the fuselage at the height of my desired new wheel well roof, and cut a piece of styrene sheet and cemented it in place.   Two smaller pieces of sheet were cut for the sides and cemented in place.  I filed and sanded the edges of these side walls so everything looked sharp.  For the back wall, I decided to double up the strip bracing – I cut another piece of Evergreen strip and set it below the first one behind the intake “plates.”  

At this point I added the fuselage bottom center – which needed a bit more filler and sanding to blend it in, but nothing too difficult.  The very front edge of this piece also has a part for the nosewheel well – it’s the place where the actuator (the part of the nose gear that is “diagonal” when the gear is down and locked) anchors to the model fuselage.  I debated removing this as well, but decided it would make for some ugly geometry when it came time to fit the nose gear in place, and I didn’t want to weaken the structure of the nose gear any further than I figured I might have already with my rebuilt nosewheel well – especially with the added weight of the white metal cockpit.  So I left this part alone.

Click on images below to see larger images

Now I attached the radome – I knew from test fitting that it wouldn’t interfere with dropping the cockpit tub and instrument panel in place.  There was a little bit of a “step” on each side, but in fairness that is probably due to the “re-engineering” I did in the front part of the fuselage.  In any case, it was easy enough to clean up as there was no detail here to destroy.  With the front of the fuselage complete, I felt comfortable enough to put my painted and drybrushed cockpit tub in the plane.  It sits snugly on its own, and I just used a couple dabs of CA to tack it.

At this point, I cemented the fuselage speed brakes in the closed position and started blending them into the fuselage.   The A-6 was designed with these speedbrakes, but they apparently didn’t work out so well in practice.  Grumman put speedbrakes on the wingtips, just outside of the flaps on the wing trailing edge.  Over the A-6’s life span the original speedbrakes were perforated, bolted shut, and finally replaced with blank plates.  I decided to go with the unperforated bolted-shut look because it was a cleaner look, and drilling holes for the perforations looked like a golden opportunity to make a mess of things.

While I continued to dress the seams on the fuselage I moved onto the wings.  The main gear wells were also very shallow, however there wasn’t much room in the wing to deepen them.  I would have to be content with just adding some detail and hoping that a wash to create shadows would suggest more depth than there really was.   I replaced the grotesquely overscale outboard stall fences with ones from an Eduard photoetch set meant for an Italeri Intruder.  Some of this photo-etch, along with some fine wire to simulate hydraulic lines, also provided some extra detail for the landing gear. Before adding the wing assemblies to the fuselage, I gave the main landing gear wells a shot of Floquil reefer white.  The way the Intruder/Prowler main landing gear well is situated in the wing-fuselage junction makes it difficult, in my opinion, to properly paint it after assembly.  I also did the intake trunks at this point (abbreviated though they are).

The wings are narrower in profile than the space cast for them in the side of the fuselage.  This means that at the leading edge of the wing root you have a choice between an odd looking gap above the wing, or below the wing.  I chose to secure my wings such that the gap would be below the wing, where any shortcomings in my blending job would be harder to see.  The gap was large enough that I did not want to rely solely on putty as I feared the sheer quantity required would quickly lead to cracking as it dried and shrank.  I used styrene rod to “gobble up” the space – cutting it to length, sandwiching it into the gap, and dousing it with the old-school Testors liquid plastic cement, applied with the brush-in-the-cap.  I think Tenax or ProWeld would work equally well. In this case I applied it generously, the goal being for it to “melt” the styrene rod into the gap.  (See the picture) After a few days drying time, I then used a bit of Squadron Green putty to finish the blending job.  While working on the wing root, I scratchbuilt the air conditioning intake which is a feature of both the Intruder and Prowler – it’s the square shaped intake at the right wing root leading edge sometimes comically referred to as a “brick shooter.”  I cut, sanded and filed a piece of Evergreen styrene strip to rough shape, tacked it in place with CA and filed it some more, then again used the liquid plastic cement to help “melt” the new part and the wing melt together.  Again, after it was dry I completed the blending with a small amount of Squadron Green putty. (See picture).  Later on, I used scrap sprue to fashion the air conditioning heat exchanger exhaust, which is just forward of the right forward main landing gear door – below and behind the “brick shooter.”

On the topic of scoops and intakes, the Revell kit has a cast intake scoop on the aircraft centerline, on the spine.  I believe this is to represent the fuselage fuel tank pressurization scoop, but if so, it SHOULD be just to the right of centerline.  I removed the kit piece, and fashioned a new one from styrene rod, cut and shaped in place.  The larger scoop which goes on the upper left side is actually pretty accurate.  The only change I made was to drill a bit of a hole in the front of it so it actually looked like an intake.  The instructions are rather vague as to where this part goes, but it’s a prominent feature of any A-6E TRAM (it provides air to the aft avionics cooling system) so any pictures of that portion of the airframe will clearly show where the scoop should go.  I’m not sure that the underside of the model shows all the intakes and scoops found on the real thing, but the more I tried to match up the photos I had to the model sitting in front of me, the more confused I got and decided to live with what was there.  I did use my hobby knife to deepen some of the air intake that ARE molded.

While working on the wings, I also added the tailpipes.  The exhaust is not actually molded too badly, though there are some issues with the fit to the fuselage.  These issues are easily fixed, however.  Elevators went on without trouble and I now found myself with a more or less complete Intruder fuselage.

All I needed before painting was a windscreen. In the past I have added windscreens AFTER painting, but I’ve found that it’s sometimes tough to make it look like it’s NOT removable like the canopy.  So this time, I planned to attach it, blend it in, and paint it with the rest of the plane.  HOWEVER, in this kit, the canopy/windscreen comes as two clear pieces split longitudinally, i.e down the plane’s long axis and NOT where the Intruder windscreen and canopy are supposed to separate!  Several dunks in a bowl of Future provided the clear parts some protection from the carnage that was coming.  Several passes with a fresh No. 11 blade separated each half of windscreen from each half of canopy and I now had four clear pieces.  With the clear plastic protected by the floor polish I used CA to attach the canopy halves to each other and likewise with the windscreen, so that I was back to having TWO clear pieces, only this time they were split the way Mr. Grumman intended!  I dressed up my cut areas, then put the windscreen on the plane and masked it.

Then it was off the paint shop for a late 1980’s Tactical Paint Scheme, called for by the Repliscale “Libyan Raiders” sheet I used.  I used Testors Model Master Enamels (FS36375 Light Ghost Gray, FS36320 Dark Ghost Gray, and FS35237 Medium Gray).  I used my Aztek A470 airbrush, and had an epiphany of sorts as I finally mastered the trigger finger finesse needed to airbrush a soft edge free hand.

After paint, Future, decals and a flat top coat, I added the landing gear and doors, then weathered with a panel line wash and my first try at using pastels.  I liked the results, especially for a “rode hard and put away wet” fleet aircraft (they tend to get messy out on the ship…).  Finally came the ordnance and some photo-etch antennas (unfortunately mostly on the underside where they’re nice and hard to see!), the TRAM turret on the chin and the canopy.

And there you have it.  Though it’s easily the most effort I’ve put into a model in a very long time, it was nonetheless very rewarding.  It was fun to try new techniques out and I’m pleased with the result.  Always nice to have to have another product of the Iron Works in the display!

Karl

Graphic believed to originally appear in the VA-128 decommissioning booklet, found by the author at the website of the Intruder Association – www.intruderassociation.org         

Photos and text © by Karl Sander