Israeli Air Force Douglas A-4N Ayit

I can't remeber when I got this kit, but it seems like it has been in my stash for a long time! Hobby Craft came out with a line of Skyhawks in the early 2000s. At the time, this was the only kit that you could build an "N" version straight from the box. Hasegawa came out with theirs's later, and it is obviously much better, but much more expensive. What you get from Hobby Craft is a very basic kit with little detail. However, it does come with a good number of weapons (which we will see later), as well as all the little scoops, antennas, and such that are unique to Israeli Skyhawks. Plus, the decal sheet is very nice. The kit includes the option to build a Brazilian Navy A-4M as well.  

The Hobby Craft kit includes the extended tail pipe and the larger tail tip. Overall fit is not super great (ain't no Tamiya!) I knew going in that this was not going to be any award-winning piece. I actually though of this as a practice or "Rehearsal Model" because I plan to do a lot of Israeli subjects. 

This is the kit seat. I added the seat belts from the Eduard set for the Hobby Boss kit.  

The cockpit is very sparce, but since I planned for a closed cockpit, it is fine. I scratch built the intake covers. 

My messy studio... 

Just about ready to paint. There are a few seams that need to be taken care of, but no major gaps. The wing to fuselage fit was good, just a lot of test fitting> 

 

I chose the "Golde Hawk" squadron colors that has a cool yellow and green tail. Rathen than use the decal (From IsraDecal) I decided I was going to paint the tail colors. Since I had the yellow loaded in the air brush, i decided to do some pre-shading. But you really can't tell looking at the finished product... 

So for the cammo colors I used a precut masking. I will not say by whom because I am about to be critical of their product...I was underwhelmed. Firstly, the instruction suggested that the darker color should be sprayed first. Big mistake. Seconly, while the sheet of masks looked nice and fit pretty well, the edges were jagged. Next time I will spray lighter color first and use the good old masking putty snake method.  

As I said earlier, the kit decals are quite nice, however mine did not age well. The good news is that I had the IsraDecal sheet which is awesome.  

 

 

As I said earlier, the selection of weapons is pretty good. I decided I wanted to load my Skyhawk up with the maximum load of 12 Mk.82 bombs, and two drop tanks. 

Each attachment point was a separate piece which was nice for painting but took a lot of work to get them all together. i used a trick I learned from the armor boys to leave the sprue on the smaller parts, so they were easier to handle, and then cut and sand after everything dried.  

The multiple ejector racks were nice as well, but there was little in the way of attachment points to the wing pylons. I drilled holes and added wire pins. 

I used Tamiya enamel panel line accent color for the pin wash... 

 

...and good old Micro Flat. 

I am about 99% done here. Still want to do some weathering. 

Pretty pleased with how the weapons came out.