During my service in the U.S. Navy in the early 1980’s I was attached to an A-7 squadron designated VA-37 at NAS Cecil Field. I purchased the Hobby Boss A-7E kit as well as the Eduard detail set and Microscale decals for my squadron. I built this back in November of 2014. This was the start of many builds that represented my time in the U.S. Navy. The goal was to build a 1/48 scale aircraft representing all of the squadrons that served aboard the USS Carl Vinson during it’s 1983 world cruise. Once I finished all the aircraft I then built a 1/350 scale model of the USS Carl Vinson. Now back to this build.
I started with detailing the cockpit. Using the photo-etch details and weathered using pastel chalk.
Next I installed the cockpit and assembled the fuselage. I detailed the exhaust, the avionics bays, and the landing gear bays. One of the items lacking in the kit is the pitot tubes located just behind the nose. These were scratch built and installed.
I then built, painted and detailed all the under wing stores and weapons.
The decals were added then the bombs. The canopy was detailed and installed and the finished model was ready for display.
