1/32 Trumpeter A-7E converted to Hellenic A-7H

[zaxos345]

Good morning guys, i have been coping with this project for over a year now...

You all know the kit, it is the trumpeter's A-7E, there are some things that have to be changed in order to become a -H model but also a lot of things that have to be corrected as the model has a lot of mistakes.

I have all the zacto goodies (you cannot build an accurate A-7 without these), eduard and Aires ones as well as some other stuff, that you will see during the build.

I think that it is now the time to thank Harold (aka AMS resin) for his help with the A-7 wheels he produced as well as Barry who helped Harold with his scratch work and of course John Wolstenholme (who, IMHO, has built the best A-7 in 1/32 scale) for his help and advice as well as a fellow Greek modeler and a good friend of mine, Vaggelis who has provided me with a lot of pics and measurements of specific parts of the real plane.

Here you can see the things i have to correct, sand down, rescribe, scratchbuild etc.

I started by trying to correct some bad molding issues and trying to sand down the refueling prob detail, as the -H ones had this item removed

I closed the gap and scratch built the cover that was put there

I opened the air condition inlet and modified it

I sanded down the antennas from the vertical stabilizer and corrected them in terms of shape and position

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[zaxos345]

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In order to make the exhaust section of the air condition more correct i produced a stencil as i could mot find one at these dimensions and rescribed the new one

I sanded down and rescribed the LORAN antenna...

Opened the holes underneath (the one was the exhaust section for the starter)

opened, narrowed, shortened and moved the grilles of the right electronics bay door

 

[zaxos345]

I started to deal with the M-61 Vulcan area where a lot of thing are going to be visible and had to be corrected.

Next the gun fairing area...
The kit....

The real one

Joe (aka crackerjazz) , a very good guy, modeler and friend in another forum worked on the same area and he really did a superb job and he was very kind to provide me with some vac of his mods. I used it to modify the kits part cause the vac was very thin. So i followed his steps like a hound dog!!!

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[zaxos345]

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And this is what i made, i have not modify all the area yet.

Next thing was the ladder which was totally out of scale!!!

The real one

And mine in 1/32

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[zaxos345]

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I built the ladder but i was not pleased with the look of the place where it stored as well as with the access panel, so i tried to fix them, first with the store place..

Here an image with the access door pre build and with the ladder...Due to the right proportionals the angle of the ladder with the fuselage is almost perfect.

Next, time for the access door. I sanded all the detail, which was wrong, and sanded more in order to bring it to scale thickness. I also added a small PE from Eduard...

And here everything dryfitted...i have added a couple of photos of the original

It is and it's going to be a long project, so be patient. Right now I am working on upgrading - changing Aires cockpit and ejection seat in order to represent a -7H plane.
Hope you like it so far!

John

 

[rochie]

Fantastic

 

[Airframes]

Excellent work !

 

[Wurger]

 

[SANCER]

WOW !!

This is going to be work to bring in notebooks and take notes !!
Very clean job and the level of detail is inspiring zaxos345, I congratulate you and keep watch for more ...

Saludos cordiales

Luis Carlos

 

[fubar57]

Very ambitious project John. This is going to be a great build to follow by the looks of things so far.



Geo

 

[Capt. Vick]

Beautiful work! Are you going to remove the fiddly bits as you build them so they don't break as you assemble?

 

[herman1rg]

Another Awesome Greek modeller's build

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done so far!

 

[Capt. Vick]

Yeah what is it with these Greeks? First democracy now this?

 

[Lucky13]

Excellent work mate!

 

[zaxos345]

Thank you very much guys for the nice comments. Those small fiddly bits, most of them, are not glued yet.
It is a big project and i try to put as much detail as i can, after all, it was the plane i used to fly with, my first ''love''.

John

 

[Crimea_River]

Great to see you back with another superb project John. Looking forward to updates.

 

[Capt. Vick]

You flew those? Terrific!

 

[zaxos345]

Good morning guys, another small update. This time i started with the Aires escapac 1G-2 seat...Mmmm not so...1G-2 thing!!! Aires does not even gives the canopy breakers!! Also the survival kit is wrong...so....

And i started, using a piece of resin, to scratch built the survival kit...

Next step the cushion of the survival kit. After 2 unfortunate attempts i finally came with something like that..

At the same time i tried to correct the parachute with milliput... and i added some major details that Aires did not provide...

And i though i had come to the end...until i saw the ''office''. A lot off mistakes, even for a -E model! I had to remove and add some things in order to correct it for -H model!
So before...

And i started to remove and build...

[

...Some interior missing details or improvements...

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[zaxos345]

...

I added some Archer rivet (one by one with future!)

Next with the dashboard...

...and i tried to give a third dimension on the I.P.

And finally...the oxygen regulator

So far so good lads, i know, it is a big post!!! Hope you like it

John