Kit Review By Kevin Stover

This kit is the latest 1:72 release and addition to the 1:48 scale kit on the same subject. The really cool thing about this model is that the fuselage comes molded in one piece.

The great thing about this is that you don’t have to worry about those nasty seam lines down the middle and ruining all of the fancy detail when filling. There are still mold lines along the sides,

N/AW A-10A Thunderbolt.

but they are very faint. A mild sanding stick should do the trick here. The whole

kit is crisp and clean of waste. The instruction sheet is only two pages! Now

don’t think that this will be a walkthrough.

1:72 usually means that you have to take care in not being ham-fisted with over

sanding and scribing. This kit is no exception. The $30.00 bucks shelled out for

this one is well represented in the amount of detail you get. On the other hand, Hobby Boss’s other 1:72 scale offerings ring in at around $10-$12 and are less detailed.

First, after taking care of those ghost mold lines, you need to do up the cockpit.

The details are rendered in decal, but you can punch these up by a little cutting

and spraying with flat. The only out of box addition here was two aftermarket

seats. The wings and lower fuselage comes next. The wing seam lines are

easy to take care of here.

The main problem with this kit comes in joining the bottom fuselage to the one-piece hull. The surrounding seam line cuts under most of the body but

in some very interesting places. Filling and rescribing are required here.

Take it easy, though. The lower nose details are small and can be wiped away quickly. There are two nasty seams on both sides of the rear spine.

The engine nacelles are pretty easy to polish off. Painting them is a little tricky. Remember, replace all the lines you erase. Now, you pretty much have an A-10 staring at you. For the canopy, I chose to display it open.

Engine Nacelle Intake Fan.

This means a little research on-line. Turns out that this plane is a one-off with no other siblings. The two place canopy opens to the right. This means cutting. Using John Vojtech’s razor worked great in cutting the single canopy into four pieces. These are then polished, futured and painted. Plastic strip and rod will make appropriate canopy hinges.

For the finish, I chose to display the plane in its natural beat-up state that existed shortly before its last flight. This was back in the `80s, so the sun has done some damage. The color painting instructions would have you finishing the kit in F-15, dark aggressor gray with light gray insignias.

Pictures of the actual plane show only black U.S. markings with a smattering of test markings and a faded appearance. That dark gray turned light pretty fast in that Mojave sun. Also interesting, is that the box art depicts the more faded and beat appearance I was going for.

Center fuel tank.

Oops, I did steal some parts from a Hasegawa A-10 kit sitting on my shelf. The Hobby Boss kit is a little too clean for my liking, so I used the center fuel tank and some of the decals. The AGM-65 Maverick missiles and laser guided bombs came from a weapons set. The blue body of the bombs designates training only. I feel pretty confident that these were tested on the beast. After all, it was supposed to be a night fighter.

Munitions.

The Air Force eventually said no to the project. It never really intended to build this version in the first place. The whole A-10 program was scheduled to be cancelled around 1990. This was just before the Gulf War and before the A-10 distinguished itself in battle.

Now the plane has been reborn in a “C” version. The Air Force still hates the plane. I build very slowly, so it took me awhile by calendar time. Total build time would be around 10-15 hours, not including drying times. Painting takes most of the time. If you chose to do the simpler scheme with no stores, knock five or six hours off the completion time.

It’s a great little kit.

N/AW A-10A Thunderbolt.