Fresh off the bench: A-10 Thunderbolt II ‘Tank Buster’

Hobby Boss 1/72-scale A-10 Thunderbolt II

In my last post, I mentioned the part that nostalgia can play in deciding what models I build. Nostalgia for my childhood certainly played a part in my decision to build this A-10 ‘Tank Buster’, as the ungainly shape and turbofan sound of the A-10 was a daily presence in Lincolnshire in the 1980s and 90s. Back then, as the Cold War was entering a decidedly ‘hot’ period, I lived my childhood in an area peppered with airfields which were home to some of NATO’s strongest and most fearsome warplanes. Despite the on-going and supposedly knife-edge threat of World War 3, which would be expected to begin on the East German border about 600 miles away, it was a great time and place to be a small boy: several times a day the peace would be shattered by low-flying jets like Tornados, Harriers, F-111s and of course A-10s.

Owned and operated by the USAF, our local A-10s were based at RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk, though they also spent time training at FOLs (Forward Operating Locations) in West Germany to familiarise themselves with the terrain and locations in which the next world war would unfold. The A-10 (known as the A-10 Warthog in the US) was designed from scratch as a ground attack aircraft, destroying threats on the ground to enable ground forces to advance, hence the nickname Tank buster. Most military jets of the era would appear over our heads and then vanish in a matter of seconds, often flying at low level with afterburners engaged and often creating sonic booms. The good old Tank Buster was a different story: the open countryside of East Anglia was an ideal training ground for the A-10s, and we became used to them slowly circling our villages, farms, and even school buses as targets on their training missions. A great memory from those days is of standing in my granddad’s back garden with my dad’s binoculars, watching Tank Busters doing circuits on the bombing range at Holbeach Marsh and hearing the distant thunder of their massive rotary canon as they hammered the targets on the range.

I grew fond of the A-10 simply through familiarity, these quirky-looking planes being a daily sight in Lincolnshire 25 years ago. Since then, I have read more about the A-10 including a compilation of memoirs by A-10 pilots in the Gulf, and I have become impressed by the aircraft’s uncompromising design, tough reputation and awesome ability to deliver firepower. A standout feature of the A-10 is the 30mm Avenger canon mounted in the nose, a weapon which fires an armour-piercing 30mm round 65 times per second – and can punch through 38mm of armour from one kilometre away. Aside from its fighting ability, the A-10 boasts some really smart design features, including main landing gear units that can be swapped to either side, a titanium-armoured cockpit, and turbofan engines which are harder for heat-seeking missiles to lock onto.

This model is built from a kit by a relatively new name on the scene, Hobby Boss. I must say it is a pretty good kit which goes together well, though it is disappointing that it doesn’t include any bombs or missiles – hence my A-10 is ‘clean’. The overall shape looks pretty accurate to me, and the cockpit detail is quite good with decals to represent the control panels. The biggest problem during construction was fitting the under-wing weapons pylons: these were attached to the sprue/frame by unnecessarily thick gates, and the effort needed to remove the parts led to me damaging several of them. The locating pegs which are supposed to help line up the pylons in the correct places were too long, and needed trimming in order to fit them. However, the assembly of the fuselage and wings was very good and I only used a little filler on the wing roots and below the cockpit.

I tried to recreate the USAF European One camouflage scheme as used in the 1980s, and I don’t think I have got it quite right but I am happy with the overall effect. The light in the photos makes the plane look pale, but it is actually very dark.

*Edit: I took a photo in different light this morning to show the dark camouflage - see below*

Bad bits:

Lack of missiles and bombs

Small parts difficult to remove from the frame

Some of the decals have 'silvered' (you can see the clear backing film)

Good bits:

Captures the look of the A-10

Good cockpit detail

Camouflage turned out well

WW2 display: A Corner of Kent, 1943

If you involve yourself in a hobby for long enough, sooner or later you will start to feel nostalgia for the ‘old days’. The same goes for model building, and along with many people, I look back fondly at the kits available when I first began building in the early 1980s. The big names back then were Airfix and Matchbox, and though Matchbox no longer produce model kits, Airfix are still on the go and are in fact still making some of the kits modellers used to build 30 and 40 years ago.

I have long been an avid reader of combat pilots’ memoirs, especially those from the Second World War, and I fancied building some of the planes which featured in those personal accounts of the war. After visiting a few old Kent WW2 airfields such as Headcorn, Manston and Hawkinge, I had the bug and quickly got together the materials I needed to build a small display based on a typical Kent RAF airfield in the middle of the war.

The following things were used to create this display:

A cheap DIY pre-cut shelf from The Range (wooden base)

Woodland Scenics grass mat (grassy finish for the base)

Woodland Scenics grass scatter material (dark clover patches for the grass)

Hornby OO-scale Nissen hut (briefing hut)

Oxford Diecast 1-76-scale Alvis Tourer (officer’s car)

Wills OO-scale bicycles (the bike outside the briefing hut)

Airfix 1-72-scale Beaufighter TF-X

Airfix 1-72-scale Spitfire Mk. IX

Construction of the display was very simple. I cut the grass mat to size and stuck it to the wooden base using PVA glue, and placed the briefing room and the car in the same way. I sprinkled darker grass material in patches to look like clover, again stuck with PVA. The planes are simply standing in place. The bare, treadworn patch in front of the hut was made by just scraping the green material off the mat.

Apart from the actual planes themselves, nearly everything else used was taken from the world of OO-scale railway modelling. Though a slightly different scale (OO-scale is 1-76, the Airfix planes are 1-72) they still look about right.

My intention was to create a display, not a diorama. There is no story being told here, no specific moment of action is being captured in model form, and the position of the planes and hut are not totally realistic. Instead, it is a display of two WW2 aircraft as they might have looked in summer 1943, in a setting intended to pay a warm tribute to the airfields of Kent which worked tirelessly to defend the skies of southern England from the Luftwaffe.

Having said that, when I look at the display, a story begins in my own head! I think it is a warm evening in June 1943, about 7pm. After a quiet day the Beaufighter is being readied for a busy nightshift engaging Luftwaffe intruders. The Spitfire is a visitor from another airfield, maybe running an errand or perhaps it stopped short of fuel after a sortie during the day. The black Alvis parked by the briefing room belongs to the Squadron Leader, who has driven over to check up on a War Ministry bulletin or some new intel on enemy tactics. In any case, this green and pleasant idyll among the chalk hills of Kent will echo to the sound of mighty aero engines as crews begin their forays into the darkness to patrol the coast. Soon, the ground crews will grab a few hours’ rest before emerging into a misty dawn to service the returning planes, the pilots hurriedly debriefing in the morning light before eating breakfast and going gladly to their bunks.

The aircraft kits are both inexpensive Airfix kits, and are basic but nice. The Beaufighter in particular appears to be a very old kit, lacking detail (there is no cockpit interior) and needing some work to blend in joints between the parts. The Spitfire Mk. IX is a nicer kit with better detail and parts fit, but is still what you would expect from an older Airfix kit. Both planes were sprayed with an airbrush, the green camouflage on the Spitfire being added with a brush. Ultimately, there are newer and better kits of both planes available but I wanted to go back to my roots and see what could be done with the good old Airfix models, and I have to say I am very glad I did.