Tamiya Douglas A-1H Skyraider U.S. Navy

The Douglas A-1 Skyraider (formerly AD) was an American single-seat attack aircraft that saw service between the late 1940s and early 1980s. It became a piston-powered, propeller-driven anachronism in the jet age, and was nicknamed “Spad”, after a French World War I fighter.The Skyraider had a remarkably long and successful career, even inspiring its straight-winged, slow-flying, jet-powered successor, the A-10 Thunderbolt II. It was operated by the United States Navy (USN), the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) and the United States Air Force (USAF), and also saw service with the British Royal Navy, the French Air Force, the Air Force of the Republic of Vietnam (VNAF), and others.

Here are some pictures of a built Tamiya Douglas A-1H Skyraider 1:48 scale. As you might notice, I went very easy with the weathering relying mostly on pre-shading. When I wanted to add this beautiful model aircraft to my shelf, my options were Italeri and Tamiya.

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The Italeri as far as I remember is a re-pack of the old ESCI kit. I once stopped at my local Hobby Town for paint and other model supplies; although I paid premium for the instant gratification of bringing it home with me, it was a very good decision to opt for the Tamiya offering.

Not a high parts number, yet beautiful molded on details. The main fuselage halves do fit spot on and the wings sub-assembly to the fuselage is a charm.

When the parts do fit like that, I take the liberty of painting the sub assemblies and later on touch up IF the glue affects some parts of the overall finish.

The model was painted with Tamiya XF-2 Flat White on the bottom and the top was painted with Model Master Flat Gull Gray. The decals went on very smooth considering that Tamiya is famous for their ‘thick’ decal sets.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

If you want to have a fine representation of the Douglas Skyrider on your model kits shelf, you can’t be wrong with either Monogram or Tamiya’s newest offerings. I will admit that both are good kits but my vote goes in favor of Tamiya 😉