Trumpeter 1/32 A-4E Skyhawk 'Jester's Jet'

By Daniel Sahling

I present to everyone a 1/32 'Jester's A-4' from the movie Top Gun! A little background on this build, it began as my A-4F Blue Angels, but due to a canopy cracking and at the time I couldn't get the windshield to fit properly, so alas to the shelf-of-doom it went. One day Top Gun was on TV and I thought, I'd give it a go! It's the excellent Trumpeter kit (which I highly recommend to anyone considering any A-4 version), with the Wolfpack cockpit, Aires wheel bays, AMS resin bent refueling probe, SAC nose gear, Eduard photoetch flaps and slats, Quickboost ejection seat, Two Bobs 'Top Gun Tinker Toys Decals' (A VERY special thank you to Fred (F5Guy) for donating these extremely hard to find decals to me!) Some scratch building. I originally started this with flaps and slats up since it was for the Blue Angels, but had to pull them off which butchered them in the process, but some careful reconstruction with CA glue, sanding, and scribing fixed it (wish I had some before and after photos). I used Model Master acrylic paints and freehanded the camo after some careful reference checking with the two bobs sheet, photos, and movie clips (the Two Bobs scheme is slightly incorrect). Anyone know of a 1/32 aftermarket set for the A-4 boarding ladder?


© Daniel Sahling 2014

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This article was published on Saturday, October 11 2014; Last modified on Friday, February 10 2017