Model News 1/72 A-36A Apache

MODEL NEWS 1:72 A-36A APACHE

Reviewer: Tim Holland (rec.models.scale)

Aircraft history:
The A-36A was the USAAF response to testing of the North American Mustang I, built exclusively for the RAF in 1941 and 1942. Since the Mustang I did not have good high altitude performance, the RAF used it for ground attack and reconnaissance. The USAAF belatedly tested their examples and found it performed spectacularly at low levels so they focused on its use as a reconnaissance fighter designated P-51A/F-6A. During 1942 the USAAF wanted a dive bomber in response to the successes demonstrated by the Luftwaffe’s Stuka. The P-51’s impressive performance at low levels prompted the USAAF to look toward that aircraft. By late 1943 three groups were operating the A-36A, the 27^th and 86^th Bombardment Groups (Dive) in Tunisia, Sicily & Italy and the 311^th Fighter Bomber Group in India. 500 A-36A Apache aircraft were built by North American Aviation from October 1942 to March 1943.

General:
This is a limited issue kit and its quality reflects this. The fit is poor and the parts are too thick.

Kit Parts:
There are 47 light gray parts and 1 clear canopy. The canopy is too large and doesn’t fit the kit. It is also full of defects and more opaque than clear. The parts were full of flash, the usual result in a limited issue kit.

Instructions:
The instructions are a single sheet, with history in both English and Czech. The instructions are exploded view type and are very easy to follow.

Construction:
The cockpit tub has some decent details, but after trimming the seat, armored bulkhead, floorboards and cockpit sides to fit into the fuselage there was little detail left and what was is not visible. One part, a square frame that is supposed to fit between the seat and armored bulkhead doesn’t. I left it out. WARNING: if you put the cockpit into the fuselage without ensuring a good dry fit, the fuselage halves will not mate!

The wings went together okay but required a substantial amount of super glue to clean up the wing tips and give them the correct shape. There was a large gap at the tips and the two halves didn’t marry up at the tips even though the panel lines matched elsewhere. There were also a few fit problems all around the mating surfaces, but super glue and sandpaper fixed that.

The fuselage halves had tremendous gaps in a number of places, my kit even had a large sink hole on the razorback behind the cockpit that went all the way through. I glued the cockpit sides into the fuselage then tried to dry fit the cockpit floor subassembly in. IT DOESN’T FIT. After about an hour of carving, sanding and dry fitting I got it in, but lost most of the cockpit details in the process. Either leave the cockpit sides out or sand the backs to a paper thickness in order to begin to get them to fit.

I sanded the mating surfaces lightly to help with fit and used a combination of super glue and plastic cement to get the fuselage together. The wing subassembly didn’t quite fit so I cleaned it up to make it fit. If care is taken the leading and trailing edges of the wings will actually fit properly with the fuselage and the dihedral will be correct. With super glue and the right amount of pressure I got it to fit and look right.

The tail surfaces went on without much difficulty. Use super glue to ensure they fit properly and stay in place.

I spent the next two hours cleaning up the seams and getting a good clean surface for painting. Needless to say there was little surface detail left at this point. Some light scribing went a long way here.

At this point I attempted to dry fit the canopy. It doesn’t. It’s about 4 scale inches too long and too wide. I elected to replace the canopy with a Squadron vacuform canopy. Much better look.

The propeller subassembly is 3 parts – nose cone, prop and back plate. Again the fit is poor but with some work you can get it to fit.

The landing gear is thick but with enough trimming and cleaning it looks right. The main wheels were not even close in terms of appearance so I chucked them and went with True Details’ resin wheels. The wheel well covers are much too thick.

The bombs are poor and don’t look like any bombs I’ve ever seen in my references. I decided to leave them off in the hopes that I can find some decent bombs later. The nose guns where too thick so I used scrap rod from my spares box.

I painted my A-36A with AeroMaster neutral gray (43) and Gunze Sangyo olive drab (FS 34087). Both were lightened with some white to look "right."

Options:
The only option available is to either display the kit with or without the provided 500 lb bombs. The instructions don’t indicate it but you could build it with the landing gear retracted.

Versions:
Only a single version is provided in the kit, although two sets of decals are provided for both a USAAF and a RAF version "borrowed" from the USAAF, according to the kit instructions. My references don’t indicate any A-36A aircraft served with the RAF at any time.

Decals:
The decals looked translucent, so I decided to paint the yellow identification stripes. The insignia where off register so I cannibalized the Condor kit, as it provided two sets.

Accuracy:
The completed model looks right. Its length is 2Ľ scale inches too short and ľ scale inches too short in span. I feel this falls within the limitations of my own abilities to sand and fit, so that’s accurate enough for me.

A photo supplied by Tim of his finished model

Summary:
I spent about 18 hours on this kit, a bit long for me in an out of the box endeavor. For many years there were no kits of the A-36A in this scale so the only option was to convert the Monogram P-51B. I took less time doing that about 6 years ago than it took me to build this kit and recommend that solution before building this kit. Even better—buy the Condor A-36A!

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