50th Anniversary Vietnam War Group Build

Hey, actually the fuse halves fit together quite well. As I do not want to rear to be seperate I glued small tabs to the inside of the front sections to help with alligning it all.

I used tamiya super thin glue and just did small sections at a time till it was all joined.

I have no ieda what the bombload will e, I will have to enlist the help of the Thud experts here :-)

The flaps were slightly to long to fit well into the trailing edge slot so I had to sand a little off the flap root to make it fit.

The spoilers were a tad fiddly to glue in , but they it OK-ish. I still think a littl sanding will be needed to have the outboard spoiler seat better.

Theuns

Theuns

No Thud expert here but I built a D some years back. I researched it and a typical load was 750 pounders on the center line on a MER. Inboard were the fuel tanks and outboard either jamming pods, or single 750 pounders GP or Anti Radiation Missiles of the period.

I modeled mine after "Honey Babe", a Thud from the 469th TFS based at Korat and flown by Maj. George Avila during Rolling Thunder strikes.

Thats correct PJ. The kit supplied ordinance of Bullpups and Mk. 82s is basically wrong for a Vietnam Thud. I've read the same as you, with the outboard pylons carrying a sidewinder on the starboard side and an ALQ jamming pod on the port side.

Dang, so the bang stuff in the kit is wrong??

Theuns

Yep Dude. You need the Hasegawa weapons sets. They are purty good.

Here's a picture of mine to give you an idea

Right, but that still leaves you without the centerline MER and pylon, as its not in the Hobbyboss kit, or the Hase weapons sets.

Rats!  

Theuns

...Ok, another look shows Hase weapons set A has the correct bombs along with the correct MER for the centerline, but one would still have to scratch the centerline pylon for it, or steal the whole thing from the old Revell kit.

What would the posibility be of the bombs in the kit used on the Thud, or were they to small for the job, even 6 by 82's on each wing pylon ?

Failing that, would a "reasonable"  load be a CL tank, wing tanks and 2 Bulpup missles?

I really do not want to go buy another weapon set...

Theuns

Mine is the old Monogram G converted to a D  and  used the Hasegawa weapons sets. You can try getting the centerline pylon from Revell parts dept.

Here in South Africa we have had a postal worker strike for the past 3 months, no end in sight so I will not even attempt to get anything in from over seas, will just have to make due with what I have for now.

Theuns

I would just look around the net for 105D photos and see what you can find. I'm sure I've seen pics of Thuds carrying Mk. 82s on the outboards. I've also seen them loaded out with a centerline fuel tank, inboard tanks, and a large Mk. 84 bomb on each outboard pylon for large bridge busting missions. But there's no Mk. 84's either in the kit.

-Bummer about the Postal Strikes. Sucks when things like that are out of your control. No Fedex equivalent in South Africa?

What's the quality of the Revell kit PJ? Would the centerline parts look good on the Hobbyboss kit? I was thinking of using the Revell gear legs also.

Nathan

I love the old Monogram Century Series jets. The molded detail is great and the overall fit is good. I don't see why not you can't use the centerline point on the HB but the legs may be a different story regarding the attachment points in the HB wing.  

The courier guys are making a killing here now that there is no goverment postal service, but for simple stuff like regular mail we are pretty much screwed at the moment.

I have seen Mk 82's on the outer pylons, but only one per pylon.....that just looks wrong.

I will maybe go"unconventual" and do the CL tank, wing tanks and MER with 6 by 82's each.

If the Thud ever flew or even had the grunt to get off the ground like this I don't know.

I will just say it was for ultra long range missions "to the wrong side" of a line on a map somwhere ;-)

Theuns

The most common load outs for Thuds was a centerline MER with 6x M117s or 6x Mk.82 slicks and drop tanks on the inboard pylons. depending upon the period of the airwar the ourboard pylons originally had a single M117 or Mk.82, that was later replaced by an ECM pod on one side and occasionally a single AIM-9B on the opposite side. For special strikes such as the Paul Doumer bridge "downtown" a single centerline tank was used, with two M-118 3000lb bombs on the inboard wing pylons and no outboard pylons carried. F-105Ds paired up with F-105F Wild Weasels in "Hunter Killer" teams carried a centerline MER of CBU-24 in a "flat four" configuration, with inboard pylon drop tanks and outboard pylon Shrikes, CBUs, or even LAU-19 rocket pods.

Lots of combinations. This is an interesting site:

www.burrusspta.org/thud.html

Thats a great site PJ! I highly recommend the slide show...

OK, I am doing a little image searching on Life again and came across these various gems there of random Vietnam images... so here is some eye candy for the Vietnam War buff/student...

Some great pics there Stik. What is that first one. I have seen that before but have no idea what its called.

Oh, it's the HH-43F Husky/Pedro base rescue chopper! One of my favourites. Thanks for the pictures, Stik!

Paweł

Thanks Pawel. I have heard the name Huskey before, now I know what it is.

I don't believe anybody is making a decent Husky and the only one available is the old Hawk one.

Yes, Hawk/Testors is the only HH-43 kit out there. Cobra Company makes a resin interior upgrade for it...

Great pics Stik. Thanks for the Thud advice as well.

Hello!

In 1/72 there's also a Mach 2 offering - very basic and needs a lot of work, but I'll try to build it someday. I just love that chopper!

Have a nice day

Paweł

The kit nose guns did not look very good

So I got some barrels from Quickboost

Much better

I then raided my tackle box for some small sinkers for nose weight and secured them with masking tape as they will be sandwiched against the nose bulkhead

And then disaster as the nose slipped out of my grip and landed on the tile floor busting 3 freaking barrels!

The nose is on and the weight keeps it from being a tail sitter.

Guys, I have a 1.48 Hasagawa A-4 here of US NAVY "VC-1"

Did this sqn see action in Vietnam, if so, off of witch ship?

Theuns

Those guns are a nice addition PJ, I do like the QB sets.

PJ - that Invader looks really good! Keep 'em updates comin'!

Theuns - now that's a negative! Quick google search shows this squadron (VC-1) operated from Hawaii and acted as adversaries and support during exercises:

a4skyhawk.org/.../vc1.htm

I don't think you should have lots of trouble getting other decals for your kit, though.

Good luck with your projects and have a nice day

Paweł