Nice, Doug!! That is EXACTLY how I envision these old birds after they've been used n abused and seen a lot of action. Excellent job, man. And, you nailed the look of that specific aircraft, right down to the unique camo pattern.
I wish I could've gone with the exposed innards display like yours. It would really help to overcome the horrid fit of the parts in my kit. But, the guy for whom I'm building this plane wants it looking ready to fly, so....
In a way, that helps, as I've discovered a few more problems with this old Hasegawa kit. I'm gonna finally just button 'er up, gluing down the cowl hood and gun cover because the guns, as finely detailed that they are, won't fit under the hood. Even though they fit over the cowl slots perfectly. Yes, I'm using the proper hood for the guns (the smaller gun option along with the not so well endowed hood for my particular A5). I cant shave down the cowl hood to accommodate the guns, if I shaved them to fit, since the engine is tight in the cowl as it is.
Which leads to another problem. The bottom cylinder heads were in the way of the bottom wing portion so I had to slice off some of that to get my bottom wing part to fit snugly. However, there's still some minor puttying to do so the wing assembly fits nicely with the fuselage.
Here's one last look at my engine that I toiled over getting the right look of weathering and stainage, sigh...........
Cuts needed to allow bottom wing portion fit.......
You may have noticed the funny bumps on the sides of my cowl. It turns out "Wutz" 's A5 had the add-on supercharger so I made my own. The body of a Bic pen, some filler, a knife and lots of time n sanding...
That's it !! No more correcting of kit screw-ups or adding of pilot's individual needs. Don't forget I had to change the canopy and rear deck area due to this:
Wow, this is by far the most screwed-up kit I've ever cared about building. If it wasn't for you guys and my friend's needs I would have have trashed it or boxed it up for some other time. But, now I'm down to a little body puttying and the paint job. Been a long road but the end is in sight now.