First the wing....

I went with outdoor leadouts this time.  The Brodak bellcrank is a lot bulkier than the old J.Roberts unit.  To get it inside would have been tough and also weakened the stucture.  This setup will let them be adjustable and maybe sliding  in the future.

Yep, 13 external bomb racks.  More payload that 4-engine bombers (pre B-29).   Rolled out in 1945, too late for WWII, but made it to Korea and Vietnam.  Still active in 1973.  Used by France and some of it's colonies unitl 1986.

In the 70's guys were getting sick of navy blue and going to the grey paint jobs.  Since this is retro, I've flipped back to the blue, with dyed silk.  I'll be covering and doping the parts before final assembly.

I hadn't heard that any Skyraiders were shot down by MiG's, but it's sure possible.  By the time I was over there, there were stories of Skyraiders scoring a few MiG kills.  In the later stages of the war, there were enough well-armed F4's orbiting to keep the MiG's home.

I read that the Skyraiders were so well-liked that there was cost study of having Douglas restart production, but it went by the wayside in favor of the LTV A-7D Corsair II.

I'm not that fast of a builder, this is the last of 10-day backlog of pictures.  Final assembly is a challenge.  I will have to cut off the top block (only lightly glued), then install and adjust the flight and engine controls, then install the fuel tank, then put the top back on and sand and paint it.  On yeah, a tailhook, too.

I started to make the balsa wood canopy, per the plan, but then fiddled around for half a shift vacuum forming one.  Carrier isn't supposed to be a beauty pageant, but I might have a cockpit if it goes well.  The long handle is for holding the frame over my Jen-Aire grill.

Douglas AD-4 Skyraider paint schemes.      

Tom Wilk

Maybe one of these

Tom Wilk

I'm about to go on a three-week non-modeling road trip, so I won't finish this job any time soon,

The plane is so small, there's no room for access panels, so the control system and fuel tank will be built it. Do it right the first time! The final assembly step will be gluing on the top block, after everything has been thoroughly tested.

The plane weighs 28 ounces now. I hope to keep the finished product under 33.  

The Brodak bellcrank has about 1.15" inches of throttle output, but the OS carb only wants 0.70". To reconcile this, I had to make a new, longer throttle arm for the engine. Otherwise the line pull will be transferred into the throttle.

That's a GREAT looking airplane. You put a lot more detail into it than I plan to.

I see you also went with the no-hatch, do-it-right-the-first-time approach.  

So you just slip the engine straight in from the top and dispense with the removable cowl, too?

The measurement of TRUE NET tip weight.

The airplane is supported using the crankshaft as a trunnion. Glow plug removed, lubed with WD, and set so crankcase compression is not a factor.

The inboard wing is counter-weighted to the balance point.

The counter weight is run across the postal scale.

Result:
1.0 ounces of TRUE NET tip weight.  
This NOT the same as merely how much lead is in the tip.

Here's one I made back in the mid 70's. Built exactly as per plan except for the cowl. Power is an ST G21/40 and weight is around 34ozs. I've still got the model.

Pete, I remember seeing that paint job in a Skyraider book. I really liked it so much I painted my Guardians the same for years. Nice looking airplane, you ought to resurect it for nostalgia.
Thanks for the memory.
Wayne

<snip> Oh, and never, ever, try to cross the flight deck to the island during Operation Cat Eye, the Marines get very perturbed. Guess how I learned this on fine evening off VN.

I served in the USAF/ SAC in the mid 80's as a KC-135A/Q Crewchief. Pulled SAC Alert duty several times. There is a painted Red line that seperates the Bombers/ Nukes from the Tankers within the Alert facility, with a Guard tower in between...Don't ever get caught walking over it, or even near it alone. We were briefed in plain English- "Lethal Force would be used".

Here's my favorite Sea Blue Skyraider

My project is currently on hold due to a couple roadblocks of my own making.

First, I made a vacuum formed canopy, which came out OK, but triggered the need for a pilot.  Since the model is 1/20, the normal Williams Brothers 1/12 unit is way too big.  Based on advice from this forum, I was able to order what I need from Peter's Pilots in England.  The price is bit spendy, but they offer a lot of sizes other than the usual 1/12, 1/8, 1/6, 1/5, etc.

The other unexpected problem was the basic Navy/USAF stars and bars decals.  I was a bit disappointed that none of the three surviving hobby shop in the metro area have them.  Back in the day, they would have been a basic over-the-counter item.  Solution: the usual Brodak E-order.  

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I did SAC alert for three years.  I never gave the SKY COPS a chance to demo their takedown maneuver.  

On one of my early orientation flights, I flew (as a passenger) from Orlando Florida to Goose Bay Labrador to pick up a couple of our alert crews.  They were a 7-day rotation.  While we there, we got re-tasked to take a detachment of SKY COPS back to Shreveport.  There were about 40 men and 5 attack dogs (who weren't all that well-trained and didn't like the engine noise). En route home we found that they had been deployed to Goose for a 30-day tour of duty, but had not been relieved for 60 days.  Their CO put up a stink to get them home without further delay.

Crew Duty Day is capital offense in the air force.  This business of picking up the passengers and dropping them off at Shreveport would have run the AC out of flying time, so he went in back and went to sleep along with the air police and let me fly the plane.  I thought, it just can't get any better!  I haven't even had Lesson 1 in this aircraft and I'm at FL 310 over Canada with 60 men and 5 dogs on board.

Probably not, one of our A4 pilots had to bingo to Da Nang after strafing a water buffalo with a Hughes gun pod, pulled up too late and bounced the A4's drop tanks and gun pod off a rice patty. I was flown it to clean out and recover the gun pod.

All done and out the door. 36 days in the chop, which included a 17-day vacation and nine days waiting for the pilots and decals.  I ended up using Brodak 1/2A decals which fir the 1/20 scale OK.  They nare valid for the first three years of the airplane's 40-year life.  The "Pete's Pilots" WWII product fits the era, along with the (boring) navy blue coloration.