USAF Thunderbirds A-10 "Thunderbrrrt"

[TheChronicOne]

I really dig the Thunderbirds. I also love doing juxtaposition so now I'm going to take what is most often one of the dirtiest and most utilitarian aircraft and streamline it....making it one of the prettiest, sleekest, cleanest Thunderbolt IIs the world has ever seen by applying glossy red, white, and blue paint and making her a demonstration aircraft.

I am rolling out with the old school Monogram kit:



There are a ton of glorious weapons with the kit. The detail looks pretty nice, too, for something from the early 80's. Detriments are flash....  wide and long attach points to the parts......... ejection tower points in "bad" places (such as some on the tires that are quite difficult to remove...) and the instructions have flaws (I whine quite loudly about this in my build blog). 


Oops! The instructions have part 43 turned upside down.

I started by culling parts and sprue sections I didn't need. The kit comes with a plentiful load of weaponry so I gladly took that along with the pylons to a baggy for the parts stash. Fuel tanks and weapons sensors will also go to the parts stash; the theme is a streamlined, slick, and light Warthog so we don't need any of that. In fact, per the "story", there won't even be the Avenger gun or armor surrounding the cockpit. Indeed, this A-10 will be fleet of foot.


Speaking of feet, I cleaned up and glued together the gear struts and wheels/tires.

As far as how it will look: there will still be the "facade" of the GAU-8 with a chromed gun-tip and (maybe)barrel for the purpose of reminding the crowd of what the A-10 was built around.  The actual machinery will be absent inside but will look completely intact on the outside. Also there will be no pylons, gas tanks, sensors, or any superfluous communications equipment so it will have a clean looking fuselage and wings. 


Should be a hoot.

[Scotaidh]

Sounds fun.   

You do realize, right, that that now someone has to do one for the Blue Angels, just to watch a JMN's head explode ...

[Flyer]

Love this idea, I'm also a A-10 fan

Only thing I can see that may be a issue is if you remove the gun and cockpit armour then it will be VERY tail heavy...

[TheChronicOne]

Huh!   Good point. Perhaps replaced with lead ingots or something? Only matters if I decide to write up a back story for it, which I rarely do anyway. 

That's something to consider here in the real world as well.... I THINK there's enough room to pack the nose full of weight but the kit even supplies a clear stick to attach to the tail to keep it from tail sitting.

BLUE ANGELS. Yeah buddy.....   One day I'm definitely doing an F-16 for them but perhaps in the Naval realm something like..... an Intruder?    A-10 Thunderbirds sounds sweet but if I were to do a "somewhat" equivalent bird but from the Navy, I guess an Intruder would fit the bill.

[PR19_Kit]

A Blue Angels Hawkeye with a big gold 'NAVY' writ large on top of the radome so the folks can see it they roll.................. 

[kerick]

In the RW I don't think the cockpit armor could be removed without cutting up the airframe. And removing the gun would definitely require massive counter weights. All of which would be unseen so wouldn't matter much. As we say, your idea, your build so build it your way.

[TheChronicOne]

A Blue Angels Hawkeye with a big gold 'NAVY' writ large on top of the radome so the folks can see it they roll.................. 

That would be awesome!! I just happen to have one of those Hasegawa kits, too. Chances are, the 1/144 decals for their Hercules would translate well into 1/72 on the Hawkeye. 

[TheChronicOne]

In the RW I don't think the cockpit armor could be removed without cutting up the airframe. And removing the gun would definitely require massive counter weights. All of which would be unseen so wouldn't matter much. As we say, your idea, your build so build it your way.

This is very true! I was thinking more along the lines of them still being in production and the AF requested one "stripped-down" in which case none of that stuff would have been built into the airframe in the first place. The thought of taking an in service airframe and gutting it had never crossed my mind, in fact, although that sounds interesting too! 

[Old Wombat]

Removing the weight of the gun & armour up front would shift the Centre of Gravity (CoG) aft, meaning having to move the engines forward (to almost directly over the wings) at the rear, thus moving the CoG forward, to avoid totally screwing up the handling of the aircraft.

Better just to keep them in situ & find other ways of lightening the plane (although considerably less, obviously).





Edit: Fixed grammatical stuff up.

[zenrat]

You could compensate for the removal of the gun by removing one engine and mounting the other one directly above the rear fuselage.

[sideshowbob9]

Do what they did with the Typhoon and just leave the gun in, it's simpler and cheaper. You could always inhibit it. Great idea BTW. Look forward to seeing it. 

[TheChronicOne]

OR.... get this... and stay with me....... we could simply put something heavy in there? Mind blowing, I know.  Here's the thing, why would the military dump a bunch of expensive equipment into an aircraft that would never need or use it? How much do GAU-8s cost? Instead of putting the GAU-8 inside, putting something of equal weight in there instead and save the GAU-8 for an actual combat capable vehicle.

[sideshowbob9]

^ With similar weight distribution as the gun, both longitudinally and laterally? It is a big system that takes up a lot of real estate. Then flight testing it to make sure it is in the CofG limits? I can think of better ways to spend a few million US$. I'd also want to leave it as vanilla as poss, so if the balloon went up, Davis–Monthan would have a little more time to generate attrition replacements. The Thunderbirds would just need a quick spray-paint and a ferry flight to theatre.

Not my model, of course but if no-one gave their 2-cents it would be a real quiet site!

[PR19_Kit]

When the A-10 first came out they delighted in telling us that the gun was '...about the size of a Volkswagen...', so why not put a VW in there?

It'd weigh about the same and it could act as a crew bus when they really needed one. 

[DogfighterZen]

OR.... get this... and stay with me....... we could simply put something heavy in there? Mind blowing, I know.  Here's the thing, why would the military dump a bunch of expensive equipment into an aircraft that would never need or use it? How much do GAU-8s cost? Instead of putting the GAU-8 inside, putting something of equal weight in there instead and save the GAU-8 for an actual combat capable vehicle.

Guys, correct me if i'm wrong but don't the demo teams have to be able to return the show planes to combat ready status in 24 hours or something like that?
I know that the Viper has it's gun removed but how much effort would the Hog need to be in proper conditions for a show or combat?