Matt Robeson walks us through the forest of sprues in Trumpeter's new 1/32 Intruder kit.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

AMS resin now makes seats for this and Avionix has a pit.

Joel,Joel,Joel calling Joel.

Id love to see whatyou could do with this,although it's not 1/48.

Chris

Chris,
Oh please on't temp me. I had the box in my hands last week at my LHS, and it's huge. I mean really huge. I'd love to tackle a kit of this magnitude, but I just don't have anywhere to display it. Not to mention that it's not exactly cheap.
Joel

Matt,
Certainly an excellent and well detailed review. I'm looking forward to your build, as it should be a really modeling journey.

Joel

Oh dear, this one keeps calling to me. It was on sale at a show last weekend with one trader selling it a fair bit cheaper than the others, I resisted but I don't know for how long.

I must admit compared to it's better looking stablemate (the F-14) the A-6 has never been high up my must build list until last year when I got the then new 1/48 kits now after reading the review I can see a very large intruder (pun intended) in my stash in the near future.

Excellent kit review. Though I disagree about only pilots knowing the difference between the GRU-5 and GRU-7. The A-6 is a by far a favorite of mine, so I was thrilled that Trumpeter did it justice in 1/32 (and HB in 1/48). One of the things I really wish they had done though was include both types of fuselage panels - one plated and the perforated speed brakes. Instead they only give one type in each of their releases.

The panther on the decal is just one of many, many issues with the decal sheets. Trumpeter sheets seem to be in general very inaccurate and approximations (their later E boxing is just as bad). The stencils are very poor, complete with many misspellings and coloring and sizes are way off. I did really enjoy seeing "NO STEP" markings indicated on the instructions to be applied on the bottom of the wing.

Disclaimer, I'm involved with AOAdecals and offer A-6 sheets and also specific stencil sheet for the A-6 - primarily due to the kit one being so bad. I'm biased of course but I think if you compare the kit version with the aftermarket you'll see a significant difference and improvement.

Steve,
AOA Decals has a write up in our News section. I was the one who started off with a negative comment, then as I clarified it, was praising AOA for their decals and magnitude of stenciling included, as well as your fantastic instructions. I did say as a 1/48 scale builder, that I had just built the Hobby Boss A-6E using Fightertown decals, which had a few major issues that required the use of the kit decals instead, as well as the kit stencils which were of a much poorer quality.

In short, I'm really looking forward to trying AOA decals, but you only offer A-6 subject matter right now, and I'm not planning on building another A-6 for some time. Are there other Vietnam era aircraft you're planning on making decals for?

Joel

Steve any plans on doing Navy decals for the A-6 in 1/32?

Definitely. In 1/48 I have ongoing plans on doing my next personal favorite, the A-4. I have about 6 or so schemes pretty much done already, with references and plans for many more. I see it easily being two releases covering both USN and USMC A-4s (not necessarily one sheet for each). Surprisingly the A-4 research was/is actually harder and more frustrating than it was with the Marine A-6s which I never expected. Anyway, I got burned out struggling with the A-4s, and took a break and ended up doing the second 1/32 A-6 sheet. Since the A-4s are still preliminary I don't want to yet announce which schemes/squadrons will be covered.

I'm currently working on another (mostly) Vietnam 1/32 sheet at the moment (not A-6).

My primary interest is aircraft that were in combat and I need to have interest in the schemes in order to do the decals for (otherwise it would similar to having to build a kit of a subject you don't have any interest in). I'm sure others may want to see other schemes available (everyone has personal favorites of course), or maybe those that are more colorful or visually interesting (to me the potentially "bland" combat scheme is more interesting than a colorful peacetime scheme).





Most of sheet 32-003 is Navy A-6s and is due out shortly. I don't plan to do any of the high-viz Navy A's if that's what you're looking for though? As much as I'd love to do more A-6s, I don't see it happening considering the relatively small market for 1/32 A-6s.

Steve,
I'm in for the Scooter.
Joel