Freewing 80mm A-10 Modifications

[RCjetdude]

I plan to swing by the Jet Jam briefly on my may to NEFI just to check things out.

[RCjetdude]

Stepping out for the first time between showers.







I added a little more detail to the sniper pod



and here is a shot of the ladder stowed.

[TiredIronGRB]

Dang Steve that is gorgeous! I'm just going to send mine back when it gets here ;)

[RCjetdude]

Dang Steve that is gorgeous! I'm just going to send mine back when it gets here ;)

LOL! I know better.. you are not a man to turn away an airplane. :) For example my J-10.

[bill34207]

That does look great sitting on the tarmac. Wish I had your patience.

[Patrnflyr]

Did the weight end up at 15.5lbs as earlier predicted.

[RCjetdude]

I am at 15.9 lbs without ordnance. 16.1 lbs with. It is a little heavier than I had hoped it would end up but I have communicated with Alpha and he indicated they tested it at 16 lbs so it will fly. I also asked Kelly Leggette what his thoughts were and he seemed to feel it would be fine as well and won't be the performer that a lighter plane would be with longer take off distance, hotter landings, etc. His weighs in at 13.3 lbs with ordnance and 2 Admiral 5000's. I also have the option of installing 90's in it as well which is nice but I will fly it on the 80's to see how they perform. I am not into hot dogging a plane like this around so hopefully everything will go well with the maiden. I will fly it first without ordnance. Take off, get it trimmed, check my flight trims, make a gun run and start setting up for landing. I want to give myself plenty of time to go around if needed on the first flight. That is my plan anyway.

[TiredIronGRB]

I dare say the extra weight won't make that much difference.

[Evoman]

If a real A-10 in capable of carrying up to 16,000lb of mixed munitions on its pylons, so I don't see how a little extra weight could hurt this large RC version.

Great work on the attention to detail by the way!

[F106DeltaDart]

The A-10 just looks better and better with each photo you've posted RCjetdude! I'm sure it will handle the extra wieght with no problem. Looking forward to your maiden video. I'll bet that powder cannon is going to look awesome in flight! :Cool:

[EDFjetpilot]

I plan to swing by the Jet Jam briefly on my may to NEFI just to check things out.

I'm planning on being at the Jet Jam for my first time...would love to see your beautiful work up close. Really hope you can swing by.

Sean

[sam51401]

I plan to swing by the Jet Jam briefly on my may to NEFI just to check things out.

Im sure yours will be a hit of the meet. This just looks so awesome and really pops with the Euro scheme. If i wasn't so die hard for wanting to continue the Blacksnakes scheme i would do a Euro scheme, maybe the older one that the unit did for the DDay commemorative one.

Oh i just noticed that your gear door is open, nice touch

[RCjetdude]

Im sure yours will be a hit of the meet. This just looks so awesome and really pops with the Euro scheme. If i wasn't so die hard for wanting to continue the Blacksnakes scheme i would do a Euro scheme, maybe the older one that the unit did for the DDay commemorative one.

Oh i just noticed that your gear door is open, nice touch

The gear door was just manually opened for the pictures. The first sequencing module I tried using had a problem and Motion is sending me a replacement so eventually it will stay open when the gear are down for paved surfaces and I can change it to close if flying off grass.

[RCjetdude]

I'm planning on being at the Jet Jam for my first time...would love to see your beautiful work up close. Really hope you can swing by.

Sean

It will be a first for me as well but I am just stopping for awhile to check things out. Not planning on flying.

[TSHobbies]

man thats some great work! You should do know how to make someone drool over an airplane lol

[petefoss]

It will be a first for me as well but I am just stopping for awhile to check things out. Not planning on flying.

So frustrating that Jay scheduled NEFI against the Jet Jam but the Jet Jam wins, no contest for me!

[Alpha]

To those who asked about my riveting and shading techniques, I'll post them here so we can organize all the modifications chatter in one thread. These techniques can be tried on any aircraft. They just so happen to be done on the Freewing 80mm A-10. There are many ways to weather an aircraft. This is just one of the ways using a Badger Patriot airbrush, Master airbrush compressor from Amazon, an adapter between them, and Testors Model Master and Tamiya Acrylic paints.

1) Surface prep:
If you're painting over the factory-paint, a simple wipe down with very mild soap and water will be more than enough. I don't shoot primer or anything else. The factory-applied paint has a slightly elastic component to it that bonds well with the A-10's foam.

My preproduction sample A-10 was not painted (so you can skip this part). In fact, it is much easier to paint over a factory-painted aircraft, because at the factory the bare foam is treated and the paint's attributes are different than what most of us have access to. Painting bare foam with an airbrush leaves a thinner but much less durable coating. If you're painting bare foam, I recommend washing with a mild detergent to remove any mold-release solvents. A wipe down with weak acetone worked for me, followed by one layer of WBPU mixed with lightweight spackle after a base layer gray. Two to three layers of the WBPU were used in high traffic areas. Then, everything was wet sanded down to 400 grit. If this was going to be a "show bird" I would have done more work on the surface, but opted for the "quick route".


2) Rivets:
Prepare a bamboo skewer by sanding down the tip flat to about 0.5mm in diameter. Then, plot out the number of rivets on a given panel using online photos for reference. Lightly depress the bamboo skewer ONTO the surface of the foam, but not INTO it. It's helpful to think that "rivets" in this scale are not holes --they're depressions. In less than 20 minutes the entire A-10 fuselage can be marked. When in doubt, less is more.



3) Pre-Shading:
Realistic shading is all about building up gradual layers. The first base layer I did was to shoot a rust color and then a lighter brown color. Most of this will be covered up by the gray, so I just painted them as lines. Notice how the color "pools" into the depressions you made with the bamboo skewer. If you had poked actual holes, the color wouldn't pool in them. So making the depressions in Step 2 above is important.

After the rust and the lighter brown have been shot in all of the rivets, I then shot in various grays, randomly, in different areas. There is even some tan and sand tones shot in certain areas. Aircraft are rarely only shaded in tones of gray. Again, all of this is just to build up layers of color that will shine through the final coats, so don't be afraid to lay it on thick in areas.



4) First Primary Layer:

With a steady hand, begin to airbrush your first layer of the primary color between the rivets. Much of the reds and browns and tans will fade away under your primary color gray. That's fine! The secret is to change the angle of the airbrush facing the rivets. Shoot some from the top, some from the bottom, some from the side, etc. The result is an illusion of depth because at different angles the rivets and other surfaces will seem to "pop" out because they're shaded differently. The reds and browns will appear less uniform, and more realistically depict uneven oxidation or wear on each individual rivet.




5) Shading Continues:
After knocking down the color contrast on the rivets in Step 4, continue to build up your primary color in Step 5, but this time shooting from the center of each panel and radiating outward toward the edges. This feathering technique will highlight the center of the panel and give the edges less paint, which in turn allows the colors beneath it be still be seen. Airbrushes are excellent for fine work but also using their overspray with a wide nozzle contributes to the overall effect. Again, remind yourself that uniformity is not the goal.





6) Top Color:
Once happy with your primary color and the overall balance of shading, shoot lighter top color in the center of certain panels and dust the overall model with it. Based on reference photos of your aircraft, you may also want to simulate paint fading by dusting the taller areas such as the fuselage spine. By contrast, areas around exhaust ports and similar are dusted with a darker color.

Bonus: Notice the extra panel lines I shot along the top fuselage spine. Back in Step 3, these lines were simply masked with large Post-It notes from the front facing edge, and dusted in a rearward motion. Some were freehanded. Depending on the level of fading you plan to paint, the original line doesn't always need to be perfectly straight because the feathered edges will blend non-uniformly, anyway.



7) Super Bonus: Use the included decal sets as a template to trace the design onto the model with a very light pencil, but then paint the design on yourself.




8) Don't Crash.

[T-CAT]

Awesome write up! Thanks. The number 8 cracked me up.

[Aros]

Nice Alpha!

[Clearblue]

Thanks for sharing this detail work with us. It should help a lot of us put out some great looking Hogs!
Jim.