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"El Tordillo", The
Dapple Grey Horse.
Throughout the Falklands war of 1982, the Skyhawks of the Fuerza Aérea
Argentina, along with the Israeli built Daggers, bore the brunt of the
offensive against the British forces retaking the island. Some 21 Skyhawks
fell victim to the layered defenses of the British forces, but no-one seeing
film of Skyhawks attacking the fleet moored in San Carlos Water can doubt the
extreme bravery and dedication of the pilots involved in these attacks, it
was, in every sense of the word going "into the jaws of
death".
The Royal Navy lost several
ships directly to Skyhawk attack, which were often conducted at below mast
level, and had the bombs been fused correctly, even more damage may have been
inflicted. The aircraft invariably only carried 1 or 2 bombs, as they
were operating at the extremes of their range, having to conduct a round trip
of some 800 miles in order to conduct their attacks, with very little hope of
rescue should damage or malfunction result in having to ditch into the
unforgiving waters of the South Atlantic in winter.
This particular A-4B is based on the superb little Fujimi kit, with some
modifications necessary to represent an FAA aircraft. I rebuilt the interior
entirely from card, aluminium tape and sprue, and used an Aeroclub
white metal and etched brass Escapac seat. In the end tho' , the cockpit
opening is so small that little can be seen (Having sat in a Skyhawk cockpit
I can personally vouch for it's diminutive size. . . .at 6'4" tall and
not exactly svelte, I am pretty sure I would have found it impossible to fly
a Skyhawk purely for physical reasons. . . fitting a quart into a pint pot
indeed! And this was the A-4M I sat in with a bigger canopy than these early
models!)
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The avionics hump on the spine
was fashioned from several laminations of plastic sheet carved to shape with a
light fairing added form shaped Contrail aerofoil extrusion. Being an A-4B
it only has 3 pylons, with the wing pylons by necessity carrying fuel and just
one or two bombs on the centreline (ironically many of the bombs used during the
Falklands/Malvinas were of British manufacture!) The Fujimi Skyhawk is a
lovely little model, but a little difficult to find now (especially the A4B and
C kits. . grab 'em if you see 'em!), it's breakdown requires some care in
building but with some patience it all goes together very nicely. Slat tracks
are a little long and benefit from shortening slightly, but it's basically
accurate and trouble free.
I wanted to
build something a little different, so when I obtained decals for an overall
grey Skyhawk this was my decision made! This Skyhawk was rushed from depot
level maintenance to join the war, still in her grey primer, tho' some patches
on the tail and wings indicate she was at least scheduled to receive ID bands.
She acquired the nickname "El Tordillo". which translates into
"The Dapple Grey Horse", and flew several missions during the war at
the hands of Cåpitan Varela, one definitely on May 28th 1982. She
survived the war and was later painted in the then standard two tone topsides
with pale blue unders. One interesting point is that the wheel wells and legs of
these aircraft appear to have been painted pale blue rather than the more normal
white. All little things that go to make a visually interesting
model, in spite of the single colour. Paints were Xtracolor throughout and
decals are from the Aztec range from Mexico. Superbly printed and of very
interesting subjects, I recommend these sheets highly!
This
was an interesting project and one I enjoyed highly, I'll be building more
Argentineans Skyhawks soon enough, maybe even in 1/48th with the super new
Hasegawa kit.
Drewe
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