The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" - finished

"Fantan" and base finished

ready to fly CAS missions, using guns, rockets and two FAB-250 bombs to support ground troops

The aircraft is held in place by a strong magnet. The base can be adjusted in height.

The long painting war continues. :-D

The Dragon Rises: painting the Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" part#3

Today a considerable amount of time went into cleaning the panel lines' excess paint away. After I was done with this step, I added some weathering and dirt to the aircraft, using washes and Tamiya weathering set powders. I think I am going to leave the Fantan this way, finally adding pilot, canopy, payload and base with the next steps.

The Dragon Rises: painting the Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" part#2

Today I've painted the panel lines. I used Revell's matt black enamel paint, thinned down with turpentine. This needs to dry until tomorrow evening and then I have to carefully clean any excess paint around the recesses. Stay tuned.

The Dragon Rises: painting the Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" part#1

I have spent this afternoon with painting little details here and there, that I wanted to be finished before the gloss varnish layers are applied.

The decals have been taken from various Soviet aircraft and out of the vaccu-form kit itself. Surprisingly they went on quite easily although they were already pretty faded (probably very old). Good thing about faded colours is: it looks natural on an aircraft that is used by the Chinese navy.

The decals were applied using the Micro Set and Micro Sol solutions. I will let everything dry over night and apply the varnish tomorrow. That will allow weathering and pin (panel) wash with oil paints next week.

I am really excited how the kit turned out. I would have never imagined I am capable of building a vaccu-form model. But I can also tell you: it was probably the one and only I will ever assemble. ;-)

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #8

I have decided to give the Fantan a classic gloss white paintjob like its used with the PLA Navy air units. It just had the first layers painted on, so this is far from being finished of course. I painted the pilot (he's missing one arm, because otherwise I won't be able to fit the ejection seat into the cockpit - I'll glue it in place once he's in there).

Four FAB-250 low drag bombs that will go under the fuselage can be seen as well as a WIP of the Fantan's flight base.

This is what I am looking to achieve once completely painted:

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #7

I have put primer on ;-) All coming together now. Barely visible that it was not an injection-mould kit.

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #6

Another couple of hours went into the build and this is the current status: some more work with putty here and there and I think I really can go over with primer this weekend. *yeah!*

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #5

Slowly everything is coming together. The cockpit canopy (which I took from a MiG 19) still needs some filling with green stuff, the fuselage needs another go with putty in some places but other than that its starting to look like a proper airplane. If works continues to go on like today I might be able to put primer on next weekend. :-)

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #4

It's been a while since I last worked on my Q-5 "Fantan".

I have added the air intakes and put together the two halves of the fuselage. As you can see, a lot of green stuff was necessary to fill the gaps. :-(

I have not sanded the model yet so the filled gaps look pretty rough on those pics. Once having sanded them and adding a layer of fine putty (even more sanding afterwards) I am sure it will be looking OK.

I have ordered a 1/72 scale MiG-19 since the Fantan and the MiG are similar in appearance and the Q-5 is based upon the famous Soviet fighter. Some parts of this kit will come handy to complete the Fantan.

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #3

Today I continued with sanding the parts of the wings and fuselage.

Here is what the wing's upper and lower half are looking like after I sanded them down:

And then glued together:

Obviously the parts will need some trimming here and there but more or less they fitting together quite well.

The two parts of the fuselage.

The fuselage was sanded down to a certain degree, too. I opened up the air intakes and cut out where the cockpit will be placed later on.

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #2

Today I have sanded the first parts of the Fantan. I started with something small to try it and so the smaller rear wings were first to go.

The first pic shows the already sanded parts for the left rear wing. Above those you can see how the parts were looking like on top and from underneath before sanding.

 After sanding them with 120 grid and 180 grid sand paper, they became really thin but to my surprise still very stiff.

At first I thought the wings will be hollow on the inside but after sanding it became clear that the two halves will have a large surface to put glue on top.

Tomorrow the sanding process will contine and I might already have a wing or two show off with. :-)

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #1

Following a few guides on the internet on modelling vacu-form kits, the first steps I took was using a black marker and draw it around the parts in an 45° angle. I tried to mark 50% of both, the actual parts and the styrene sheet around it.

 I then used scissors and hobby knife to cut out the parts. I tried not cut too close to the parts before they have been freed of the styrene sheet left overs around it. Next step will be cutting them out very closely using my hobby knife and then the sanding process will kick off.

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan"

It took me ages to finally find a copy of the Warrior Model 1/72 scale vacu-formed/resin kit of a NanChang Q-5 on ebay. This one came to me from a guy in Poland.

The Q-5 is a close air support/ground attacker aircraft, currently deployed by both, PLAAF (Chinese Air Force) and the PLA Navy.

This one is my first vacu-formed kit that I am ever going to assemble. That means its going to be interesting... If you look at the box contents, you'll see that the main fuselage and wings are vacu-formed white plastic, while weapons, cockpit and parts of the landing gear are either resin cast or white metal. The metal parts I won't need for the most part since I am going to assemble the kit "in flight" on a flight stand. I am also planning on exchanging the resin cast FAB-250 bombs with plastic ones from Dragon Models' Soviet Aircraft payload kits in 1/72 scale.

Check out the pics:

Contents: decals, instructions, painting guides, resin payload and detail parts, white metal landing gear etc..

Box: includes one kit, several decals for both, PLAAF and Pakistani Air Force.

Battle For Skira: USMC "Gators" (AAVP7A1) WIP #2

I promised there would be more and I shall keep that promise. :-) A long afternoon of kit building later:

Gator #3 assembled and #2 received its primer

Battle For Skira: USMC "Gators" (AAVP7A1) WIP #1

After finishing off the AH-1Z my next project for the "Battle For Skira" campaign is some ground vehicles. I picked my AAVP7A1 amtracks, call-sign "Gator", to be the next in line.

The models are one Dragon die-cast, expanded with EAAK made from resin (Black Dog CZ), and two Dragon Amtracks w/EAAK kits that got single pieces of stowage from Black Dog and other brands (S&S for example) glued all over the place. :-)

The diecast and one of the plastic kits are shown below in various stages of the current build. I need to assemble the next kit and will start painting when all are completely assembled.

Battle For Skira: USMC Starwolf 1-4 (AH-1Z Viper) done

I have finished my 1/72 scale AH-1Z Viper, call-sign "Starwolf 1-4".

Battle For Skira: USMC Starwolf 1-4 WIP #4 (AH-1Z Viper weathering)

Panel wash, exhaust smoke and weathering completed. Next step: adding decals and a few touch-ups here and there.

Battle For Skira: USMC Starwolf 1-4 WIP #3 (AH-1Z Viper)

Finished painting the low-viz camo.

Next steps is painting details, weathering the fuselage, adding final payload and of course decals.

Starts to look like a helicopter finally. :-)

Battle For Skira: USMC Starwolf 1-4 WIP #2 (AH-1Z Viper)

Since there were some tragic events taking place in my family, progress wasn't as much as I had expected to achieve over the weekend.
Anyway, the modelling always helped me to clear my head and so here are at least two pics of the little progress that I made:

Cockpit canopy added, base fuselage completed (I also completed the whole flyer base, but I won't show until the bird is done), ready for the paintjob...

Battle For Skira: USMC Starwolf 1-4 WIP #1 (AH-1Z Viper)

I have started on my AH-1Z Viper (Call-Sign "Starwolf 14") that is going to escort my Venom transport helicopter and give the Marines on the ground something to call if immediate CAS is needed :-)

Finished the cockpit and crew today and put it into the main fuselage. So far it looks really like nothing to be honest, but that was the case with my Venom as well :-D
I have also started its base.

I'll post progress on this bird in little steps, just like I did the last time.