Hasegawa 1/48 TA-4J Skyhawk Jet Trainer

The Pilot Makers.  This is what I call the series of kits I have made which play tribute to the many aircraft used to turn a "0-flight time student naval aviator" into a full fledged fleet pilot.  Pilot's in the navy are considered Naval Aviators.  This model of the TA-4J is one of those pilot makers within my current model collection.  I would have to say that this model is one of my favorites and I wanted to build this particular model for many years.  Problem was no model manufacture had released this training version of the venerable A-4 Skyhawk.  When they did I jumped on it.  2 kit manufactures came out with this version at a similar time and I purchased them both.  I decided to base this project on the Hasegawa release of the TA-4J b/c of the high quality of it's plastic molding and all around detail.  But this build did include many major components from the other manufactures kit including much of the interior cockpit tub, instrument panels, and ejection seats.  These other parts were all made of high grade, very detailed resin molded parts and off superior look and detail vs. the Hasegawa plastic parts.

In conclusion,  regarding project outcome I feel that this is one of my best aircraft models.  This outcome is the accumulation of all the modeling skills, and advanced techniques practiced throughout the years and put into one project, not skipping any steps or taking the usual short-cut to get a project completed quickly.  This model has been hosted on various web-based modeling sites and publications and I am very proud of this.  It was definitely a turning point in my model making and still get a kick out of closely examining it b/c I can't believe this one is mine.  Hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I enjoyed building it.