The cockpit set includes very nice parts, and assembles without incident. The seat is very pretty indeed, with a seat cushion you’ll have to see to believe.  A vacuformed canopy is also included, though I didn’t use it.  It also includes an opened access hatch to the oil cooler in the engine bay – I didn’t install this, but I kept the parts and may well use it at a later
date in another Skyraider.

Aside from the resin bits the construction is exactly as the instructions dictate.  There are a couple of areas you’ll want to keep an eye on, however.  First is the installation of the resin main gear bays.  You will need to remove the raised detail inside, and the trailing bulkhead.  Once this is done, the resin base fits in very well.  I also glued in the sidewalls at this time.  Those sidewalls needed some cleanup, some of the cutouts had been filled with resin.  Care is needed in the cockpit interior, particularly with the instrument panel and rudder pedals.  I broke one of the rudder pedals and had to replace part of it with styrene.  Not a major problem, but worth watching.

The kit itself goes together like a dream, many parts like the engine not needing glue at all. The wing engineering provides an outstanding glue joint, and the tail surfaces are as you’ve come to expect from a Tamiya kit.   My modifications did not change any aspect of the kit’s primary construction.

Painting.
The interior was painted Testor’s Acryl (TA) Euro 1 Grey, with flat black and color highlights where needed.  The seat cover was painted to depict leather.  No great insights here, it is all standard cockpit fare, though without the familiar Zinc Chromate green. 

The gear bay and landing gear is flat white.  That was all painted when I primed the model using Gunze-Sangyo (GS) Flat White.  I then airbrushed TA Dark Sea Blue over the exterior, and sealed it with Future.  Very simple, I think I like these Navy aircraft. 

I wanted to depict the aircraft shown on the cover of Squadron’s Skyraider in Action book, so I had to find appropriate decals.  The Navy used 45deg white letters and numbers then, so the search began for appropriate decal sheets.  I found a Marines Bearcat sheet with plenty of 0s and 4s and used the Aeromaster Skyraider AD-6 sheet for the rest of the markings.  I couldn’t find a large S anywhere.  I wound up borrowing John Lester’s scanner and Alps printer to print reversed-image letters from a MicroScale bomber codes sheet onto white decal film.  I cut out each S and applied it to the tail and wing.  A long way to go for some codes, but now I have spare Skyraider and Bearcat decal sheets, plus bomber codes.

The engine is Testor’s Enamel (TE) Steel, with Tamiya Smoke as a wash and various details.  The gearbox is painted with TA Euro 1 Grey, and washed and drybrushed.  The prop is Tamiya gloss black and GS Yellow H239, as is the tail ID color.  The entire model was dullcoated with GS Clear Flat.  The tires are painted PolyScale Grimy Black.

Weathering.
As this was the newest Skyraider available in the Korean War, I didn’t want to over-weather the plane.  That I’ll do when I do more Vietnam War era planes, including a great one whose Navy markings are showing through the faded USAF camouflage… Anyway – I used TE Medium Grey as a wash for the white areas, with some flat black for contrast.

After that, I used a black Micron disposable drafting pen to blacken the panel lines.  These pens are very nice, the ink is permanent, but doesn’t dry too fast, allowing easy removal of excess.  Spit and a finger will do the job, or alcohol on a swab if you really screw up.  Another application of GS Flat Clear sealed the work. 

I drybrushed along panel lines with post-it tape using TE Blue Angel Blue-tinted TE Flat white. As the AD-4 was the newest version of the Skyraider, I didn’t want this to overdo this, just enough to show some fading from saltwater and sunlight.  A bit of pastel work, grinding together blue and white and applying this to highlight fuselage stringers and a few other details.  The exhaust stains are also pastels, light grey and black. 

At the very end, I installed the canopy, guns, pitot tube and I added a monofilament antenna painted black to finish off the model.