Italeri's 1/48 scale
A-10A Thunderbolt II

by Ingo Degenhardt

Italeri's 1/48 scale A-10A Thunderbolt II is available online from Squadron.com

Here is my Italeri A-10A that I finished last year. It was build mostly out of the box with the exception of the ACES II ejection seat (Aires) and the ordnance load (Hasegawa Weapon Sets)

The kit needs only minor reworking of the parts prior to construction – only very little flash and a few strange ‘humps’ here and there to be removed. Panel lines are nicely engraved and although some consider them a little deep and too wide they were well within limits for me.

Construction is no problem in general, only the following areas needed some extra work:

1. Engine nacelles; there are cowlings provided (but no engines) that do not fit very well. I had to fill and sand them to blend in, with the outlines rescribed later. The rear edges of nacelles and engines themselves had to be sanded much thinner. The same with the front parts (4D).

2. Wings; there is very poor fit of the landing gear housings that need a lot of filler and so does the connection upper/lower outboard wing. The interior of the main landing gear wells is very sparse, even some walls are missing. I detailed that with plasticsheet, PE parts from the spare box and some wire. Wing sub-assembly to fuselage fit is quite good.

Italeri provides everything to build either an early A-10 or an up-to-date aircraft. Unfortunately they do not give sufficient information what is to be used for their four marking options and what is not. And by the way – their antennas (moulded on) are far too thick. I replaced them all.

You have to rely on your own references to find out what equipment belongs to what aircraft. I had to do so anyway because I built an A-10 of the 81. Fighter Squadron based in Spangdahlem, Germany and this is not a kit option.

I used Astra, Two Bobs and kit decals for this version with the Italeri decals being far better than the Astra decals that refused to adhere to the surface. They needed a lot of treatment to avoid silvering.

The model was painted with Xtracolor paints. Italeri says FS 35237 for the upper camouflage scheme but it is FS36320 and 36375 (undersides)

This external stores layout can often be seen on the Spangdahlem Warthogs and so I took it from various Hasegawa Weapon Sets. There is a full weapons load included by Italeri as well.

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Thumbnail panels:

The cockpit instruments are decals and (in my case) needed the addition of an MFD in right upper corner that I took from the spares box. There is no alternative raised detail for the instruments, so if you do not like instrument decals it is either scratchbuilding, PE or resin replacement. A few other items in the cockpit were built from scratch.

The front fuselage inside is stuffed with lead (a lot) to keep the hog from being a tailsitter.

All things considered, the Italeri A-10A is a good kit with a little need for detailing and reworking in the mentioned abovementioned areas.

The major shortcoming is the missing information about the various parts that are either used or left off. For example some moulded-on devices had to be cut off for this model and I think this could be necessary for one or more of the kit decal options as well.

Model and Text Copyright © 2008 by Ingo Degenhardt
Images Copyright © 2008 by Lutz Degenhardt
Page Created 13 February, 2008
Last Updated 13 February, 2008

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