Hello and welcome back!

Regular visitors to this site will know of my love for US Naval aircraft and the weathered finishes they were often found in. What’s cool about this project is that this is an ex US Navy bird that found its way into the Sneaky Pete realms of the USAF Special Operations Command during the Vietnam War.

Yes, I’m building a 1/48 Tamiya A-1H Skyraider from their USAF A-1J kit and its gonna be BAD NEWS!

This A1-H Skyraider- Bu No TS609, aka “BAD NEWS” was originally on the US Navy’s inventory but she found her way to the USAF 22nd Special Operations Squadron attached to the 56th SOW at Nahkon Phanom RTAFB, Thailand in 1969.

The 22nd Special Operations Squadron operated in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War for two years from October 1968 until September 1970. The 22nd flew Douglas A-1 Skyraiders and they were assigned to the 56th Special Operations Wing at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base.
The primary call sign used by the unit was “Zorro”, for interdiction missions over the Ho Chi Minh trail, and the squadron was thus nicknamed the “Zorros.”

From the little research that I could gather TS 609 met with a forced landing in 1969 due to returning from a combat mission during which 609’s engine was shot up and the pilot flying a dead stick had to belly land the aircraft an old WWII Japanese airfield. The pilot walked away and was subsequently rescued by a USAF Jolly Green SAR helicopter.

Thanks to a kind readers contribution to my facebook page, I also acquired these photographs of “BAD NEWS” taken early on in the deployment to NKP:

I happened upon the story of TS 606 when I was researching this project. I had the 1/48 Tamiya USAF A-1J already on my bench, but did not want to build the usual out of the box scheme that most people finish this model in.

After some searching I found this decal sheet from Iliad decals featuring special operations Skyraider’s. The simplicity of TS 609’s black tail codes, lack of US national insignia and that name…..”BAD NEWS” really caught my imagination and in my head I imagined a steely eyed USAF pilot flying across the fence to bing destruction to the enemy with “BAD NEWS” swooping in low to deliver its lethal payload in tactical close air support with its array of guns and rocket pods.

The Build:

Now I had done a little research, I set about commencing work on Tamiya’s A-1J kit that was going to be transformed from a veteran US Navy airframe into a badass USAF Spad operating behind enemy lines.

For this build, choosing the venerable 1/48 Tamiya A-1J Skyraider kit was a no brainier. With aftermarket items in the form of ILIAD decals, Eduard masks and a Quinta Studio’s cockpit detail set, I was ready to get to work.

The Tamiya kit is pure model kit joy in a box- It’s simple construction of well engineered design allow the modeller to make short work of airframe construction. As I was going to utilise the Quinta Studio’s 3d decals, a little more time was taken in detailing the cockpit area.

The finished cockpit was set aside as I painted the interior of the airframe and the engine. It was then I was minded to add a little extra detail with some lead wire to portray the ignition harness.

Here is the airframe assembly completed which was so easy due to the excellent fit of the Tamiya parts.

Quickly moving onto the painting phase of the build I primed the model in Tamiya acrylic NATO Black and picked out the undercarriage bays in white.

To paint the USAF SEA camouflage scheme I thought I would give a Mig Ammo Acrylics set a try. This set is called 60s-70s USAF TAC colours and it supplies the modeller with the four colours comprising US SEA Dark Green, Light Green, Tan and USAF Light Grey. In the interest of comparing and testing, I sprayed all four paints onto a pice of plastic card primed in NATO black. Here is the result:

The Mig AMMO paints sprayed well straight from the bottle and dried to a pleasing shade over the black primer. For this build I did not spray my usual mottle coat as I believe it would be lost under the saturation of the camouflage colours. Instead, I applied the camouflage colours in light layers over the back primer. It was my intention to modify the paint finish using oils.

With a clear gloss coat applied to the entire airframe and left to cure overnight, a very short and sweet decal application session took place and the few marking that this aircraft had were on and sealed in with a second clear coat.

Next was the part that I had been looking forward to the most-The weathering, fading and aging of the aircraft. This began with a brown enamel wash to highlight all of the recessed surface detail and moved onto the application of am oil paint render (OPR) in order to give the aircraft a worn, dirty, sun faded appearance. Below, you can see the mix of oil colours I chose to wash out the original colour shades.

I also added some paint chipping effects to isolated high wear areas of the airframe. A lot of this was done by applying metallic shades by hand using a very fine brush.

It should be noted that once I was satisfied with the OPR, I left it to dry out for several days before I applied a clear coat of VMS satin varnish.

With the weathering process completed, I quickly worked my way through the undercarriage, underwing stores and canopy parts to bring the model to life. I went with gun pods and rockets rather than bombs as this is what I saw in many photos and I liked the aggressive stance that the aircraft presented.

To finish it all off, I customised on of my studio display cases to provide a fitting home for my finished model.

Allow me to present my finished model of USAF 22nd SOS A-1H Skyraider TS 609 –“BAD NEWS”

Well I hope you enjoyed the build, thanks for visiting. Until next time, take care and Happy Modelling!