This is a resin kit,built for the Close Air Support Group Build that is currently running. The only other route in any scale for this one is vacuform. There are a few details I am skipping on the A-18, like the little hinges on the rudder. The decals were very fragile and the less handling the better. Looks cool the way it is, in my book[ip].
I used Alclad 101 aluminum rubbed with SNJ aluminum powder for the metal areas, and Alclad white aluminum for the fabric. The landing gear legs may have more metal in them than resin, they are very fragile, and were also too short. All’s well that ends well. I wish I had a P-36 in 1/72 to pose with it, the P-39 is the closest I could come age-wise, and of course the Bell YFM-1B Airacuda, like the A-18, another design based on mistaken conceptions and whose time was past before it ever arrived.
!http://goldeneramodel.com/mymodels/a18/024a18.jpg
That’s a beauty, John!
I’ve always loved the odd and seemingly out-of-place ‘stretched limo’ look of those between-the-wars designs of ‘heavy fighters’ and ‘assault bombers.’ A whole small lost generation of designs that seem to be remembered only by modelers.
(They certainly wouldn’t be remembered too fondly by anyone who had to go to war in them…if they were lucky enough to come back!)
Not something you see very often. Nice build John
Very interesting, I’d never heard of it before. Can clearly see the family resemblance to other designs like the Potez fighters, Dinah, Whirlwind, etc. What a cool display grouping them together would make.
I didn’t know there were ANY kits made of this aircraft. I love pre-war designs.
Very well done!
Nice job! Certainly don’t see these built very often.
Nice work on a rarely seen subject, John.
Thanks, everyone. I first saw the A-18 as a drawing in Assen Jordanoff’s “Through the Overcast”, and I think the artist was Frank Carlson. I was 8 or 9 at the time but anything with airplanes in it was read cover to cover.
