Monday, February 19

Preview update: Great Wall Hobby's new-tool 48th scale A-10C Thunderbolt II

We have updated details about the imminent release of Great Wall Hobby's new tooled A-10C Thunderbolt II in 48th scale. Colours, sprue layout, metal parts, decals & profiles to add to the box art in our preview...


Preview update: Great Wall Hobby's new-tool 48th scale A-10C Thunderbolt II

A-10C Thunderbolt II
From Great Wall Hobby
Kit No # L4829
1/48th scale
Five Marking Choices
Metal nose weight, plastic & photo-etch.
New-tooled kit
What we already know bout this kit...
We have already seen a lot of great Wall Hobby's most recently released kit, the A-10C in 48th scale. The detail we have been afforded is really impressive, with comparisons to the real thing in CAD that showed that the designers were on to a good thing in shape, detail and surface detail. Engine fans and shape could even satisfy a lot of aftermarket companies.
Images of the undersides of the aircraft, and feature the textured skin, access points, aerials, ports and wheel-recesses of the aircraft 
The smart horizontal tails of the A-10C are featured here. Posable flying surfaces and all the rivets & actuators are in place.
Arguably the most important part of the kit is probably the cockpit. Parts you can see from the outside are a major point, like the panels before and after the pilot's seat. This is also detailed as close to the real thing as great Wall can achieve.
The Hydraulic actuator for the cockpit is also features in the CADS with rivet detail in places you wouldn't even think to look...
Another important part of the kit and one that has been portrayed erroneously a few times, the nose of the Thunderbolt is oddly shaped and more complex than it seems.
The bubble-type canopy is always hard to achieve. GWH has also studied this part, with detail looking not to have been achieved so far in plastic injection kits of the type.
Lastly, the engines. The intakes, with the fan and its blades we have already seen a test shot of. The nacelles and exhausts are depicted here in some great detail. This kit looks to be gifted with some great research so far...

Preview Update: 19/02/2024 GWH's L4829 A-10C THUNDERBOLT II
Today we saw more of the details of the decals, colour profiles, metal parts & sprue layout of the kit. We have already seen one of these being test built and boy were we impressed...
The sprue layout shows a little of how this kit fits together. The contours of the aircraft are followed in the parts of the construction. Minimizing seams, filling and gluing. 
This product maximizes the accurate reproduction of the shape of the real aircraft, a large number of convex rivets, and reference to the real aircraft parts and cabin lines. It is also optimized for the modeling process to minimize the workload of filling and sanding. With all of the raised rivets on this kit, one would want to absolutely minimize the fettling after this is glued together. This is what GWH has done from the photos of construction we have seen so far.
They have worked hard on the transparent cockpit parts, which are carefully replicated from the real things. You might notice there is a large nose weight for this kit, as well as some minimal photo-etch parts for the thinner parts of the airframe.
There are five marking choices for this kit. With, warthog (wild boar), snake & tiger mouthed designs, as well as others with kill markings on the nose. Something for a few different tastes in this choice.
One of the three decal sheets covers the individual aircraft markings of the aircraft, some well-known Warthogs in there.
The cockpit instrument decals, side consoles, aircraft stencils, formation lights, chaff dispensers, lifting points and no step stencils are just some of the details on the second decal sheet.
The weaponry, and there is a lot of it, has several decals to alleviate the tedious parting work that would need to be done otherwise. Comprehensive coverage of all the Warthog's weapons with stencils included are shown here.
That is all we have before the release, the kit is due to go into shops very soon if not already in some territories

 More on this kit on the Great Wall Hobby Facebook page.