Fujimi and Hobbyboss 1/72 A-7 Corsair II’s

I’m calling these two done;

I know the Hobbyboss A-7’s get a real kicking by other modellers due to dimensional and shape issues and the A-7K is no exception, however the biggest improvements you can make to the actual LOOK of the model is to alter the air intake and rear exhaust as described in earlier posts, also looking at the Hobbyboss kit I think the inner wing pylons are too close to the fuselage and may need moving outboard and something I will consider if I build another Hobbyboss A-7. Hobbyboss actually include the yellow canopy seals as decals but I decided to use thin strips of yellow decal sheet as the carrier film either side of the kit supplied ones would be too visible and difficult to eliminate.

Moving onto the Fujimi single seater, I considered this to be the best 1/72 A-7D available (along with the rest of the family) but having built this one after a gap of some 35 years it does have its own issues. Although it features engraved panel lines the surface detail is just plain, the cockpit needs a resin replacement, the detail in the main gear bays is completely spurious and needs a lot of work, the nose gear bay is none existant and needs the side walls adding along with detail, all gear bay doors are plain and need detailing too.
Another issue with Fujimi A-7s is the moulding defect in the canopy and although dipping it in Johnsons Kleer helped, it is still noticeable and unfortunately you are stuck with it as there are no aftermarket canopies available.
In both cases, replacement resin wheels are a necessity as the Fujimi ones have no detail on the inner faces and the Hobbyboss wheels are undersized both in thickness and diameter.
The upshot is there are still NO perfect 1/72 A-7’s available (Fujimi ones have long been out of production) and you are going to have to put the work in regardless which kit you get anyway.
In the case of a two seater, Hobbyboss are the ONLY company to have made an injection-moulded kit of one, previously there were only conversions available from Maintrack (long out of production), RVHP (resin, expensive and variable quality) and Falcon (vacform with no canopy) and again they all required lots of work as witnessed by my Maintrack conversion some 35 years ago.

Both models have been enjoyable to assemble, even with having to detail the A-7K as no resin one exists and chopping the front and rear end to improve the look, the biggest surprise was actually fitting an Aires cockpit into the Fujimi A-7D without a shit load of cutting, sanding and swearing.

The decals for the A-7K came from four separate sheets and although the A-7D markings came from just one Superscale sheet, the quality wasn’t the best especially the drop-shadow tailcodes and numbers, In both cases the stencilling was a bit hit and miss and I probably should have used a stencil decal sheet rather than mix and match. Like I said earlier the canopy seals on the A-7K were cut from a yellow decal sheet but are probably a bit too wide (and too bright), the seals on the A-7D were from Tamiya tape and cut much thinner and to me look much better. It’s worth noting that some A-7’s had seals on the canopy and windscreen yet some had them on the canopy only so check your references.