Having spent decades pouring through just about everything written, filmed and photographed for the consumer market about the Skyraider I find myself forced by experience to make the observation much of the commercially available research to hand regarding the AD/A-1 series is, frankly, sadly lacking in many areas.
What is readily available is pretty much a well aeriated Swiss cheese which has let the modeling fraternity down by leaving many with the impression information regarding the Skyraider is much narrower in scope than it really should be.
It is, admittedly, something of a selective criticism to level because the body of research we do have in hand is actually pretty good, and some it very well done indeed...as far as it goes; and there’s the rub.
The problem which has emerged is twofold: First the breadth of the information is extremely narrow considering the actual scope inherent to the subject, and secondly, a tremendous amount of what is to hand is ludicrously redundant.
Thus, for instance, we may learn in 50 different sources of VA-176 and to a lesser extent VA-25’s Vietnam MiG kills while at the same time enjoying farcically limited detail particulars about the AD’s which carried out the costly and far reaching mission of stemming the Communist onslaughts of 1950/51.
Green and brown or gray/white bumble-cartoon billboard A-1’s ad nausium are to be seen on almost every contest table, with reasonable regularity in the modeling print media and plentifully on line. However, as of writing (summer 2021) I have yet to view in person, in print, on any website or turn up in a single internet search so much as one technically accurate model in any scale of any Skyraider of the crucial early 1950-mid 1951 period. Despite the occasional spray of blue paint, white letter markings and almost invariable misidentification little to nothing of the sort is ever portrayed in our art to commemorate these subjects with any precision at all.
What I am decrying above has nothing to do with modelers’ choice or interpretation of the subject; this is a matter of individual interest and personal choice and certainly not mine to question in the least.
What I am criticizing is the reality that for any who wish to try, thanks to both dismally lackluster attention from the model industry and the narrow scope output of the majority of the research corps, they would be in for a serious, if not nearly impossible, uphill climb.
Not so, you say? Okay, then, let’s look at an example.
Navy and Marine AD crews were pioneering and perfecting night ground attack and insurgent supply interdiction eighteen-odd years before Hobo, Zorro and Firefly A-1H,J,E and G’s were doing the same thing over Southeast Asia.
So, then, let’s say you want to model a Nakhon Phanom based A-1H/J circa 1968-71 to reflect the mission. Can it be done? You bet, easy-peasy; buy one of a number of available kits, quickly peruse any of 40-60 readily accessible resources, build it pretty much SOB with a few minor alterations and paint according to the instructions. Likely there are some decals in the box for your subject, but if not the aftermarket resources are plentiful in all three major scales. Probably hang on some out of the box weapons but failing this there are plenty of accurate for the era options out there. Plan on a week or two of easy modeling and voila; miniature historic accuracy.
Now, how about a properly configured and armed AD for the exact same mission in Korea?
Yeah, good luck.
First off, the vast bulk of the mission was done by crews in multi-seat variants of the airplane which you wouldn’t even know or be able to document without some serious digging. So, then, you’re in for some gnarly scratch building and modification just for starts; but how and of what? What did the real thing actually look like, and when did it look that way? How big where were those funky little doors, and where were they really located…doors…wait a minute, is that a -4N or a NL, or a Q…or maybe a -3…N or Q…some had two doors, some just one…canopy’s not the same on both…side dive brakes or not?...what’s “NL”…oh, winterized…how did that show up…deice boots, other gear…where…prop deice…? How big was that little scoop on top of the fuselage…what did it look like up close?…external armor?…cannon flash hiders…? What kind of weapons pylons did they use…what kinds of antenna? What kind of loadout was normal…really?…wow; what does a Mighty Mouse rocket pod even look like?…1,000,000 candle power flare, four of per plane?...nothing like that in any kit or aftermarket set, what did they look like…there aren’t any pictures…no, drawings…no specs…where were they carried?…bombs, how heavy, in what layout…napalm…what kind…old WWII drop tanks or what?…rack weight limits; don’t want to be hanging a 500 pounder where it couldn’t possibly go…Is that anti-glare panel flat black or flat blue…markings, white or gray or light blue…?
…and you haven’t even decided on a scale yet…
Okay, maybe all this is a little much; you were just looking to have some fun and add an accurate Korean War Skyraider to the collection. So, forget the night fighter versions, how would you go about cobbling up just a straight attack bomber variant from the early Korean War era? Oddly enough, if you wanted to do the same for any of its erstwhile Corsair stablemates, regardless of variant, you’d find the research well full to overflowing, but for the old Able Dog, not so much.
How was it marked? When? Internal cowl flaps, present or not?…weapons pylons: nothing close in any kit out there, what are they?…pictures…drawings…specs, even designation? Any external armor…yes… no or partial…? Hey, wait a minute; is the bottom of that rudder really straight, what’s up with that…? So, then, is it a -2,-3, or -4?…lots of differences, but what are they?…land or carrier based?…huh, two, maybe three different kinds of propellers?..weapon load out?…limits?…types of weapons…mission specific?…antennae array?…four guns or two? Different canopies…different tails…different tail wheels…different tires…subject time frame; retrofits all over hell and gone…
And so it goes…
Not a single kit exists for anything earlier than a “straight” AD-6 (A-1H), except for the Trumpeter product in 1/32 kit which sort of allows for a late AD-4B, which means if your subject falls in the 1948 to late 1951 time frame you are facing a serious package of research and modifications. Aftermarket for these early birds is basically nonexistent and decals may or may not be available. Unless you are very lucky markings will, at best, have to be cobbled together from various sources; IF you can locate any trustworthy reference upon which to base your scheme in the first place.
The reality is many of your questions will go unanswered, if you even know to ask them, and the resulting miniature will be a historically and technically inaccurate Rube Goldberg lashup at best.
Not your fault. With one exception (Skyraider, the Flying Dump Truck, Rausa) all other commercially available reference material about these early airplanes and their operation is haphazard, scanty and seminally inconsistent and thus misleading. It is often contradictory and at times flat out wrong. If one examines the plainly evident photographic record it is clear, every last researcher of whom I am aware has made an absolute science out of missing several 900 pound gorillas in the room thus rendering the body of research lacking in any systematized presentation of the plethora of large and small details a serious builder would need to properly produce an accurate miniature of any version of any Korean War AD-2, AD-3, or AD-4.
How so? Well, I have a few observations. The problem, the way I see it is multifaceted.
First, it becomes pretty evident early on some “researchers” simply grab what they find on the bookrack, whisk it around a little bit, sometimes even out and out plagiarize and then rush to publish or print. Others, more engaged or at least with more integrity, might swap some intellectual spit here and there or juice things up with a Saturday or two at the odd museum, though among the exhibits instead of in the research library, alas.
The end result is pretty much the same either way; we are left with the same narrow scope, informational voids and oft repeated “information” perpetuated but never vetted rehash, after rehash, after rehash, after rehash, after…well, you get the point.
Even for those who take a more scholarly approach very little, in my opinion, of what we have to hand is the product of a researcher having the dedication to base his work on primary or even worthwhile secondary sources. Except for a few notable exceptions most are buttressed by tertiary or quaternary hearsay at best. A few will publish “firsthand accounts” which, while often interesting, amount to little more than a collection of sea stories of little practical use or help for the technically minded miniaturist.
Even many of the better works suffer from dismally universal historic myopia. Many of us are old enough to remember Vietnam; some of us from firsthand experience and it is something of a natural human tendency to look at the most familiar or most recent iterations of a subject and believe it tells most of the story. Even for Vietnam era vets Korea was our fathers’ war and the availability of eyewitnesses is far less than for those who remember life at NKP, pulling Sandy alert in Da Nang or sweating it out over the PDJ.
Moreover, even though by Vietnam the Skyraider was an anachronism, its combat employment in Southeast Asia was longer, more extensive, more “colorful” and far better publicized than its years in Korea and the early Cold War. It also served with extreme distinction not only with the Navy, but with extraordinary valor in the US Air Force and even longer with the VNAF. Seen in this light the long ago adventures of the dark blue solely Navy Service Able Dogs can appear almost dowdy by comparison. (Which it certainly is not!)
So, most researchers do what is commercially easy and what comes most naturally; they go for the ample low hanging fruit from the tree of recent experience and pick the stuff with the most flash. They fill up their baskets with shiny, noisy things and dig no deeper leaving the modeler to believe there is nothing else to be had.
The next dynamic I believe is our fault as modelers; we’re as bad as anyone when it comes to chasing shiny things. Camouflage and colorful cartoon characters are just a lot cooler than dark Navy blue and there’s a lot more movies and videos and books and magazines about Vietnam than Korea. The industry to a greater or lesser extent plays to us, and they believe the froth on top of the beer is all we want, so that’s all we get. To a large extent, “…we have met the enemy and they is us.”
The plethora of Skyraider warbirds is also problematic. It’s a lot easier to snap pictures on a sunny day in Oshkosh and publish in glossy softback than to pour over moldy stacks in the National Archives or strain gold out of footnotes in a seventy year old Pilot’s Operating Handbook.
It must be kept in mind warbird reconstructions are rich boys’ toys and, beyond airworthiness, their owners generally care bupkis for historical accuracy. Parts are used as they become available and useful, whether or not they were applicable to the core version they own. Configuration, colors and markings are all to seek which is why the only flyable AD-1 in existence is tricked out with AERO-14 outer wing racks and painted up like a Vietnam era USAF A-1J. Like teenagers with jalopies this crowd wants their rides to “look cool” thus we find bumble-things slathered all over reconditioned AD-4NA’s which were recovered from France who themselves took them on as surplus when they were retired from the US fleet before the swabbie who thought up that goofy cartoon was out of diapers.
I paint with a broad brush of course; there are certainly exceptions to the rule, we are blessed here and there with a number of very exacting and careful researchers. Also, as I have stated elsewhere, no one is perfect and given a subject as technically and historically diverse as the AD/A-1 series of airplanes omissions and mistakes are inevitable even given the best of scholarly intentions.
Still, I think the job can be done better, especially insofar as the earlier, not to mention tremendously significant models of the AD are concerned. We as model builders are let down on all fronts, and it is as much of a shame as it is needless.
One of the reasons for this website is to hopefully fill in some of the gaps as we find material to patch them.
In the meantime, build long and prosper.
