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RAZBAM A-6 Series

Mike71

Mike71

SOH-CM-2025
In spite of promises, RAZBAM has yet to produce a paint kit for their A-6 series of AI Carriers-capable aircraft, so, I kinda made one.


This is a KA-6D (tanker equipped) version from VA-75 "Sunday Punchers" circa 1974- 1976 in Airwing 3 aboard CV-60. A photo of a real one is included.


A-6s normally carried a MODEX in the 500 series. KA-6Ds were rebuilt A-6As and had no radar or inertial nav systems. The old non-functional fuselage "swiss cheese" speed brake panels were bolted shut as opposed to production later models with the wells paneled over. They also used a green anti collision light system when aboard ship to readily find them at night.


Tankers typically were painted with a "belly band" in squadron color(s) and were numbered in the 520s. I recall we had 10 attack A-6Es (500 - 509) an 4 KA-6Ds(520 - 523)


I was a pilot in VA-75 in this period and flew tankers many times; night ops got interesting since we had two F-4J squadrons and anyone having problems in an F-4 ran low on gas in a big hurry. The KA-6D had lots of gas "give away" and was a great asset.


Tankers usually carried a "buddy store" on the centerline vice a standard 300 gal / 2000 lb centerline tank; this was a good backup in case the main fuselage mounted package went down.


I like the RAZBAM model very much for carrier ops. It is very smooth and predictable. It has a good AoA indexer and the cockpit is very realistic. I don't care for the heavy bump texturing but overall it is very accurate.


I could not figure out how to find the lips of the intakes in order to paint them a tan/ocre color, which A-6s had - a kind of rain erosion coating that was kind of rubbery in texture.
I used MODEX 521 vice 520 even though the Bureau Number does not match the photo. These numbers moved around during their time in a squadron anyway.

KA-6D VA-75 1975.jpg

RAZBAM KA-6D repaint.jpg


I am getting pretty good with Photoshop, but need to learn how to feather the grey/white intersection along the fuselage. I have studied numerous online tutorials but they don't help much.
 
Hi Mike,

You are doing a great job with the AI repaint. I was looking for a Razman P3D V5 compatible version but not sure if they even sell one. I've gone to their main site and it looks like they
offer a FSX version.

I remember seeing on a few deployments on USS Forrestal back in the early 70's VAQ-134 (GARUDAS); perhaps you've heard of them. I knew the canopies were lined with gold RF conductivity to protect the crew from radiation. Later on, I learned a loaded Prowler with its jammers running can pump out 34 to 54 kilowatts of RF energy with AN/ALQ-99 jammers on each station, depending on the jammer version.

The EA-6B was basically a flying microwave oven in certain frequency bands and the gold helps keep the crew and systems from being fried in mid-air. Basically it creates a Faraday cage to protect
what is inside from RF radiation. I would think the crew would need lead aprons (like they used in the dentist office for X-rays). The A-6's were Uugly aircraft but they sure got the job done! I was
glad I was not an AO in an A6 outfit. Lifting/loading all those bombs could make one give dead babies. :biggrin-new:
 
I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure Razbam stepped away from supporting anything military related outside of DCS several years back now, probably close to 10 years ago I believe now. Whatever military stuff of theirs is still around is from whenever they stopped developing for FSX I believe. They only have limited civilian aircraft support in P3D from what it says on their website. All military aircraft support is in DCS.

Thank you for the hard work on the paintkit! I also have it in my archives, but never really bothered with painting them or their Prowler because of the lack of paintkits for it.
 
I'm with Scorch00, pretty sure they have been out of FSX/P3D for years now. I was happy to have the many A-6 variants compared to the Virtavia release like the KA and EA. Looked at adding some Tacpack years ago but gave up upon the announcement of the Heatblur DCS version.

Side note to your paint, I was in CVW-17 during VA-75's last cruise (on Big E CVN-65), one of the jets painted up in Vietnam era scheme.
 
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