This plane would be traveling to a new home; so build strength was taken into considerations. Canopy is close; landing gears and weapon has brass inserts, and fin antennas went on before painting. Ambroid Pro Weld was use for gluing.  When bonded, it created a very strong joint.

The first dilemma was what to do about the nose weight, since this is a tail sitter. That led to the next dilemma, how to add weights to the very confined nose cone, as most of the space was taken by the front wheel well. One solution was to stuff the available space in the nose with Handy Tac. Since this can fill all empty space, it would be more efficient than trying to fit metal of restricted size into the limited space. For added insurance, I packed more Handy Tac inside the instrument panel and dash area. It turned out that was enough weight to support the tricycle stand. If not, more weights can be added into the external fuel tanks noses later on.

The cockpit had very adequate details. After-market Black Box resin cockpit is available and even more impressive, but at four times the price I paid for the kit. I used the kit cockpit instead. The tub was painted dark gull gray with seats the same color. The instrument panel was given a black coat, and was dry brushed with white to bring out the details

Wing assembly was next before attaching to the fuselage. One thing to watch for is the dihedral angle, actually negative dihedral angle. I sanded the upper wing roots and test fit against the fuselage until the angle looked correct. This is a multiple iteration process, as I didn’t want to sand too much material off all at once and have a strange looking wing angle.

The landing gears went on before painting. This way was better for glue to bond tightly. I drilled a hole along the length and insert a .015 brass rod into it and drill the corresponding hole into the wing to attach the rod, then glued the gear assembly to the wing. This assured additional strength for transportation. Tamiya putty was used to fill the fuselage and wing joints. All fin antennas and canopy was glued on before painting.

The A-37s of the VNAF wore some of the most colorful scheme. The 520^th FS is recognized by the dark blue tip tanks and rudder filled with patterned white shooting stars. Paint scheme is in standard SEA tone FS30219 tan, FS34079 medium green, FS34102 dark green, and FS36622 aircraft gray. Model Master enamel and Tamiya paints were used, and Handy Tac for masking. I sprayed the rudder Tamiya blue with a little black added to get dark blue, and masked it before the stabilizers was glued in. This would be easier than painting the blue last because of masking problems around the stabilizers. The rest of the plane was sprayed all white enamel. All landing gears and wheel wells were masked, then underneath was sprayed aircraft gray diluted 75% thinner to retain a very light tone gray. Straight aircraft gray is way too dark. When dried, underneath was masked off before the tan, medium green, and dark green was painted, all in order. The wing tip fuel tanks were painted dark blue last.

I used the kit decals. There are not many choices out there when it comes to VNAF subjects. Incidentally, I bought the Albatros “Ferocious Bugs” A37B decals sheet because it has the two VNAF subjects I planned to do. It was an expensive sheet, but a total disappointment. Despite the rave reviews, my subjects were totally inaccurate. It turned out the aircraft depicted was taken from the book “A-37 In Action” art illustrations. There are better sources elsewhere had the manufacturer looked. I chose accuracy over quality, and dealt with the kit decals. The decals were so thick. Each had to be trimmed very close. For the shooting stars, I cut each one individually, all 30 of them, and used straight Solvaset to get the decals to conform. Two coats of Tamiya gloss helped to hide the decal to surface steps, though not completely. I used a dark gray artist pencil to go over the raised panels very lightly, and pastel for weathered look, as combat planes are suppose to be dirty.

The jet cones were painted gun metal inside and steel outside with Model Master Metalizers.  The whip antennas were from .01 brass rods. I drilled a hole through the anti collision lights and painted red inside. The outboard Mk82s were from spares, as well as the LAU rockets. The 7.62mm gun pods were not used often of the A-37. Mk83s were from kit. I inserted brass rods between weapons and pylons for additional strength. The canopy was buffed with car wax for greater shine and cleaned up minor scratches; the results showed a very shiny clear glass.

The Monogram Dragonfly 48^th scale is still the only model around. Not a wonder kit, it is nevertheless still an excellent kit, very accurate, and despite some minor problems, was easy to build. If I had to do it over, the big rivets would be sanded down since they appeared out of scale, and difficult for decals to conform. I would also open the canopy; it looked much better that way. I also wish Monogram would put some efforts into improving their decal quality. This is not a contest material due to the bad decals, but at least it was a very accurate depiction of the real aircraft markings.