A-4 Skyhawk Ejection Seat with Safety Belts
I intend to use this Quickboost seat to replace the kit part in an Airfix A-4B.
The seat is molded in super nice bubble-free resin, with sharp, molded detail of the lap belts, shoulder harness, and oxygen hose. The primary and secondary ejection handles are molded separately and are located on the pour stub beneath the seat pan.
The stiffening corrugations on the sides of the seat are correctly portrayed as standing proud of the metal surface, whereas the kit part has them indented. This is a moot point, since when the seat’s installed they won’t be visible anyway.
When I placed the Quickboost seat into the Airfix cockpit tub, it was apparent that it was too tall---the canopy would never close. Compare the photo of the Airfix seat in the fuselage half on the left, with the Quickboost seat in the fuselage half on the right.
Not everyone has a real ESCAPAC seat in their back room to compare a resin seat to, but I’m fortunate in that regard, so I took some measurements and found that the Quickboost seat is very close to scale---within a few thousandths. That means that the kit seat is undersized and that the cockpit tub is slightly off too, with one part complementing the other.
I’m still going to use the Quickboost item, but my fix will be to file off a good chunk of the bottom of the seat to bring its height down. It won’t be exactly correct, but the great detail will be there when the viewer (me) peers into the office. I think the small size of a Scooter’s cockpit in 72nd scale will hide a lot of my transgressions.
Many thanks to Aires and to IPMS/USA for the opportunity to review this little gem.
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