EA-6B Prowler
by Alan Greenstadt
It’s 1993 and I’ve made the fateful decision to return to the days of my youthful modeling career. Prior to suspending my modeling activities at the age of thirteen the penultimate achievement was a Guillow Biplane powered by Jetex and doused in lighter fluid.
I purchased The Monogram EA6B kit from a large store in New York where I was advised to look into Tamiya and Hasegawa. The Prowler was gently put into the closet and was the proud founder of my unbuilt kits collection.
In 2006 the Prowler emerged .
I decided to build it primarily out of the box with changes made to size and shape only. Further, I wanted to work with new paint as I had been a Humbrol guy for quite a while and other paints seemed to work as well.
The most significant problems with the Monogram kit seem to come from the upgrade from their A6 Intruder. There’s virtual no armor on the EA6B. The specific changes are noted at the : Reference for Building the Monogram EA-6B Prowler site noted below.
I did used Waldron parts and scratchbuilt parts to enhance the “Office”. It’s an irresistible temptation, as there is room and reason to deal with the instruments and scopes.
During my Defense contractor days we worked on Wild Weasels, and Electric Foxes, doing primarily Crew Escape subsystems. As a Navy bird the A6 and EA6b used definitively different gear.
The paint is Model master, cut with diosol and applied with a Paasche airbrush. The surfaces where prepared and polished with Micromesh cloth sanding sheets.
Future, as always, worked wonders on the clear parts. I experimented for a long time to get the overhead canopy parts to look like the gold screen tinted actual canopy. The gold filter is used to shield the crew from their own electronic radiation.
The two best sites on the net I found are:
EA-6B Prowler
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/ea-6.htm
Reference for Building the Monogram EA-6B Prowler
http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/ea6breferencejr_1.htm
Photos by Alan Greenstadt