Airfix 1/72 Sea Harrier FA.2: the not so best kit of a real best of British

[Giorgio N]

I have to be very honest: I wasn't sure of taking part in this GB. I did not vote for it  as I felt that it could have been a repetition of the first Best of British we had the year before and I was more attracted to other proposals. However democracy is democracy, and the will of the majority has to be respected. Fair enough, some of my favourite potential GBs lost, this one won, I respect this and what's best to show respect than contribute to the common good by taking part in it ?

 

After the unnecessary introduction, here's my choice for the model to build for this GB: a not so best kit of a best aircraft !

Really the Harrier concept was a true technological triumph. At the same time the original land based Harrier can be discussed from an operational point of view. VTOL meant advantages but also disadvantages and it's not an accident that no air force really bought into the Harrier idea.

Different story however when it comes to the use of Harriers from ships ! The USMC bought many and later was the main force behind the Harrier II family, Spain bought a number (and later sold them to Thailand) and then the FAA got the Sea Harrier, with India buying this variant too. Italy then got the AV-8B+ while Spain replaced their first generation Harriers with second generation ones. We can say without no doubt that the Harrier as a shipborne aircraft was a success and the Sea Harrier in particular was probably the best of the "tin wing" Harriers. Of course, following this logic the FA.2, with its powerful radar and increased capabilities, was the very best of the original Harrier family. So yes, I'm building a Best of British !

The kit however is a different story.... it was one of the first products of the Hornby era Airfix and while has some interesting feature (open or closed auxiliary engine intakes, good choice of weapons, detailed wheel wells), it also suffers from over-heavy panel lines, large sprue attachment points and, most importantly, it's not an accurate representation of the real aircraft. Really, a Esci kit with a conversion will result in a better looking model, however this is what I had in the stash and therefore this is what I'll build

 

The box is the now familiar style, red box with a computer drawn cover

 

 

I know many like this style, personally I'm not a great fan of Airfix's cover art but I can understand how they can be attractive and afterall this is what matters: an attractive cover helps selling kits, I may not like this style but if many others like it then Airfix is doing right.

 

Inside the box we have 3 sprues of grey plastic and one with the clear parts.

 

 

 

I've already commented in the introduction on what the plastic is like, not the best really. I should also mention that some parts had already been cut from the runners a while ago, I've positioned most of these where they originally were but forgot one of the intakes... nothing to worry about though, it's in the box!

 

I will not correct the inaccuraciest in the kit, at least not all of them. The only areas that I will correct are the radome and the intakes. This will be done using Pavla's items. This company has done quite a few resin items for the Airfix Sea Harriers (and for Airfix kits in general), their sets are not the best quality around but prices are very reasonable. For a quick 1/72 build they do the job pretty effectively. I will go through the reasons for replacing the kit parts during the build... and you'll see that some replacement parts may not be as accurate either..

 

 

I have several useful references on the Sea Harrier, both in books and in magazines. I'd like however to mention one single book that is IMHO a must for anyone building this type, the kagero Topshots volume:

 

 

These booklets are crammed with pictures of most details, very, very useful. Strangely there was no picture of the seat but this can be easily found in a number of other sources. I have several of these booklets, they are cheap, always include some extra goods (this has canopy masks for the 1/48 Airfix kit) and the pictures are all in colour and very clear

 

 

The only problem with a book like this is that the kit parts look even worse when checked against such pictures....

 

P.S. Forgot to talk about decals... the sheet included in the kit looks very nice, I've yet to decide which subject I'll choose though. The sticky post in the modern section of this same forum will help me a lot in getting the right colours and details for whatever choice I'll make

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2017 by Giorgio N

[PhantomBigStu]

Best of luck, word of warning, might want to take care with the rear canopy, I had major fit problems when I did this last year that in the end were insurmountable.  

[Giorgio N]

39 minutes ago, PhantomBigStu said:

Best of luck, word of warning, might want to take care with the rear canopy, I had major fit problems when I did this last year that in the end were insurmountable.  

 

Thanks a lot for the tip, very useful !

I'm now considering building the kit with the canopy open, hopefully this will make things a bit easier.

[Dermo245]

Nice one Giorgio and great to see another Harrier being built.

 

Dermot

[giemme]

This seems very interesting I did find Pavla resin sets a good replacement for the kit parts when I built my GR9a, although not perfectly accurate...

 

Ciao 

[Giorgio N]

Quick update with no pictures: I've decided to add some detail in the cockpit using... a Pavla cockpit ! Yes, this company make some good replacement parts and the cockpit is quite nice. Problem is that the Pavla cockpit is for the FRS.1 but modifying the panel isn't too difficult.

Different story for the nose landing gear well: the Airfix part is really not good.. what should I do ? Should I just use it as it is (afterall this is not going to be the definitive FA.2 model, too many inaccuracies in the shape) or should I attempt a reproduction of at least a properly shaped wheel well ???

[giemme]

4 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Different story for the nose landing gear well: the Airfix part is really not good.. what should I do ? Should I just use it as it is (afterall this is not going to be the definitive FA.2 model, too many inaccuracies in the shape) or should I attempt a reproduction of at least a properly shaped wheel well ???

I'm not the right person to answer this (   ) but it's your model, do what makes you feel happy - I bet trying to fix at least some of the inaccuracies (like the wheel well) is part of the fun ...  

 

Ciao

[Col.]

Glad to see someone is having a go at what I've come to consider the definitive British Harrier :thumbsup;

Agree with you that this kit is more about missed opportunities than the realisation of its potential by Airfix but then again there really isn't an effective alternative in 72nd scale without some major conversion work to get the basic shape sorted out with an ESCI/Italeri FRS.1 as the basis  With that said, however, I'm wishing you the best of luck here.

As for that nose landing gear well; I'd just close the doors and ignore it  

[Giorgio N]

Well, closing the doors would actually make things easier !

I considered this option but really the Sea Harriers almost always had the front doors open when on the ground (IIRC some equipment need to be serviced through the wells. I'm now leaning toward a moderate rebuild, meaning that I'll add the most visible features but will not go crazy with adding everything.

In the meantime however I've started gluing plastic bits together. Oh, and resin bits too....

I had mentioned how I was going to use the Pavla FRS.1 resin set. This is quite nice, with some paint makes a good effect. Of course fitting this is a slightly different story, however I managed to get a decent fit after thinning the plastic fuselage inner surfaces. But.... there's often a but ! The cockpit looks accurate when compared to pictures, what may not be totally accurate is the position in the model. This most likely because the position of the original airfix cockpit is not totally correct. After comparing the position of the seat in pictures and on the model, I believe that the cockpit should be a little more to the rear. In any case, this is what the cockpit tub and sidewalls look like in the butchered Airfix fuselage halves

 

 

As the set is for the FRS.1, I had to modify the instrument panel somewhat to get a decent FA.2. In order to avoid damaging the part, I made a mould and poured some resin to get a copy of the instrument panel and then worked on this. Really I only replaced some instruments with a CRT made from plasticard on the left side. I also modified the HUD a bit

 

 

The panel is quite accurate, however the coaming is not. Again, this is due to the shapes of the Airfix parts, IMHO the coaming should be longer

 

With the resin parts ready, I also had to work on the intake ducts, as these must be glued in the fuselage before closing it. The Airfix compressor face is a nice part

 

 

With everything glued in place though, it's not that visible... in any case this is an important feature of the Harrier family and must be there

 

 

Next step will be closing the fuselage halves

Edited July 7, 2017 by Giorgio N

[giemme]

Good to see this coming together, G!  I think I already said that, but when I built my GR9a I found that also the PAVLA coaming had the wrong shape, and I had to use milliput to add some length and shape it properly

 

Ciao

[Giorgio N]

On 19/6/2017 at 0:13 PM, giemme said:

Good to see this coming together, G!  I think I already said that, but when I built my GR9a I found that also the PAVLA coaming had the wrong shape, and I had to use milliput to add some length and shape it properly

 

Ciao

 

I will likely have to do something myself on the Pavla coaming, not as involved as your job on the GR.9 but at least something...

A worse problem occurred well before closing the fuselage though...

Airfix supplies intakes that allow the auxiliary doors to be open or closed. This is a very nice touch, however there's a problem: the intake parts are too high and the upper lip of the intake ends up practically level with the canopy. This is wrong and quite noticeable. No problem I thought, I have the Pavla replacement intakes. I really had bought this set because includes some nice one piece exhaust nozzles (the Airfix parts are in two pieces each with a very annoying joint in an awkward position to sort) and didn't think about using the intakes. The picture below shows how the Pavla parts are a bit shallower than the Airfix ones, giving a better result

 

 

There's a problem here though: the Pavla intakes are not a direct replacement for the Airfix ones ! They are flat at the rear, while the Airfix parts have a recess to allow them to fit around the ridge that can be seen in this picture (part of the intake duct to which the compressor fan is glued to)

 

 

No problem I thought, let's just cut this ridge using a dremel, something that I managed quite easily. However, let's look again at the picture comparing the two intakes...

The Pavla intake are also thinner in section on their inside (also more accurate), meaning that now the ridge I've cut is visible through the aperture ! The thickness of this part should disappear where it meets the intakes. While I toyed for a while with the idea of scratchbuilding some intake FOD covers, in the end I thinned the airfix part at its edge. I thinned this a lot ! This is now what it looks like

 

 

Hopefully the intakes are now sorted, but I'm seriously tempted of selling my Airfix FRS.1...

 

A quick dry-fit showed that now I'm pretty much sorted, hopefully the joints will not be too bad... In any case this was a lot of useless work ! Airfix made a mistake and Pavla made another mistake; designing a replacement part that doesn't fit the intended kit without some surgery... and there's no instruction sheet mentioning this in the set !

Edited July 7, 2017 by Giorgio N

[giemme]

This kit is fighting you all the way through, ain't it G?  

 

But you're doing a great job in bashing it into submission;  my GR9a was a "new tool" kind of kit, and at least the intake area was much better engineered.

 

Ciao

 

 

[Giorgio N]

On 20/6/2017 at 9:01 AM, giemme said:

This kit is fighting you all the way through, ain't it G?  

 

But you're doing a great job in bashing it into submission;  my GR9a was a "new tool" kind of kit, and at least the intake area was much better engineered.

 

Ciao

 

 

 

The GR.9 is a much better kit overall, and most important it's accurate, while the Sea Harrier isn't. Fortunately Italeri is still issuing the old Esci kit, at least I can build some decent FRS-1s..

Quick update with pictures to follow later: fuselage is now closed, I had to do some work to get the resin tub to fit but I'm happy enough.

Due to the problems with the intakes, I've decided not to get mad on the wheel wells... ok, these parts are not related to the intakes, but as the intakes will not be great, I 've decided that there's little point in improving the wheel wells as the whole model will not be great anyway. A weird logic, I know...

[Giorgio N]

And here are the pictures !

Fuselage halves are now joined, fit is decent but there are some small problems here and there, some caused by the addition of the resin tub and by a small modification I did to the nose wheel well.

 

 

With the fuselage halves closed it was clear that I should have done a better job when I chopped the cockpit area for the resin parts... sorting this will not be easy.

 

 

While taking pictures I realised I had totally forgotten to mention one small job I had done: the FA.2 retains a camera in the front fuselage, the kit shows the camera clear panel as a recessed panel line only of course so I decided to drill the port and reproduce the clear panel. This was done using clear resin poured into the hole. The result is not spectacular but will do the job. Hopefully the resin will become a bit clearer after a good pass with very fine abrasive foil.

 

 

Before sorting any gap in the fuselage assembly I decided to glue the wing in place, thinking that as I have to open the filler tube, better fill everything in one go.

 

 

 

Well, there are quite a few gaps....

The gap on the lower front fuselage is the result of the replacement of part of the nose wheel well floor with plasticard. The original floor had a nasty ejector mark right in the middle, I chopped this and replaced with flat plasticard, onto which I'll add a couple of structural features. For some reason though the plasticard pushed the halves away. No problem, some filler will sort. The gaps where the wing meets the fuselage on the other hand are all of Airfix making !

 

 

Edited July 7, 2017 by Giorgio N

[giemme]

Lots of filling, as you say, but it starts looking good with wings on etc.  

 

Ciao

[Giorgio N]

Looks even better with the instrument panel in place

Really it took me ages to sort the panel, the Pavla parts are supposed to be designed for this kit but I feel that whoever made them never really checked the fit. Of course this often happens with resin aftermarket bits and I would consider the fit reasonable overall. Anyway, here's where I am at the moment

 

 

 

And one with the seat in place. I have yet to glue the seat as I feel that it may be too tall for the canopy to fit in place, but I liked the idea of watching the completed cockpit...

 

 

Pictures look huge while I'm posting... I'm experimenting with a new pictures hosting site as Photobucket seems to be stopping direct linking. I may have to experiment further but at least now the pictures are visible without worries... and without having to deal with the awful ads shown by PB

[giemme]

I switched to Flickr long time ago - fed up with PB too

 

Great progress, G  

 

Ciao

[Giorgio N]

Well, the time has come that all pictures have disappeared... guess that the first step to take is now to switch all pictures to the new image hosting provider. Hopefully the thread will have all the pictures visible soon

[giemme]

Some of them are visible, some not, though; different provider?

 

Ciao

[Giorgio N]

1 minute ago, giemme said:

Some of them are visible, some not, though; different provider?

 

Ciao

 

The ones in the latest post had already been uploaded to village.photos, the previous ones were on PB. I'm now going through all posts editing the links, so you'll see pictures appearing every few minutes..

Must say that village photos allows a very fast upload of the pictures, way faster than anything else I've used before. Going through the pictures in the album is on the other hand not very user friendly but works. Pictures are displayed at a very large size though and this for things like small details can be a problem... the real instrument panel is maybe a tenth the size of what I can see in the picture here

[Giorgio N]

And all pictures are back online ! Now I only have to start doing some more work on this kit...

[stevehnz]

Hi Giorgio, did this progress at all, you were making pretty good progress. The reason I ask concerns the radome, I should get a Pavla one for mine & am wondering maybe I should get two, one for a Hawk 200 kit bash as shown on this thread or would the kit Radome you're were going to replace do the job, outside the remit of this thread anyway. I came here looking for side by side shots but alas...   I'd be keen to see how this went too. 

Steve.