1/48 Kinetic Harrier T4 Finished!!

[modelling minion]

Time to stake my place in this GB with kinetic's excellent new 1/48 2 seat Harrier.

I don't need to give much of an introduction to this kit as there have already been some great reviews and builds here on Britmodeller so you will already know that it is a very nice kit indeed so no doubt any problems or mistakes will be my own.

Here is the ubiquitous box top shot;

 

And the sprues all tightly packed inside and still sealed;

 

The options available from the kit;

 

 

And the very comprehensive decal sheet;

 

 

As you can see there are markings for every operator of first gen Harriers on there and pretty much any one built can be made from it, which is good as as per usual I will not be sticking to an out of the box example and want to do something a bit different and having a liking for winter camo schemes have found this;

 

Now if I  can find a picture or serial number of one of the T4's which went with 1 squadron on one of there Norway deployments and received a proper wrap around job I will build that one instead. And here are some of the references I will be using;

 

 

Hope to make a start on Saturday so hopefully won't be too long before the next update.

 

Thanks for looking in.

 

Craig.

 

Edited April 30, 2018 by modelling minion

[Col.]

Welcome to the GB Craig. Not added this kit to the stash yet but dare say watching you work on it will destroy any falsification of resolve I have

That half-wrap of Arctic white does look rather cool and a bit different  

[Hewy]

I was hoping on of these was going to be in the gb, must add this to the collection, good choice of scheme craig, i'll  be looking forward to this 

[PlaStix]

That looks like a very impressive kit Craig and really good to see you in this GB! Looking forward to following your progress.

Kind regards,

Stix

[modelling minion]

9 hours ago, Col. said:

Welcome to the GB Craig. Not added this kit to the stash yet but dare say watching you work on it will destroy any falsification of resolve I have

That half-wrap of Arctic white does look rather cool and a bit different  

Cheers Col happy to be here.

Glad you like the choice of kit and scheme, it was a toss up between this and a Hurricane and there were more Hurricanes being built so it was a good excuse to get this one started.

5 hours ago, Hewy said:

I was hoping on of these was going to be in the gb, must add this to the collection, good choice of scheme craig, i'll  be looking forward to this 

Thanks Glynn, it really is a great looking kit and seems to build well from what I have seen elsewhere, I can't see me only owning one of them as there are too many nice schemes.

3 hours ago, PlaStix said:

That looks like a very impressive kit Craig and really good to see you in this GB! Looking forward to following your progress.

Kind regards,

Stix

Cheers Stix, very happy to be here. Looking forward to your Hurricane too, should be a cracker.

[Greg in OK]

Craig:

 

GREAT looking kit and an impressive pile of references.

 

Looking forward to your build.

 

Greg in OK

[Hockeyboy76]

This kit is on my birthday wish list so will be following this build. Love a Harrier & the part winter camo wrap looks way cool. 

[shatters]

On 06/02/2018 at 22:22, modelling minion said:

The options available from  I will not be sticking to an out of the box example and want to do something a bit different and having a liking for winter camo schemes have found this;

 

 

Now if I  can find a picture or serial number of one of the T4's which went with 1 squadron on one of there Norway deployments and received a proper wrap around job I will build that one .

 

Craig.

 

I'm going to use that scheme on my sword T4 for this GB. 

 

I've not found many pics of 1 sqn t-birds online, mainly of xw271 as T4 in 1977 without the flir  nose.

 

Phil

[modelling minion]

6 hours ago, shatters said:

I'm going to use that scheme on my sword T4 for this GB. 

 

I've not found many pics of 1 sqn t-birds online, mainly of xw271 as T4 in 1977 without the flir  nose.

 

Phil

I noticed that this was one of the options in one of your Sword kits Phil, there are some pics of her in this scheme out there but not that many. Like I said what I really want to do is find some pics of a/c in the wrap around scheme where the green is completely replaced with white, will just have to keep on looking!

[Hockeyboy76]

The old Airfix GR3s had a winter camo wrap. 

[mirageiv]

Very nice!!! 

[mirageiv]

23 hours ago, modelling minion said:

I noticed that this was one of the options in one of your Sword kits Phil, there are some pics of her in this scheme out there but not that many. Like I said what I really want to do is find some pics of a/c in the wrap around scheme where the green is completely replaced with white, will just have to keep on looking!

 

Craig, are these full snow camo pics on this page what you are looking for?

 

http://sg-etuo.de/Squadrons/No4SquadronT4

 

 

 

Edited February 9, 2018 by mirageiv

[modelling minion]

10 hours ago, mirageiv said:

 

Craig, are these full snow camo pics on this page what you are looking for?

 

http://sg-etuo.de/Squadrons/No4SquadronT4

 

 

 

Thanks David, yes I've seen the pictures on that site.

I posted a request for info in the Cold War section and our fellow BM'ers have come through as usual and I now have the choice of around 3 or 4 a/c from 3 different squadrons! best get a move on and start building her, then I can decide which a/c to build later.

[modelling minion]

Sorry for the lack of updates but with a very busy week at work I haven't had much time to do much modelling but I have made a small start.

First up was some work on the ejector seats which come in about 5 pieces and look good enough to me to not be replaced by aftermarket ones and even have some brass seat belts, which I have yet to apply as I haven't fitted the seat cushions yet so here's how they look at the minute;

 

The cockpit tub is quite nicely detailed and needs the rear wall and rudder pedals fitting which has been done, I need to get a coat of paint on it yet but here is a shot of it with the rear seat temporarily in place;

 

I've also built up the device for the engine exhausts so that they can all move at the same time;

 

The main wings have also been assembled which is just adding separate lower wing surfaces to the one piece upper wing, these fit quite well but do need a bit of cleaning up, here's the upper surfaces;

 

And the lower surfaces in place;

 

Now as nice as this kit is, and there is some very nice detailing, there are some parts which are more like a short run kit than a mainstream one such as the very large sprue gates and some very nasty ejection marks in visible places such inside the cockpit and on the intakes such as on this one;

 

Not impossible to clean up but they really shouldn't be there.

That's it for now, will try and get a bit more done during the week, even if it's only painting the main colour (medium grey?) on the cockpit interior.

Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[Col.]

I'm finding it interesting to watch you work on this one Craig as it's a kit I plan to get soon and there's plenty tips on how to get the best out of it in your progress so far.

[PlaStix]

Hi Craig. Great to see some progress. It does look like a nicely detailed kit. The cockpit should look excellent. 

Kind regards,

Stix 

[CliffB]

On 18/02/2018 at 8:36 PM, modelling minion said:

I've also built up the device for the engine exhausts so that they can all move at the same time;

 

Hi Craig

For a moment I thought we'd morphed into railway modelling....

Please excuse my ignorance of this kit, but is this a 'working feature'?

Cliff

 

[modelling minion]

On 2/19/2018 at 8:06 AM, PlaStix said:

Hi Craig. Great to see some progress. It does look like a nicely detailed kit. The cockpit should look excellent. 

Kind regards,

Stix 

Hi Stix,

Hopefully I will have time to get some paint on the cockpit this week as once the cockpit is completed it shouldn't take too long to get the airframe together.

On 2/20/2018 at 6:39 AM, CliffB said:

Hi Craig

For a moment I thought we'd morphed into railway modelling....

Please excuse my ignorance of this kit, but is this a 'working feature'?

Cliff

 

Hi Cliff,

Yes it does look like the running gear for a railway wagon of some sort.

I believe it is meant to be a working feature, whether or not I can get it to work is another matter!

[stevej60]

Good start on this great looking kit Craig,personally I think these two seat Harrier's are better looking than the single seater's.

[Rabbit Leader]

So good to see this Kinetic ‘T’ Harrier kit take shape Craig. I’ve got a Kinetic Mirage IIIO high up on my build list and have only heard good vibes about this kit manufacturer.

 

Should be another goodie!! 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[PlaStix]

Hi Craig. Just checking to see if there's been any progress?

Kind regards,

Stix

[modelling minion]

16 hours ago, PlaStix said:

Hi Craig. Just checking to see if there's been any progress?

Kind regards,

Stix

As it happens there has been a little progress.

I have been slowly plugging away at both the cockpit and other areas of the build and it continues to be a bit of a curates egg with some parts being very nicely detailed indeed and others far less so and there are some curious omissions from the instruction sheet but more on that later.

The cockpit tub has been painted and given a weathering with dry brushing and a wash and this is how it looked afterwards;

 

As you can just about see I've added the control columns at that point too, be very careful with them as they are very flimsy and have large attachment points and the lug on the base of them is much bigger than the hole in the tub that it is meant to fit into, and yes I managed to snap one in the process. The  nose gear bay is very well detailed, in my view too well detailed as bugger all of it will be visible when the kit is assembled so I just gave it a wash and some detail painting and here it is after assembly;

 

The cockpit sidewalls have also had the same paint and weathering as the tub, there is very little detail on the port side but the stbd side is nicely done and this is how it looked after the process;

 

The nose gear bay has a rear part which also has the fuselage intake sides on it so i gave the inside the same treatment as the other part of the nose gear bay;

 

The instrument panels are, in my opinion, one area that could be improved as the raised detail is hardly raised at all which makes painting and weathering quite difficult and if you can replace them with pre-painted etch I would, I haven't got any so did what I could with the kit ones;

 

These were then added to the tub complete with the coaming for the rear one and the tub fixed in place on the stbd fuselage along with the nose gear bay parts;

 

 

 

You then need to add the rear inner part of the intake which first needs to be cut in two, makes you wonder why they didn't mould it as two separate parts in the first place. When fixed in place behind the combined nose gear bay/fuselage intake parts this is what you get;

 

This is actually quite effective and fits well and when the outer parts are added I'm sure it will look very good. Well every good intake need an engine to feed and I have painted the the 1st stage LP blades and it looks like this;

 

And it's this part which leads me to the omissions part of the instructions as it is not mentioned, AT ALL!! Now having built a few kits I'm aware that it needs to be fitted before joining the fuselage halves together but someone just following the instructions would have a V/STOL glider on their hands, and I would love to know how that is supposed to work. Really Kinetic you need to get your act together and not make mistakes like this, if Hobby Boss or Trumpeter had made such a gaff the usual suspects would have had the blazing torches and pitchforks at the ready, again! I am a little concerned as to how well the fan will fit in place and if there will be any unsightly gaps around the edges, stay tuned for the next update (which hopefully will be a lot less time than there was between previous posts!).

 

That's it for now, thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[PlaStix]

Hi Craig. Glad to see there has been some progress and the cockpit is looking great. It does sound like you have an interesting kit on your hands with regards the instructions though!

Kind regards,

Stix

Edited March 2, 2018 by PlaStix

[modelling minion]

A bit more progress this week.

The intake assemblies have been added to both sides of the fuselage and they fit quite well, the port one fitted better but there was just a small amount of filler used on the stbd one so no major problems. Here are a couple of pics of how they look and one of the fan which is visible down the intakes, once you have figured out when to fit it that is! I fitted mine from the gap where the wing assembly is fitted after I had joined the fuselage halves together.

 

 

 

The nose assembly was also built and added to the fuselage, this has a very good fit indeed and only needs a tiny amount of filler which could be as much my fault as anything to do with the kit.

 

The tail assembly has also been added to the rear fuselage, not such a good fit but nothing that a small amount of filler can't cope with.

 

As you can see in the pictures above the wing assembly has been dropped into place, no glue as of yet, and it is a very good fit on the upper surfaces and doesn't look like much filler will be needed at all.

 

The undersides don't look to bad either.

 

Next job will be to fix the wing in place.

 

That's it for today, thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

[Col.]

Great progress Craig