Hasegawa 1/48 Harrier GR.9

[Notdoneyet]

While browsing UKAR and Airliners.net the other day I came across some superb photos of Harriers low down in the valleys of Wales. Some of the GR.9's were in the new "bitsa" patchwork quilt camoflage that seems to be "in vogue" with the RAF these days. So I thought that I'd have a go at making one of them using the Hasegawa 1/48 Harrier GR.7 boxing and the Aires GR.7 cockpit set.

I haven't decided which scheme to do yet but it will probably be ZG471/61A in the 7th photo of this post on UKAR.

If I can't make the mission marking decals for ZG471 then I'll be making her as ZD376/24A as shown in this stupendous photo on Airliners.net.

I've made a start with the assembly using mikeew's excellent build article here as a guide to help overcome any pitfalls with the "tricky" engineering of this kit.

I glued the top and bottom rear of the fuselage halves together, and when dry, wiggled the "keel" section in place and applied some glue to fix in place, gluing the forward lower part of the fuselage at the same time. This results in an almost perfect join :-

At the moment I'm cleaning up the Aires 'pit which is impressively detailed and beautifully cast :-

The seat looks to be a reasonably accurate facsimile of the MB Mk12H used in RAF GR.7/9s but the rails at the rear of the cockpit don't appear on any GR7/9 cockpit photos that I have. I think they are only found on the US versions with the Stencel seat? Would any of the Harrier experts (Kirk, Nick?) care to confirm before I start wielding my dremmel?

Unusually for an AIres 'pit the replacement sidewall panels only required the removal of the kit "detail" and some minor thinning of the resin pieces before gluing into place :-

Next up, after a few hours of dry fitting and tweeking will be the fitting of the wings and the painting of the intake bellmouth and cockpit.

Thanks for looking.

Ian

[xffw45343tg]

Looking good so far.

Can I throw in my usual rant about the aft cockpit bulkhead? The Aires pit is modelled on the AV-8B which has a Stencel bang seat with widely spaced rails. The main beam on the Martin-Baker seat that the GR9 uses is much narrower - so ideally the Stencel "protrusion" needs removing.

Rant over . Good luck with the build.

Kirk

PS/ Great picture of 376!

[AndyL]

Picked of the Hannants site -

http://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?FULL=AIRE4419

Looks like a British Harrier ejection seat on it's own.

Great work so far too!

[keefr22]

This should be good.....

Keef

[Notdoneyet]

Thanks guys!!

Looking good so far.

Can I throw in my usual rant about the aft cockpit bulkhead? The Aires pit is modelled on the AV-8B which has a Stencel bang seat with widely spaced rails. The main beam on the Martin-Baker seat that the GR9 uses is much narrower - so ideally the Stencel "protrusion" needs removing.

Rant over . Good luck with the build.

Kirk

PS/ Great picture of 376!

Kirk, thanks for the timely response - just what I was looking for!! Time to take Mr Dremmel for a spin

Cheers,

Ian

[Seamus]

Looking forward to this one Ian

I've currently got a 1/72 GR.7A on the bench and thrown all the Aires bits and pieces at it as well, though I've replaced the seat with an Aeroclub MB Mk 12. The rails are still wrong, but I think as they'll be largely hidden by the seat I can live with them there, bit of a fiddly sanding job otherwise

Mine will be a patchwork job too, but I'm wondering what colour the replacement panels actually are? I've seen it quoted as MSG, but it looks a little too dark to be that, to my eye at least. Any thoughts?

[T-Tango]

This should be good.

[Notdoneyet]

Thanks guys!!

Looking forward to this one Ian

I've currently got a 1/72 GR.7A on the bench and thrown all the Aires bits and pieces at it as well, though I've replaced the seat with an Aeroclub MB Mk 12. The rails are still wrong, but I think as they'll be largely hidden by the seat I can live with them there, bit of a fiddly sanding job otherwise

Mine will be a patchwork job too, but I'm wondering what colour the replacement panels actually are? I've seen it quoted as MSG, but it looks a little too dark to be that, to my eye at least. Any thoughts?

Seamus, my rails are now history The protruding tops sliced off cleanly using one of Swann & Mortons finest and literally two passes later with a sharp blade the rails were cut through and removed - I was surprised how easy it was, although you are correct with the seat in place its impossible to see the lower portion of the rails ..... Re the colour of the replacement bits I was going to use MSG too as I also have read that MSG is the "new" Harrier colour.

HTH,

Ian

[NG899]

The patchwork effect comes as the Dark Sea Grey / Dark Camo Grey scheme is replaced with an overall MSG one, the lighter panels are MSG, so are high contrast against the DSG upper surfaces.

Looking fwd to seeing this build progress...

Cheers,

Nick

[Shaun]

Nice idea of the patchwork panels, should look great. I think the replacement panels are MSG, but show a bit of weathering.

Looking forwards to seeing your progress

Shaun.

Edited September 5, 2009 by Shaun

[AnonymousFO98]

Ditto

good luck Ian

should be fun

[JakeEaton]

Good luck with the build. Looking forward to this one. Nice photos too!

[Stephen]

Looks good so far.

Stephen

[Notdoneyet]

Thanks for the encouragement guys, it is most appreciated.

I've made some progress over the past (Labour Day holiday) long weekend. As I said in a previous post the Stencel rails in the rear of the cockpit were removed with a few slices of Swann & Morton's finest :-

The parts broken off in Aires ludicrous packaging were reattached and the 'pit was then primed, sprayed, detailed, washed and dry brushed and ended up looking like this.....

.... and this :-

The fuselage halves and cockpit tub were married together, the intake area sprayed white and weathered with pastel chalks and a "gert big hole" cut aft of the tub (more on this later) :-

The fan and bellmouth were painted and the latter also weathered using pastel chalks :-

The cockpit assembly was then joined to the bellmouth making sure that they were square in the horizontal and vertical planes.

Meanwhile the lower wings were added to the rear fuselage and the bottom of the LERX glued only to the lower wings ensuring a good join :-

Then the upper wing was dry fitted and taped firmly in place and the upper LERX glued to the upper wing only. When this was dry, the bottom of the upper LERX part was glued to the fuselage and to the lower LERX part :-

All of this resulted in perfect joins except for under the LERX where the lower LERX part appears to be a little too small for the gap it is expected to fill. A little filler will be required here :-

Next I drilled out the ducts on the rear cockpit decking and thinned the protruding walls ......

and added some "good enough for government work" ductwork (Hey, what do you expect after half a bottle of red wine!! ):-

The cockpit/bellmouth assembly was then glued into the fuselage and held in place with a small "persuader". The rear decking was positioned with its ductwork sliding neatly into the aforementioned "gert big hole" and glued into place :-

That's where she sits at the moment. Next up gluing of the upper wing to the lower wing and rear fuselage, the filling of some extraneous holes and removal of some unwanted lumps and bumps.

Thanks for looking and any comments /critique you may have.

Ian

[periklis_sale]

looking great mate!!!

[Daniel]

Nice build so far, keep up the thread and we can all copy you later!

Dan

[Shaun]

Very nice progress.

Great work on the intake, like the way you have applied the dirt in the direction of airflow

Keep this up and it's going to be a very nice build.

Shaun.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Shaun

[xffw45343tg]

Cor, this is looking fab Ian. First time I've seen anyone tackle the bleed air ducts.

How was the fit at the base of the main intake duct? Some builds I've seen needed quite a bit of filler here.

Your weathering is excellent.

Given that you're going the whole hog, I'll also point out that the areas ahead of the nozzles are "solid" - i.e. they don't open directly on to the engine bay. If you can squeeze a bit of plastic card just forward of where the nozzles fit, you'll be on the right lines. I don't feel like I've explained that too well so shout if you want me to try harder. The nozzle fairings themselves are also over-scale thickness if the dremel is still out...

Kirk

[Mike]

Looks good Ian... it's a complex intersection of parts that you're working on, and it looks pretty damn neat so far

[Seamus]

Fantastic work so far Ian, that cockpit looks superb (I made a bit of a mess of the wash on mine )

Like the muck in the intakes too, I'm gonna have to unashamedly pillage that idea

[Notdoneyet]

Thanks guys!

Nice build so far, keep up the thread and we can all copy you later!

Dan

Fantastic work so far Ian, that cockpit looks superb (I made a bit of a mess of the wash on mine )

Like the muck in the intakes too, I'm gonna have to unashamedly pillage that idea

Dan, Seamus, copy/pillage away!! They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery Seriously, the main reason I do WIP's is to help others contemplating the same build so I'm very happy to be some help.

A secondary reason is to get excellent feedback like this :-

Cor, this is looking fab Ian. First time I've seen anyone tackle the bleed air ducts.

How was the fit at the base of the main intake duct? Some builds I've seen needed quite a bit of filler here.

Your weathering is excellent.

Given that you're going the whole hog, I'll also point out that the areas ahead of the nozzles are "solid" - i.e. they don't open directly on to the engine bay. If you can squeeze a bit of plastic card just forward of where the nozzles fit, you'll be on the right lines. I don't feel like I've explained that too well so shout if you want me to try harder. The nozzle fairings themselves are also over-scale thickness if the dremel is still out...

Kirk

Kirk, many thanks for that!! Re the fit at the base of the main intake duct, did you mean this :-

If so it will get filled with some plastic card or milliput (or both!!). The similar gap at the top I'll probably use card only as it's visible through the drooped intake doors to a midget with an endoscope .......

Re the nozzles fairings ........I was admiring my handiwork (like you do!) and came to the conclusion that the upper LERX/upper wing join was the most perfect butt join that I have ever made in all my years modelling. It is a thing of beauty and I was contemplating leaving it unpainted to show off its magnificence Then you mention the "see through" fairings and I see that I boobed in assuming that the nozzles would fill the holes and that some card is required as you point out. I could bodge some card in there but I know it wouldn't look good so ........ the "perfect" join will be sacrificed tomorrow to enable me to get some blanking card in place

Looks good Ian... it's a complex intersection of parts that you're working on, and it looks pretty damn neat so far

Mike, thanks!! The way Hasegawa have engineered the parts they have too many "degrees of freedom" (engineering term there!!) and can move in too many planes at the same time to give a good fit. The trick is to constrain them to moving in one direction at a time and then they all join up beautifully (short shot lower LERX part excepted!!).

Thanks again guys you have brightened a day that included another hospital visit for SWMBO and a badly leaking fuel tank on a 14 month old car .

Cheers,

Ian

[xffw45343tg]

........ the "perfect" join will be sacrificed tomorrow to enable me to get some blanking card in place

Nooooooo!!!! It's barely visible and I was really just being a pedant. Can't you squeeze some milliput in there and scrape it flat from the outside? As you say that LERX join is not something you'd want to do twice.

Kirk

[Notdoneyet]

Nooooooo!!!! It's barely visible and I was really just being a pedant. Can't you squeeze some milliput in there and scrape it flat from the outside? As you say that LERX join is not something you'd want to do twice.

Kirk

Kirk,

I suppose I could squeeze some milliput in there and smooth it down, it would save a lot of hassle ...................... there's just one small problem ............ last night I did this :-

The "perfect join" was sliced through with surgical accuracy (a pity the surgeon performing SWMBO's endoscopy procedure a month ago wasn't this accurate!! )

I then fabricated some blanking inserts out of 10 thou plastic card, some of which was bent to blend into the nozzle fairings (front on the left, rear on the right):-

These were then glued into place around the interior :-

And the result? Here's the before ........

and the after :-

The small gap at the top of the rear nozzle is completely filled by the nozzle so I'll probably leave it. I'm very happy with how it turned out and wish that I had checked prior to fitting the LERX, wings etc. I would not have been happy with the gaps if I had left them, so thanks again Kirk for pointing out the "see through" nature of the nozzle fairings.

Next up, a bit of deja vu all over again as the upper wing gets fitted (again!!) for the last time .....

Thanks for looking and any comment/critique you may have.

Ian

[Seamus]

Bloody lovely Ian, the only problem I can see is it's making my build look even more average than it already is

Looks like I may have to copy your nozzle blanks too

[AnonymousER99]

Fantastic work so far Ian!! The Aires pit seems to work just perfectly and I have reminded myself to remove those rails for my upcoming build as well.

Also, one word of caution on this kit, well actually two. The wing kink is WAY to exaggerated IMHO and could use fixing and be careful of how Hasegawa makes you attach the nose to the main fuselage or you will end up with a banana shaped Harrier.

Oh BTW, I also love the weathering in the intake. Care to share your technique??

Cheers

Mike