While the Alclad is drying on my Lightning F3 , my thoughts have turned to "Coldwar Project II".
I've decided on a Harrier GR1 in 1/48th scale - and I'm going to use the Airfix GR3 as the basis.
(Despite having a Monogram GR1 in the stash!) .

Now to backdate and detail the Airfix kit, I've compiled a "to-do" list ...

(i) New detailed cockpit, built around a Paragon(?) MB mk9 (from the Jaguar) virtually identical in this scale - I'm thinking.... Canopy detailed ...MDC, latches, mirrors, de-misting ducts etc.,
(ii) New pointy nose -incorporating side view camera - from Milliput, pitot tube added from alu tubing/needle
(iii) Removal of FWR and RWR rairings on fin and tail boom
(iii) Addition of scuff plates on tail-plane
(iii) Detailed airbrake bay, and enlarged Airbrake (the kits is okay for the SHAR but not the HAR!)
(iv) Re-scribed panel lines
(v) Intake auxilliary doors drooped and lined up
(vi) "Pegasus" fan moved forward and intakes/bell housing detailed (or red FOD blanks added!!!)
(vii) Wing top vortex generators replaced/improved, wing fences removed and new plastic acard replacements added, inner flaps drooped, fuel dump pipe added
(viii) upper fuselage rectangular "ducts" opened and detailled, exhaust fairing in front of the ducts removed and two new added further forward
(ix) out-rider's opened up and detailed
(x) wheel wells opened and detailed (maybe-maybe not!!)
(xi) Undercarriage units beefed up
(xii) Weapons.....Aden cannons added and detailed (probably - I may scratch build a pair of strakes)
100 gal tanks on inner pylons, SNEBS most certainly on outer pylons - and maybe on inner pair too - instead of tanks? Or maybe a 1000lb iron bomb on centre pylon?
(xiii) Pylons detailed
(xiv) extendable ladder added
(xv) decals....use those in the kit - for stencils etc., I have a few squadron badges that I can adapt, and have plenty of suitable red/white/blue roundels..
(xvi) Nozzles.....I'll replace these with a set from Heritage or Pavla or someone! rear heat shields added from plastic card
(xvii) antennae etc added from plastic card
(xviii) "Puffer jet" holes opened and detailed
(xix) RBF tags added

A lot of the detailling stuff is the same as that on the SHAR, so I can use Nick Greenall's notes on the HARSIG site, or in the latest IPMS magazine...

Is there anything else? Anything I've missed (like an announcement that Hobbyboss or Trumpeter are issuing a GR1/AV8A??)

I'd better get my finger out......photo's to follow this evening (of the model, not me getting my finger out..........!!)

Bill,

I'd use the Pavla or Heritage sets for the Harrier as it'll save you some work.

Cheers

Stephen

Hi Stephen, I will use a set of nozzles - though I may well have some decent ones spare from previous builds....

Was quite busy today.....building my GR1 in between customers......

Mandatory box shot.....I will be able to use most of these decals......luckily most seem to be in register!!



Quite a bit of "destruction" required before "construction".....
LRMTS nose removed, fins FWR removed and re-profiled





I've rescribed one wing (over done a bit!) and re-profiled the wing top vortex generators



Intakes being amended......

Never knew there was so much work involved in backdating a 3 to a 1 - there was me thinking they just bolted a new nose on!

Ah yes but..theres also an awful lot of work required to bring the Airfix kit into the 21st Century!!!!

Have you seen the new Pavla bits for the Airfix Harriers Bill?


Stephen

Looking forward to seeing more of this build

Yes and very nice they are too....


I had though already decided to re-model the bell intake housing - as Nick did on his FRS1 detailled builds.I've opened up some of the auxilliary doors already...

Its not that difficult to do, nor is it particularly time consuming - I've nowt against the Pavla sets (nor the Heritage sets for that matter...)and in fact looking at them again, I must say that the nozzles do look very tempting.........

Actually, the ONLY external difference between a GR1 and a GR3 is the heat exchanger exhausts on the upper fuselage saddle - two on the GR1, one on the GR3. You CAN see pointy nosed GR3s.

...but not in 1969!!!

Of course Bill.... for that would require the use of a time travelling devide

Now there's an idea - Life on Mars in the RAF!! 2007 Tornado pilot transferred back in time to, say, 1940.............. I once wrote a short story based on that thought (although it was a Jaguar pilot in 1970s) - then along came the Final countdown....

Time Travel? WHO 'da thought it? No TIME LORDing this subject up I'm afraid, but someone could do an avaTAR DISplay .......okay thats enough already........

Harriers.....been very quiet in the shop today...but at least I've progressed matters somewhat.....

Hatched area requires removing on upper half, lower hatched area already removed...


Bell housing and compressor blade - I removed the centre section later..


Bell housing added in front of airfix's suggested slot - this corrects one of the problems high-lighted by Nick Greenall in the HARSIG Shar builds...




The pencil line on the bell housing shows where plastic needs removing...


Here it is removed, new plastic card wall added and the front of one of the kits missile noses added to replace the compressor blade centre cone

Is the number of turbine blades correct? :-)

Blimey Bill, you're really going to town on hacking this one up, aren't you?

Whats your load going to be Bill?

Bill could you just describe the intake problem in a little more detail. I've spent sometime studying Nicks SHARSIG 1/24 build but cant see what the problem is. Now the turbine 'shaft housing' I can see the problem with but is the whole turbine to far backward? Where should it be on the real aircraft i.e. what should it be lined up with?

For the load I would got with SNEB on all pylons, you see a lot like this in old pics.

Julien

Nice work so far .. and looks you have had fun chopping up

I can remember someone telling me how they spent ages correcting the intake depth problem on the Buccaneer and what was my solution - FOD guards!

Every time.

Cool pic Saves me making the engine when I do my 1/24 Beastie

Blimey Chris, you've leapt forward 30 odd years mate!!! Luckily, I'm doing the GR1 ca.1969.....not a GR7/9.

Anyways.... should I happen to bugger the thing up I can revert to my old "get out of jail" ploy..ading a blank FOD cover



Mind you the "blowy up" ones aren't THAT difficult to do...

How did you make them Bill? I made a soft set for as SHAR a few years back, just a couple of blobs of Milliput pushed into the intakes before assembly to get the shape and then a little texturing while still wet, then popped them out when dry, piece of cake.

On a visit to Yeovilton back in the late 90s I saw SHARs with both the soft and hard FOD guards, though for your Harrier GR.1 the latter are the more appropriate.

Nice work so far Bill, very educational mate.
Glad to see those pesky customers didn't keep you on the phone too long today

I've approached this in different way's..the inflatable ones were indeed plastic card and milliput. Basically the intake shape with a thin "sausage" of milliput ariund the extremity. I then used Krystal Kleer to make them appear like plastic/fabric. These were generally dark grey with dayglo central panels. there was a valve on the fuselage side of the thing....

These Dayglo versions were again plactic card with crinkled seloptape on paper applied to give the plastic-ky texture. Sprayed Halfords white then plasticoat(?) Dayglo Red. The silver reflective strips were from silver foil and the black grab handles from black plastic card.

For the hard cover on the SHAR 1 - its the Flightpath PE cover. If I manage to bugger up the GR1 intake mod., then I'll use a piece op plastic card with handles and plates from additional card. they do add a blotch of colour!!

The stores in the kit are pretty reasonable...I think that I will probably go for the following.....

Inner pylons - the 100gal tanks. These are quite colourful(!) The pylon themselves were Dark Green (Its true I tell'ya!!), and the Tanks Dark Sea Grey over Light Aircraft Grey. The "Warning" triangles were red on a white background. For the outer pylons (Dark green again!) I'm gonna go for the SNEB pods. Matt Aluminium bodies - High gloss (Chrome - if I get it to work) rear sections with black nose cones. The rocket tube apertures will be given a thin application of wet milliput - to represent the frangible covers.

I will most likely add the Aden gun pods, and maybe add a 1000 lb "inert" Blue/Dark Bronze Green bomb on a sctachbuilt centre pylon...

According to Nick - check out the HARSIG Faq/page on his SHAR1 & 2 build's (you are a member aren't you?) where he exp;ains all. On the kit itself there are parallel raised lines where the intake former section is supposed to fit. This unit should be fitted immediately in front of the 1st line.

In all honesty - even after looking into the intakes, the difference is probably not that noticeable. Certainly though the turbine "shaft housing" does indeed need some work.

Customers are never a problem Col (even if they are at the other end of the country!!!)
And I quite fancy a TF.X myself now!!! See what you and Zeke have gone and done!!!

A Harrier TF.X - now *that* would be interesting!



Jens

Doesn't the kit have fatter RN 2in rocket pods (3x rows of rockets) as opposed to SNEB/Matra 68mm ones (2 rows) Not being a 1/48th person, I only have a vauge memory of this. I do recall seeing early GR1s with 2in pods, but with the rounded frangible nose cap and not the conical one.

Good call Dave! Luckily I have a pair of these.....from the Hunter FGA9 set

FLIGHTPATH to the rescue!

I have though seen a picture of a GR3 at Port Stanley -I think- with what looks like the larger (RN) white or maybe silver pods you mention, with the pointy nose... was there not electrical combatability/interference problems with the RAF SNEB/Matras on board HMS Hermes?

Heres a (transposed!!!) pic of a fully tooled up GR3..letting RIP!!!!! And yes you can see that they have two rows of tubes....

Yep, they used the RN pods during the war (Hence why they are included in the kit) but all the point noses were gone by then.

I just wish there was a way to get the 2in pods in 1/72 without buying a CMK Bucanneer!!

I used to have that photo on a poster on my wall when I was about 10!

A mini-update.......port intake has had some attention- auxilliary doors opened...I've started to add some plastic card/rod cockpit detailling



Rather than use aftermarket nozzles, I thought I'd try to adapt the kits parts...here I've drilled and reamed the solid "vanes" out. Plastic card replacements will be added..


The nozzles been temporarily fitted!


Still a long way to go......I'm not that happy with the panel lines, so they will need to be filled and re-scribed...

Blimey Bill, that's turning into an ambitious project! Like it though... Ian (Heritage Aviation) makes a nice set of dropped doors that would have saved you some time. He also does nozzles & landing gear in white metal. The landing gear parts are quite nice too, from the cursory inspection I've given them.

Excellent choice, Sir !

Ian

I have a set of heritages nozzles - (others available from Pavla and Airwaves!!) as a part of the T4 conversion set, and as nice as they are - they are still solid. I wanted to open mine up so you can see inside them! As for the intakes - I've built dozens of Harriers over the years in all scales and its summink I do as a matter of course...I can then regulate the droop of the doors etc.,

Nothing wrong with these sets - in fact I'm all for them they do greatly improve the kit items - I just prefer to do the necessary myself - reaming out the nozzle only took me half an hour sitting in the shop with my feet up - very therapeutic as it happened!!

I'm thinking along these lines as it happens.....I may see if I can get my hands on another couple of SNEB pods from Flightpath......

Update time, been messing about with plastic card and odds and sods..but one fuselage half seems to be taking shape......

First off the opened up forward nozzles. The vanes on the left hand nozzle have been added from thin plastic card.....



Cockpit details being added - with the seat in you won't see too much anyway......



Nozzle added for effect....



I'll probably need to back the grill to avoid see-through..

Looking good Bill.
Regards Daz

nice styrene work Bill

A bit of progress - mainly internally.........







..and externally on th epanels. One fuselage half has been primed thanks to Halfords, to highlight problem areas. I'll do the same with the other half too...

Good to see you back at this one Bill, top stuff so far.

Nice looking work in the front gear well...definately a tough area! Liking what you've done with the aux.intakes as well, especially in such a small scale.

Weeellll..some progress since the last pic's... The fuselage halves have been added along with a few more coats of Halfords' grey primer.



For the GR1 "pointy nose" I'm using a section of resin from...erm...summink or other, with a pitot tube fashioned from the needle applicator from an old humbrol adhesive dispenser plastered with milliput. I'll have some fun sanding this to shape.............

Nice work so far Bill!

Stephen

While my computer was playing silly buggers - Imanaged to get a bit more work done on my GR1..

...a few more..

And a few more





The new wing fences were made from plastic card, th efuel dump pipes from sections of small pins...

Your Miliput work on the nose Bill has worked nicely - your fist side profile pic is bang on.