WolvoWill

For those of you doing one of the Harrier's, I'd advise doing 'Lucy' as the decals for the Michelle aircraft are oversized and won't fit properly, as I discovered earlier! Sadly both the silhouette and the rocket/bomb markings will not fit the Hasegawa front fuselage. Being too large they encroachtoo far down onto and maybe over the slime light, and too far up onto the windscreen frame. I'm not sure trimming the decals down will help any either as the weapons markings are so close together anyway. Test fit them if you don't believe me...bit of a faux pas on the part of MA sadly

Would like to echo the comments on Windy being a top bloke, have just completed a trade with him - originally I was to receiver a Tornado IDS kit in exchange for Revells 'new' Harrier GR7/9 as a straight swap, but Windy chucked in loads of extra bits for the Tonka! Including, but this is not exhaustive.... Paragon resin MB Mk10 seats Paragon BOZ and Skyshadow pod Airfix GR1B decal sheet Airfix GR4/4A decal sheet ALARM/ASRAAM/BOL rail sprue from the Airfix EF3 Stormshadow and Raptor sprue from the last airfix GR4 kit Nose fairing and Paveway III sprues from the Airfix GR4 Weapons pylons and pilots from the airfix kit Hindenburger tanks ....etc! All for free

Ordered mine going to be a green and grey GR1 I think!

Many thanks! You have a PM

They're a bit big sadly, as that kits bombs are the 1000lb variety! Thanks for the offer though!

Hmm thats a point, seem to remember seeing some smallish bombs in a friends Rn Bucc I once had a look at...will look into this further. My Harrier will be 'Michelle' if I can source the bombs - I've already imported Belcher Bit's CRV-7 rocket pods, and seems a shame to have spend that much cash and not to have the bombs to do a complete loadout!

No 500lbers from them sadly I have a lot of their stuff on the bench at the moment though....4x Paveway IIs and 6 1000lbers for a pair of Typhoons

As titled....need a pair of such weapons to adorn a 1/48 scale Harrier, for the mixed CRV-7 and unguided bomb loadout. I had read that the Academy Hunter comes with suitable bits, but the bombs are just laughable and overscale - the '500lb' one is about the size of the airfix tornados 1000lbers, and the 1000lb bomb is soooooo big. So does anyone make anything approaching usable for the RAFs rarer and smaller bomb as used on operation Herrick Harriers? Cheers

Its soooo ugly a lot of the time as well, just looks completely unbalanced. Would be intrigued as to how such 'sweetheart loads' (as I have heard them described) effect the handling of the aircraft...

I have the following kits/goodies winging their way to me... 1/48 Academy Hunter F6 1/48 Aeroclub vacform canopy 1/48 Aeroclub correction set Opinions on this kit seem to be quite polarised, like a lot of Academy's efforts. The Aeroclub bits should see me right though I'm guessing, correcting most of the problems? Not sure on colour scheme yet, I have an Xtradecal sheet that I'm going to use and torn between a camoflaged jet of 56 or 208 squadron, but a red/white/grey Valley 4 FTS aircraft is an outside chance too though masking that spine doesn't appeal much! The Valley aircraft seems to be lacking the cannon bulges (sabrinas?) on the decal sheet, did they have the cannon removed then? And would a Valley aircraft typically be seen with any fuel tanks? Anyway I was just after your thoughts on this kit, helpful build tips and any 'gotchas' to avoid making a hash of it! Whilst there are a few photos of built models and narratives on whats in the box, I'm yet to see anything showing the parts breakdown or what it looks like in the box.

Your best bet is to ask on ARC - AFAIK Joe Hegedus over there was/involved in some of the testing for SH weapons, so he knows whats realistic and has been used operatioally. The one you mention sounds plausible to me though. At this present time the available loadouts for the F/A-18 are rather odd if you ask me - with the Super Hornets 'unusual' underwing aerodynamics (hence the canted pylons) and large number of weapons stations the potential number of weapons combinations are dizzying! And there a lot of cool looking weapon configurations that could be hung on the jet (as in, the pylons are rated for that much weight and it will all fit on the wing) that aren't cleared for flight as exhaustive testing hasn't been done. Most operational loads I've seen to date are a bit ugly if you ask me, though I appreciate looks aren't the driving factor to what gets carried! For current operations small PGMs are order of the day. A typical OIF/OEF load would be 'goofy gas' with 2 fuel tanks, 1 being on the centreline and one under the right wing, and then say a GBU-31 on the left innermost wing pylon, and a mix of GBU-12 (500lb Paveway II), GBU-38 (500lb JDAM) and/or laser maverick (AGM-65E) on the remainder of the pylons. Assymetrical loads are very common indeed - not just in terms of weaponry, but sometimes an outboard pylon is left off one of the wings too!

Humbrol 145 would be far too blue for the lighter grey thats for sure - the Xtracolour equivalent of 35237 is far better IMHO.

First up, a big thanks to Neil from Paragon Designs who provided me with a replacement canopy for the Jaguar completely free of charge (including postage) after I managed to make a complete pigs ear out of the first one! The Paragon conversion is excellent, with good detail and high quality casting throughout - too often I find resin accessories arrive warped or damaged, or with detail areas distorted or poorly scribed, but this ranks amongst the best I've used. The vacform canopy is good too, the demarkation of framing and glass is very nicely which is a marked change from the amorphus vacform blobs that come with some conversions or kits (Aconcagua's Tucano and Alitialiane's Harrier T10 conversions take note). I can't say I'm a good enough modeller to do it justice and in some ways its hamstrung by the primitive tooling its mated to, but would definitely recommend it and as a first resin conversion it'll inspire you to tackle more - now, about that Harrier T10..... Decals are from Model Alliance - I used the 'RAF twin sticks' and 'RAF Jaguar Pt1' sheets. Very nice overall, with artwork lacking the sort of sizing glitches that occasionally mar MA's work, but the latter sheet is somewhat spoiled by the grey stencils being too light and completely disappearing when applied to the underside of the aircraft Next up, Revell's original 'prototype' tooling of the Rafale B, largely corrected to production 'Rafale B F2' spec with Skyraider model designs resin update set, and their decals. Still one of the benchmark 1/48 kits as far as I'm concerned, the surface detail and fit on this kit is superb. The Skyraider stuff is great too though in a moment of laziness I decided not to bother adding the resin indentations for the chaff/flare dispensers, instead just using the decals they provided with the resin. All comments & constructive criticism welcome!

Superb! Really like that scheme, seeing that makes me wish I'd done that instead of Shiny Two...

Yep, micro-fleets of aircraft with different avionics fits that were a logistical and technical nightmare and hard to administer. http://www.tornado-data.com/ has information on which airframes had which equipment fits. The GR4/4A upgrade was an attempt to standardise the fleet, allowing any and all aircraft to carry the full range of Tornado weaponry including items previously only usable in specific airframes, such as TIALD, Alarm and Sea Eagle, though the latter was withdrawn from use before seeing service on the GR4.

I think the F3 has a certain aesthetic charm that the stubby looking GR models lack...the extra length makes it look more elegant. I like them both equally (lots!) I was in St Andrews on Monday and Tuesday and saw plenty of the Leuchars tornados, including numerous takeoffs whilst I was on the railway station at Leuchars (for anyone who'se been there, you have a good view of the departures from here...I saw a 3 jet wave on the monday and 5 on the Tuesday ). Really impressive and made me even keener to make more F3s!

I have one built - did have two but the one met an untimely death. Rarely do I swear so much :/ I'd really like another two though - ZG799 of 111sqn in its latest guise, and ZG757 as 43sqns anniversary jet to replace the one I trashed.

Man its ugly! But somehow still cool well done for tackling such a challenging conversion, its definitely an eye catcher and not a model you see built often! I've just started hacking at the Aliatilare (or whatever it is) conversion, and that has a few problems of its own too - the canopy is a bit cloudy and the fit is 'interesting'. I want to do it canopy closed which is complicating things somewhat. I think the windscreen will require the most work and that the end result will be a bit off when sat next to a GR7/9 kit, but until someone does a better conversion or Hasegawa hurry up it'll have to suffice!

As somebody before mentioned the smaller fuel tanks, are they accurate? As if you compare the ones contained in the later Italeri F3 kit, you'll notice they are larger yet are not the Hindenburger type. To my eyes the ones included in the F3 are more accurate with those coming with the IDS kit appearing a bit anaemic! Can't recall seeing the 617 one, got any photos? Am not sure which unit to do next and I have a kit in the stash, potentially a non-marked jet in the lighter grey scheme loaded with Storm Shadows, or go old school and do the rasberry ripple GR1 (ZA326) or an old green'n'grey GR1!

Myself I'd go with humbrol 64 for that grey...slightly darker and maybe ever so slightly 'browner/yellower' than LACG (Humbrol 166)

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh! Wasn't expecting it to be quite that big...the 1/48 F-15E is no small model in itself. Amazingly impressive but one would need so much space to display it nicely. More fit for a museum or gallery than ones home I feel!

Cheers! I placed an order for the aforementioned Super Hornet, but halfway through the checkout procedure during the credit card bit the page failed to load. I received an email from SECPay detailing my order and shipping address with the barest minimum of details. I presume this is my order confirmation? Just want to be sure as have never used Modelzone before online and the email doesn't say anything like 'order confirmation' on it or anything obvious!

Crikey! I don't have a Modelzone near me, does anyone fancy buying the Super Hornet and posting it on to me? Will cover your costs in full of course...will still work out cheaper than buying the kit locally!

Looks great, have always wanted to make one of these myself,along with the italeri 1/48 Herc, but have never quite had the courage (or the means to transport the beast home on occasion)! Once you get over the wonderment at the size, and think 'what the hell am I going to do this?', it becomes quite a problem! I hear its a challenging build - lots of very large parts that can warp quite easily. How does the undercarriage stand up to the weight as well? Any chance of a photo with another 1/48 jet so we get more idea of how big it is? @D

Cheers for the nice comments folks Jonathan, love the photoshop I am especially pleased with the weathering on the F3 and the Viper if I may say so myself...I used Tamiya's weathering pastels/powder and Phil's old style modelling wash (a blend of light and dark as for most shades the dark is a bit harsh in my view). Have been a bit more restrained than in the past, less is more...some of my earlier efforts are far too dirty looking, and am tempted to strip and repaint some of them, its just so time consuming! Having used the Promodeller wash a few times, I find it tends to give somewhat uneven results on brush painted models as the paint fills the panel lines a lot more than with thin airbrushed layers, and thus its easier to remove some panel lines completely when wiping it off - on the F3 I used a mechanical pencil to re-draw some of them, but its thankfully hard to tell which these are after the final matt coat! Will