chrislowe

Thanks Rob for the info there. The wing as kittyhawk have moulded it has always looked odd to me but, it was only when you said this, that I realised why. The leading edge looked more like the wing of the Bat-plane than a Jaguar. Life and work have been taking their toll on progress, and in the short moments I get between the two, I haven't been very good at taking pictures. Once I'd corrected the leading edge, test fitting of the lower wing surface revealed that it was prone to sitting to far into the hole especially at the fwd edge, so I used some evergreen to support it. Same for the other side and after painting and then making the exposed inner surfaces of the flaps and spoilers, the wings were ready to go on. Some adjustment was needed to get the wing surface to line up with the fuselage, but nothing too stressful You may have noticed that the tail and the fin are on too in this pic. Next came some of the intakes vents etc. More on those later. This is where I was even worse than normal at remembering to take pictures, but the nose assembly was glued in place and then I set about filling all the gaps. I fully expect to find more after the primer goes on. This is the state now, complete with the over wing pylons from the Flightpath set. And here's the underside. The main doors and airbrakes are just held in place with blutac here. And that brings me back to ducts & vents. I'm not sure exactly what function these perform, presumably vents for the engines but the profile of these seems much too round. All the pictures I've seen have a much more flat-sided, angular appearance. Like this, but probably more. I'm off to pick PPP out of that line of rivets with a pin. Happy modelling!

Let me know if you need any pictures from different angles. I noticed that on the starboard sponson, there's an angular bulge towards the forward end that's missing from the 1:72 version. I'm sure you know about that already, just thought I'd mention it.

Bill, I don't have any pictures that are better than the one you posted earlier, but I do have a 1:48 D in the stash. Now bearing in mind that it's Revell's one, so no guarantees, it looks to me like you're on the right track. Hope that helps

Love it! What a cracking job you've done on this unusual subject.

Presumably the ones you have are correct for one side, can you scan that one, flip it around a vertical axis and print it?

The big one's looking good Bill, but I'm looking forward to the Apache updates too... Nudge.

Slow but steady progress on this build at the moment. After the last update I fitted the fuel bay And the micro-turbo bay Both of which were from the resin airbrakes set. There's some nice detail in the resin and they fitted with no modification. Next came the internals of the engine space. At this point I could put the engine covers on because unlike the kit parts the ResKit resin engines can be fitted after paint, with a bit of fiddling. Here's the engine covers in place complete with the ventral stakes. As you can see, a little bit of filler was needed, but not too much... Yet. Quickboost air intake correction Then moving back to the nose section I started work on the nose and the optics. The optics are a separate piece so I have them a black surround, a msg backing and a dip in aqua gloss. Nose piece got a few dips because there were some defects in the plastic and it's too small a section to break out the micro mesh. This is my first time dipping clear plastic and I think I'm happy enough with the result. Lastly a quick question to those-that-know. What is incorrect about the shape of the kittyhawk slats? I can't find a good enough pic of the 1:1 scale ones to see what I should be correcting. Also in Mike's reviewer of the 2 seater he mentioned they'd been corrected for the GR1 kit, but I'm not 100% sure, having never seen the older kids. Thanks Chris

Made it in on page 2! I have both of these in 1:48, but not being deserving of retirement yet they're still firmly in the stash. The day job, which for the last few weeks has also been a night job does rather interrupt progress. Smashing start Bill. I can't wait to see how these turn out, and of course the many twists and turns on the way

You've done a great job with that paint. The decals finish it off nicely. No one would ever guess that the tip tank decals weren't the perfect size to start with.

Thanks. I don't know how I missed those! In the end, I went for these. A first for me but they also include masks for the break-glass-to-eject-canopy windows, so I'll give them a try. Welcome along, hope you enjoy it. Actually laughed out loud at that On to the rear fuselage then, and the first thing was to paint and assemble the main gear bays. Airbrushed glossed and a wash.... ... And assembled A lot of the avionics and control boxes on the Jags in the walk-around seem to have yellow stencils, but I couldn't find anything in the stash that would suit so I had to settle for red. This was followed by a lot of repetitive and tedious dry fitting while I tried to figure out if I could fit the rear undercarriage later or not. I can, I think, but while I dithered with that I built the interior of the engine bay No wash yet. I'm not even sure if it'll be visible in the end. I don't think it will. Next was the intakes. Again lots of dry fitting there but happy enough. A bit of sanding required but not tons. Once I was happy that I could close it all up for painting and fit the undercarriage later, I fitted the main u/c bays and in a moment of madness, glued the 2 fuselage halves together. Using the engine interior to keep everything aligned while the glue set, I was able to get everything close enough to where it needs to be. Some sanding required along the seam, but not too much. Same on the top, the seam needs work but not too bad Thinking about closing up the main bays, I added some evergreen rod to the inside of the join between the two forward doors. Hopefully that'll provide a more secure joint when I glue them. Here it is dry fitted with its inboard buddy. Next are the rear bays, which come in the resin airbrake kit. They're painted and washed already but they need detailing before CA'ing them in place. Chris

I can't get one model finished inside 8 months and there you are cracking on with 3 at once, Show off! Great start, Ced, To my eyes the airfix kit looks like it compares quite well to it's more exotic desk-mates so far? As you were. Chris

Well, the HUD is on. I think this might be the first time I've made a 2 element HUD. It was a bit of a fiddle to get both elements on in a way that doesn't foul the windscreen. I took it apart a couple of times but I've got to the point where I think it's as good as I can make it. I'm going to put this bit to one side for now and work on the main fuselage section. Chris

I've enjoyed following along with your build. Congratulations on a great result!

There's some good detail on the resin coaming. I don't know if the nav system changed much between the GR.1 and the GR.1A, but hopefully this is close enough. Of course being resin, it didn't fit well, but this time there wasn't much option other than just filling the gaps. Here with the canopy dry fitted, you can see that the frame will obscure any small gap that remains. I couldn't find any masks for this kit, so I'll have to cut my own, but first things first, I need to make the HUD.

I'm going to tag along for this one. You're off and running already, looks like a good start!