Fat fingers

Even the RAF one's went IRR green by the early 80's.

We did have a cab on 56(f) Sqn in the mid 80's (kilo if I remember correctly), which had the green and grey cammo scheme but had a light grey nose cone!

The sidewinder fit was called the Corporate mod. I don't think it was originally wired through the weight on wheels swt, because just after the Falklands war finished a Harrier managed to launch a sidewinder on the ground which hit some squaddies digging in further up the airfield. I was on 1(f) Sqd at Wittering in the mid 80's with the GR 3 through till the 5's took over. Sidewinder was quite a new fit for the Harriers then, and as I had come from a Phantom Sqd I was deemed the expert! We did go to Deci for ACMI with the 3's at least once. Can't really remember how often we fitted them, the usual fit was SNEB and 3Kg practice (CBLS) bombs and guns.

The KFS kit is a very different beast, it has a full interior, fighting compartment and engine bay. But it is a £100 dearer than 5he Airfix offering!

Lovely

The still carried sneb up to mid 1993.

Ah, lovely!

Ah, lovely. I'm working my way through the set now, and hope mine are half as good!

Nice seat, spot on!

Black, black with some black on the side!

Try David J Parkins Web site, he has some 1/35 british 60' &70's vehicles and figures.

That's great news, I know they are dear, but the quality of the model and the pure pleasure of building them make up for that as far as I'm concerned.

Did manged to get mine together by glueing one side and back and front at a time, but found now that I have painted it that I have put a small crack in the fuselage behind the cockpit while clamping the last side into place!

I served 6 years on 1(f) sqd as an armourer, and we only ever fitted them as ferry tanks.

Ah, big jugs, bloody heavy things!

Every piece of ground equipment in the 80's, 90's period was painted IRR green of various shads!

I've git a nasty twist on mine, hopefully it's salvageable!

From experience a typical GR3 would very dirty from the hot nozzles back, on the whole you could not see the common paint or the tail numbers.

There is news on the KFS website that there is now or soon to be a new owner, who will continue to make and sell the old kit, with new ones in the pipeline.

Didn't a Sea Harrier manage to drop a practice bomb on to one of the carriers?

There is some nice original footage of pinkies in the Yemen around 1970, on YouTube.

I was on 1sqn when we went from GR3's to 5's, most of the 3's were fatigued and limited to what g they could pull, there was a lot of fuss if it was over 3! The 5's had a bigger pay load and up to date avionics. The T4's stayed on longer because at first there was no 5 twin stick.

VC10

Now that is a work of art!

Ah, the good old days 😊