At Sea

Well the biggest difficulty is presented by the damage. I suppose I could have used the ordnance for other kits & kept the undamaged parts in the spares drawer but that smells like defeat! Other than rectifying that, and trying to shoe horn in a pilot it is a nice kit. I look forward to building my other ones as Kinetic intended!

Phew! I think that's got it. I decided to build up the whole side to align the intake area as best as possible, frequent dry fits to the other fuselage side and I reckon that'll do. Needs some sanding and finishing under a primer coat once the whole fuselage is assembled.

Started to try and correct the fusealge. I figured the massive intake for the Pegasus engine was a good former, so have glued that to the fusealge to force the shape. Once dry I will glue the edge of the wheel well and the leading edge of the intake to fusealge join then see what if any correction is needed at the tear.

Lots of hacking about to get to this point. The cockpit on the Kinteic kit is not really to scale. The Hasegawa 1/48 Phantom pilot has lost his lower legs and 2/3 of his bottom to get to this point! Luckily the canopy surround frame acts as an excellent jig to line up the warped and damaged fusealge halves, so very confident that this will work out well.

Super work on the intakes!

Good work! It's an interesting kit for sure. I have wrestled a few, and to be honest it takes about 4 or 5 to get your eye in! 3 of mine have gone in the bin in total now, they were completed and put in the display cabinet, but now I have sussed how to actually get one together relatively seam free they looked awful in comparison. Well done for persevering and I can highly recommend this method for any subsequent construction of one of these, works for the IDS and F3 and GR4:

I am Captain of this mighty vessel, the 1990 built Suction Dredger 'Sand Heron'. She is used in Northern Europe to dredge sand and gravel from the sea bed and bring it into port for the building trade. 80% of aggregate used in building in the UK and near continent comes from marine reserves, which are mostly old river beds under sea or glacial deposits. The areas are strictly controlled and we operate within designated areas. A bit like quarrying underwater. I work 3 weeks on 3 weeks off and an extremely fortunate to have some time to model while I am at work. I started at sea in 1995 as a deck cadet (apprentice navigator essentially) working on Container Ships world wide, I moved to these ships once children came along as it's nice to be nearer home. Containers were 5 months away 3 at home when I left. I spent a year 'ashore' as a harbour pilot in Southampton, but I'm obviously too institutionalised as I missed my 3x3 routine so came back,

I'm happy there will be an Eduard Vb, as well as the Vc. The first kit I remember doing which actually looked like the box art and not like some kid's lash up was my 1:48 Airfix 'Queen Salote of Tonga LO-W' kit. I have had a soft spot for that version ever since, and given the brilliance of the Mk.1 and the fact I have the Mk.2 kits on the way means that the complete Merlin family will be available in due course. Here is hoping for a 'Rhubarb & Circus' dual boxing Vb followed by a 'Malta & Oz' dual boxing later.

Brilliant subject!

Wooosssshhhh! Very smart!

Can I make a plea for some assitance please? I was thinking of building this in flight, however the undercarriage doesn't have separate parts for the wing tip out riggers in their retracted positions. If anyone has any in their spares box from the Airfix kit I'd be most appreciative. Thanks. All sorted thanks. Got them from a kind chap on Brit Aviation in Scale on Facebook.

I shot some Halfords white primer over the internal visible bits. blutacked to a bit of card & hanging out my cabin window is not the best spray booth, especially 5 decks up!

So started it this evening, the fuselage halves were most damaged in transit, you can see the white marks from where the plastic has been bent. The worst bit it where it has actually torn the plastic. As this is behind the intakes I am pretty confident I can sort it, and will resist the urge to glue the broken part until I have the internal sub assemblies fitted as this will dictate how I need to adjust this area. I bent it back to about straight a few months ago and taped the fuselage halves, thankfully time has made it a lot better. In hind sight I should have taped each damaged half against an undamaged half I have in my stash, but that's hindsight for you!

Good idea and thoughtful questions. I have voted, and fow what it's worth I actually think the 'problem' we have with group builds is too many subjects being proposed and too many participants, which shows people are engaged and enjoying the hobby and the site, which isn't really a problem at all! GroupBuilds on BritModeller, a victim of it's own success! 🙂

My dance card: Desert Storm GB Sun, 17 Jan 21 Sat, 15 May 21 Tornado GR.1, in my stash ready to go. ANZAC Sat, 23 Jan 21 Sun, 16 May 21 486 Squadron Typhoon, No more Kiwi than Desmond Scott's Squadron! In stash. Africa Sat, 20 Feb 21 Sun, 13 Jun 21 Undecided, maybe a dabble into the murky world of armour... A-4 Skyhawk STGB Sat, 6 Mar 21 Sun, 6 Jun 21 Argentine A-4 from the Falklands or John McCain's. Need to buy. Unarmed Sat, 17 Apr 21 Sun, 8 Aug 21 Victor K2 Tanker. In stash. Less Than A Tenner Sat, 15 May 21 Sun, 5 Sep 21 Something will turn up, eBay bargain or middle of Lidl. Bf 109 STGB Sat, 29 May 21 Sun, 29 Aug 21 An E from the BoB and maybe a G, both in stash. Bristol Sat, 12 Jun 21 Sun, 3 Oct 21 No idea but it will be something! F-16 Part Deux STGB Sat, 19 Jun 21 Sun, 19 Sep 21 Need to buy the Hasegawa 1/48 WolfPack boxing I loved as a kid. French Fancy II Wed, 14 Jul 21 Sun, 7 Nov 21 Possibly a Etendard... F-4 Phantom STGB Sat, 21 Aug 21 Sun, 21 Nov 21 1/48 Hasegawa FGR.2 as 6 Squadron in a Matchbox Homage. F-14 STGB Sat, 18 Sep 21 Sun, 19 Dec 21 1/48 Tamiya F-14A, well it was going to happen sooner or later! I am aware this is quite a busy year but the stash isn't going to build itself!

SovModeller? YankModeller? What gives?!

Beautiful work Colin.

Thanks Col. I have 3 of these and an FA.2 as well in the stash. I plan to have both Falkland schemes and a late 1980's scheme eventually, but first things first let's see how this pans out. The parts breakdown looks good, and the moulding looks nice so high hopes! My Airfix one with Pavla intakes from years back...

Lovely job. Do like a FG.1.

I can't believe it. This is Brit-Modeller and the V-Force is lagging behind!!! Poor show chaps.

The other big advantage with this kit is it has oodles of ordnance which I can put in the stash for other things. My rocketed up Hasegawa Phantom FGR.2 as a 6 squadron Matchbox box top homage just got a stage closer!

Seeing as this is an Interceptor group build, and my other entry so far is a pure interceptor that's only claimed kill was a C-130 it scared out of the sky, presumably because the pilot was so surprised by the appearance of the double delta Javelin! It seems only right that I construct an aircraft that actually did some intercepting, and I can think of no better candidate that the most recent Air-to -Air victor in this country's history than Lt. Dave Smith's XZ499. I considered Flt.Lt. Dave Morgan's ZA177 but it's a Sea Harrier and he was a 'crab-on-secondment' or 'there to show them how it's done' depending on which side of the inter-service rivalry you sit. Also XZ499 was the last recorded kill. Anyhow, it's a Sea Harrier, so it's going to have a Navy type on board! I bought the kit from and eBay seller and it was quite damaged in transit, I accepted a partial refund but actually it turned out to be not as mangled as it first appeared. Should be okay. Living in Somerset we became very accustomed to Sea Harriers to the point where to only looked skyward if something more interesting come along... ...I miss them now.

16 December, so home for 2 weeks over Christmas. Plenty of time to finish this. Plus I have another kit to assemble whilst I am here! Thread starting soon!!

Not an awful lot more I can do on this now until we get some paint on it at home... Not putting the IFR probe or the wing tip pitots on as they'll never survive the flight home. Will do some of the smaller vents and still to build the weapons, so that'll keep me busy. Intake rings will be added after painting, as will the exhaust rings which will be done in Metalcote steel. What looks like a step on the port side of the canopy by the Nav's left hand is no there in real life, funny camera effect. It is a combination the black paint stopping on the surround and the panel line join with glue run it. I had to pick the model up and check as it looks horrendous here! 🙂 Happy with the pilots and the cockpit, need some yellow paint to do the stripes on the ejector handles and the life jackets of the crew. Over the North Sea in a 50's designed jet I'd want a lifejacket too! There's the 'not a step' from a better angle.

A beautiful finish, the restrained weathering and marks from jet ways etc is spot on.