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Hi all, I originally started this during the 2016 Hunter group build but bit off far more than I could chew and its sat on the shelf of doom for a couple of years - until about a month ago that is. I decided to crack on and get it finished only to come up with serous decal issues. The kit decals had perished, I originally bought this cheap about 10 years ago and the box had suffered some water damage, this had obviously affected the decals. I'd planned on doing this in 79 Squadron markings from Chivenor in the late 60's so already had the xtradecal sheet with the squadron markings, but needed roundels, which is where fellow britmodeller David Womby came up trumps and airmailed some from the states (Thanks David!). So here it is, minus most of the stencils which I will add when I can get my hands on some and the rocket pods which are in the paint shop! 🙂 Cheers Simon

As a child of RAF Chivenor I have built a small collection of Hunters & Hawks in 1/72 & 1/48 scale, but I have a big hole in my collection and that is the 22 Squadron SAR Helos. I did attempt a HAR 4 a few years ago with the aid of RAFDECS sheet but it didnt turn out too good. The HAR 10's were a daily sight where I grew up in Braunton next to the base and during the summer they could be seen plucking grockles out of the sea at Croyde & Saunton!! Anyway, this is not so much a WIP but more a look at what i did as the model is pretty much finished but I dont want to clog up RFI with progress pics. I recently picked up a job lot of four unboxed Airfix Whirlwinds for a tenner (bargain!), I sold a couple and thought i'd attempt a MK10 conversion with one of the others. I picked up an Airwaves MK10 nose on ebay and set about chopping the kit up to see if it would fit! I only attempted the most obvious changes ie the nose and the bent tailboom, I expect there are more suble differences that I hadnt noticed but i'm sure somebody will! :-) I'm not expecting this to be 100% accurate but just a bit of fun really and if I can end up with something that looks a bit like a 10 in the cabinet i'll be happy!! First up, heres the helo I am modelling with the aid of RAFDEC sheet and some spares for the serial XP350. Photo taken by my brother on Braunton Burrows sometime in the late seventies I think. Here's the sprues and extras. This mould is dated 1950 something and it shows, pretty basic with minimal interior detail and lots of rivets! First thing to do was chop the nose off, I measured the width of the Airwaves nose and the kit fuselage and it was pretty close, only problem was I had to remove the whole of the front end from under the windscreen to get the resin part to fit. Next up was the tail, I cut it in rougly the right place and then cut the boom at aprox the right angle to get the drooping tail, may have gne a bit too far but if I'm going to all this trouble it may as well notice!! I also had to remove the faring between the boom and fuselage and re-build this out of plastcard. Managed to get the boom back on with a lot of filling & sanding and the nose is taped on, so far so good! I'll add some more photos when finished.... And heres some more old pics of 22 at Chiv... http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/72577-chivenor-sar-old-photos/