Best 1:72 Sea Harrier FRS.1?

[Richard E]

May I also assume that the accolades for the ESCI FRS.1 tool hold true for their GR.3? And, that the following Italeri offering is also a rebox of the old ESCI kit:

[Navy Bird]

Thanks, Richard! That was a quick response. I've found the Italeri FRS.1 for sale at some US dealers for around $25. The Harrier/Wessex combo is around $35-$40. Haven't found the Italeri GR.3 yet, though.

And after re-reading everyone's responses for the tenth time, I now have to question whether I should be looking for a better FA.2 than the Airfix club kit. So I shall set loose the dogs of modelling by asking who makes the best Sea Harrier FA.2 in 1:72 scale?

Cheers,

Bill

[Richard E]

And after re-reading everyone's responses for the tenth time, I now have to question whether I should be looking for a better FA.2 than the Airfix club kit. So I shall set loose the dogs of modelling by asking who makes the best Sea Harrier FA.2 in 1:72 scale?

Bill

My personal opinion only, the Esci/Italeri Sea Harrier introduced to Heritage Models conversion set:

http://www.heritageaviationmodelsltd.com/harrier-fa2-esci--italeri-148-p.asp

[Navy Bird]

To add to my earlier comments, if you go airfix take a look here:

http://www.britmodel...showtopic=43158

Wow, thanks for this! A load of very good information, not only about the Airfix kits, but also on the chosen markings as well. Excellent stuff!

Cheers,

Bill

[Navy Bird]

And after re-reading everyone's responses for the tenth time, I now have to question whether I should be looking for a better FA.2 than the Airfix club kit. So I shall set loose the dogs of modelling by asking who makes the best Sea Harrier FA.2 in 1:72 scale?

Cheers,

Bill

Just me again, folks. I've been cruising around the Internet and I've found that Pavla makes quite a bit of resin to improve the Airfix FA.2, including cockpit, nose, gun pods, exhaust nozzles, control surfaces, etc. Plus good old Eduard can be counted on to make several PE frets for every kit ever made. Has anyone used any of the Pavla resin on the Airfix 1:72 FA.2? It seems that these are aimed at most of the areas that are supposed to be out of kilter on the kit (canopy excluded).

I do like the look of the Airfix FA.2 in the box, the engineering looks well done (other than the two piece exhausts), and dry-fitting indicates that it should go together nicely. The panel lines don't bother me too much - it's the really fine panel lines that disappear under the paint and always have to be re-scribed that bother me. YMMV...

Cheers,

Bill

[SaintsPhil]

Bill,

I built the FA2 with a pavla cockpit a while back, but scraped it as I cocked up the fit of the pit. Nothing to do with the very nice resin just my ham fistedness and poor instructions! If you take you're time they fit well. Not tried the intakes on airfix kit, but I have on the italeri and they're a good fit. Personally I wouldn't bother with the control surface set, as they are rarely deflected at rest, with the exception of the all moving tail plane which is easy to do with the kit parts.

[AnonymousAA72]

Just me again, folks. I've been cruising around the Internet and I've found that Pavla makes quite a bit of resin to improve the Airfix FA.2, including cockpit, nose, gun pods, exhaust nozzles, control surfaces, etc. Plus good old Eduard can be counted on to make several PE frets for every kit ever made. Has anyone used any of the Pavla resin on the Airfix 1:72 FA.2? It seems that these are aimed at most of the areas that are supposed to be out of kilter on the kit (canopy excluded).

I do like the look of the Airfix FA.2 in the box, the engineering looks well done (other than the two piece exhausts), and dry-fitting indicates that it should go together nicely. The panel lines don't bother me too much - it's the really fine panel lines that disappear under the paint and always have to be re-scribed that bother me. YMMV...

Cheers,

Bill

The biggest problem with the Airfix Shar fuselage is the nose and intakes, aft from there they're generally okay (ventral fin might need deepening on further reflection?). The cockpit is far too shallow though, so when you add the canopy it looks..well, just wrong. Now for me, this is an absolute no-no. I can forgive a few errors here and there, but Airfix really have screwed this pooch. The intakes are too narrow as well, and these miss the large semi-circular shape. Added to that the aux doors are incorrecty positioned. All of these problems really have relegated Airfix's Shars to the "No excuse, could of and should have done better" pile.

I have used the Pavla resin cockpit, but on a ESCI Shar1....

it would be a waste on the Airfix kit, due to the gross inaccuracies on the nose.

For an FA2 I'd seriously consider bashing an ESCI kit, though of course they do appear to be a bit dearer over your side of the pond Bill! BUT,

If you can get a hold of that cheap Fujimi kit you could always cross kit that and the Airfix Shar?

Here's one I started a few years ago...Esci FRS1 with Milliput /plastic card conversion set!

Edited August 26, 2012 by Bill Clark

[Giorgio N]

I have some of the Pavla parts for the Airfix kits and the cockpit is nice although not in the same league as say the aires products.. on the other hand is cheaper than an aires pit would be (and to the best of my knowledge there's no aires cockpit for the 1/72 harriers).

I have the intakes sets for both the airfix and esci kits: each fit well for the respective kit, however the set for the airfix kit has not corrected the location of the auxiliary doors and thiswas the main point to buy them. I'm now thinking of using the set for the esci kit on the airfix one if I can make them to fit. The intakes for the esci kit are fine and IMHO are a good and cheap improvement. The cockpit set for the airfix kit can be made to fit the esci kit with some work. Again, a big improvement over the original parts

I also have the FA.2 radome but haven't checked the fit yet.

I only bough the airtfix FA.2, but after this I'm not going to buy any more airfix sea harrier unless I can find them for very, very cheap. The esci/italeri kits are much better: much more accurate, better panel lines, sharper details and all for the same price or sometimes less.

As others have said the same applies to the other early generation harriers: the esci GR.1/AV-8A and GR.3 are still today the best around. The AV-8A is not easy to find but there are still kits out there... I bought one just a couple of months ago

[AnonymousAA72]

Regarding the FA2....I've just dug out the Airfix and Xtrakit Shar2's and compared them to the Esci kit - with a view of possibly cross kitting. The Airfix kits nose is really far too shallow - Esci's nose section won't fit without a lot of packing out. That leaves the Xrakit Shar2. This has potential -being probably easier to graft the Esci nose on to. Pic's to follow in the week....

[Dave Fleming]

I don't know whether the Freightdog drooped intake door parts for the Sword kit will fit this one: given that the Sword kit is allegedly based on the Esci one, they ought to.

Nothing alleged about it - the wings are interchangeable!!. The Sword intakes are assembled in a different way, so some surgery might be needed if using the Freightdog ones.

Re FA2s - I've built one using the ESCI Kit and the Heritage set but not sure I would go down the same route again (in spite of having several sets in the stash) as I found the fuselage insert was hard to get a decent fit on. Might have been me, but the insert was too narrow at the forward end. I always thought the old Scalecast set's way of doing it, having the whole rear fuselage aft of the extension as a resin part was the way to go. I'd probably copy Bill and scratch build the insert!

Maybe Airfix could do what they've just done for the Hawk and re-tool it completely!!

Fujimi kit - accuracy wise it's up there with the ESCI one, but is a notch down the scale in terms of finesse. It does have a remarkable similarity to the ESCI in it's parts and assembly breakdown, in spite of being a year or so earlier as a kit (Not the only Fujimi kit with that trait). Be warned, there are some bad batches out there, I ttrashed one as the intake was so badly warped.

Hasegawa - I have a suspicion that they took the overall length without pitot and made it into the overall length with pitot on the model. Strangely, I think they did the opposite on their GR3, which has too long a nose.

Matchbox - it was OK for it's time - actually, it wasn't but it arrived right in time for the Falklands War and sold by the bucket load because of that. Best use I ever saw for it was as one of the Atlantic Conveyor 'wrapped' aircraft.

Re ESCI/Italeri GR3 - as with the Shar probably still the best option for a GR3, same issues with pylon fairings and cockpit (MB9) as mentioned in the SHAR, outrigger tie down hooks only appropriate for carrier based aircraft and the rear section of the airbrake well needs filling (It should be the same length as the SHAR one)

Edited August 26, 2012 by Dave Fleming

[David Hadland]

To Resurrect a old thread

 

Since it has been 10 years since this question was asked, does anyone have any new recommendations for the Sea Harrier FRS1.

 

Is the new Airfix tooling better that of the Fujimi kit or is that still the best?

[Giorgio N]

6 hours ago, David Hadland said:

To Resurrect a old thread

 

Since it has been 10 years since this question was asked, does anyone have any new recommendations for the Sea Harrier FRS1.

 

Is the new Airfix tooling better that of the Fujimi kit or is that still the best?

 

Nothing has changed over these last 10 years, Esci (reboxed by Italeri) is still the best 1/72 FRS.1 on the market

Edited January 23, 2023 by Giorgio N

[Hook]

10 hours ago, David Hadland said:

Is the new Airfix tooling better that of the Fujimi kit or is that still the best?

Both are inferior to the 1983 vintage Esci (or the Italeri repop).

 

Made in the early 80s and yet still never equalled, let alone surpassed - she's the American Werewolf In London transformation sequence of 1/72nd Sea Harrier kits!

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[David Hadland]

It looks like I'll be getting the Italeri Sea Harrier FRS.1 Falkland Island 40th Anniversary Kit.

 

I would have thought that Airfix would have done a new tooling of an iconic British Aircraft.

[Hook]

35 minutes ago, David Hadland said:

I would have thought that Airfix would have done a new tooling of an iconic British Aircraft.

Since Airfix have just rereleased it, I would not hold your breath.

 

A pity, since both their new tool GR.1 and GR.7A/9A are lovely kits. 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre 

[Giorgio N]

37 minutes ago, David Hadland said:

It looks like I'll be getting the Italeri Sea Harrier FRS.1 Falkland Island 40th Anniversary Kit.

 

I would have thought that Airfix would have done a new tooling of an iconic British Aircraft.

 

Airfix did issue a new tool of the Sea Harrier in 2010, problem is that this kit is disappointing in several aspects for a 2010 kit

[David Hadland]

I have the GR.9 Gift Set which looks like it will build to a really nice model.  It's just behind my AG-1G Cobra in the build queue but ahead of the MIG-23 and MIG-27.

[Johnson]

Alex Stela did a comparison of the Airfix and Italeri (ESCI) kits here on BM:

 

 

I was going to build the Airfix FRS.1 until I read Alex's thread. I built ESCI kit which was very good...

 

 

Far better than the Airfix FRS.1, but not entirely without faults. There are bulges under the wings (for fairings when the outer pylons aren't there) which shouldn't be there if pylons/ordnance is carried, as it invariably was. The ESCI cockpit is a complete disaster. I don't think they could have had access to a real one and just guessed. In its favour, the Airfix kit has really excellent decals produced with the help of the IPMS Harrier SIG.

[Navy Bird]

Food for thought, but here is my Fujimi/Hasegawa kitbash:

 

 

Cheers,

Bill

[theplasticsurgeon]

Only just spotted this thread, so weighing in with some completion evidence.

The thread is about FRS1s, so those the only kits commented on  -  and I've built other FA2s. 

 

My fave would always be Esci - this one sat on a Fujimi boxtop

 

Then Fujimi, but a comment in here about gaps.

 

Used Maintrack conversion on my Hasegawa kit, for an FA2

 

I've not built Airfix FRS1 - so can't comment on that one,

but nobody has mentioned Matchbox.  Never going to be the best, but a fun build nonetheless.

700A trails unit.

800NAS, pre-Falklands.

800NAS, with all the post-Falklands mods.

801NAS, around the end of FRS1 service.

 

[Dave Fleming]

4 minutes ago, theplasticsurgeon said:

 

 

but nobody has mentioned Matchbox.  Never going to be the best, but a fun build nonetheless.

On 26/08/2012 at 18:50, Dave Fleming said:

 

Matchbox - it was OK for it's time - actually, it wasn't but it arrived right in time for the Falklands War and sold by the bucket load because of that. Best use I ever saw for it was as one of the Atlantic Conveyor 'wrapped' aircraft.

 

 

🙂 

There is a year between t5he MB kits and the Fujimi/ESCI ones - it might as well have been a decade such is the difference! 

[Johnson]

9 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

here is my Fujimi/Hasegawa kitbash

Lovely Sea Harrier Bill. Before my BM time, thanks! How did you attach the det cord to the canopy? If you can recall.

 

Unfortunately the availability of aftermarket goodies for Sea Harriers has dried up somewhat since Bill made his. Pavla seem to have gone completely, which is a real pity . And the Eduard photoetch would be very useful. I looked and couldn't fine any.

 

The master pitot tube is worth getting as its so prominent on the kit. And I forgot to say, ESCI/Italeri gun pods are a bit undernourished.

[tempestfan]

6 hours ago, Dave Fleming said:

 

🙂 

There is a year between t5he MB kits and the Fujimi/ESCI ones - it might as well have been a decade such is the difference! 

Well somehow there actually is, as much of the kit was recycled from the 1973ish GR. 1 😉 And few MB kits without a second set of wings were known for delicacy.

[Navy Bird]

8 hours ago, Johnson said:

How did you attach the det cord to the canopy? If you can recall.

 

The detonation cord was photoetch, so I formed it against the inside of the canopy (not terribly difficult). Then I dipped the cord in Future and placed it on the inside. The Future, after it's dry, has enough adhesive property to hold the detonation cord in place. By using Future, I didn't have any tell-tale traces of glue and I had some time for precise positioning.

 

Lately, though, I've taken to making decals for the cord. I've found that the clear film doesn't really show on the canopy as long as you follow the usual decal application rules: glossy surface (Future in this case) and the setting solutions.

 

Cheers,

Bill