A pair of Airfix Hawks in 1/72. Finished.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Dont forget to lift your feet up over the meerkats

[perdu]

I bin in that'n too Debs

but not there, praise be

[Ascoteer]

You gotta love low level in Albert..

These Fast Jet Merchants bang on about, it but what do they really know?

Edited March 25, 2015 by Ascoteer

[perdu]

Did I mention the wake behind that Bucc?

But Albert will always have me for a fan

Though the sanitary arrangements would be beyond me these days

[Ascoteer]

Though the sanitary arrangements would be beyond me these days

Dear feckin Gods they were always beyond us 'lumpy jumpers', save for the feckin Elsan down the back on the port side!

Edited March 25, 2015 by Ascoteer

[Sten Ekedahl]

Dear feckin Gods they were always beyond us 'lumpy jumpers', save for the feckin Elsan down the back on the port side!

That Elsan brings back a memory. In 1974, just before we graduated from the Air Force Academy, the graduating class made the traditional study trip to a number of foreign air forces. This year we visited the Netherlands (Leuwarden & Soesterberg), France (Nancy & Salon de Provance), Italy (Alghero on Sardinia) and Tunisia (Tunis). We flew with one C-130 and some ten Sk 60 (SAAB 105). Naturally a few of us reacted to the food in Tunisia with a slightly upset stomach. During the flight back from Tunisia to France, the commissary, an elderly Ltcol, was suffering real badly from "Montezuma's revenge" and that Elsan became his refuge.Sitting there behind the curtain deep in thought and not feeling very well, he never noticed the prankster hitting the switch that started the Elsan platform elevator, until it had gone all the way up above the curtain. So there he was sitting in full view to the great amusement of the some 60 passengers in the C-130.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Sten Ekedahl

[general melchett]

Don't visit here as much as I should at the moment but good to see you on the case Steve, plenty of informative stuff to come I'm sure. I get to see these little blighters most days (Redarras), as they perform their routines over the house depositing oil and diesel all over the wife's washing.....one of the 'chaps' lives in our village and so the local pub gets an extra puff of smoke every now and then.

As for the Lakes, got to agree, perfect place to unwind and test the limit of the old hamstrings !

[Dave Swindell]

Whilst you're talking Lake District and C-130's, one of the best photo's I never took was two Hercs flying up Ullswater at low level, line astern formation. I'd gone for a walk on a glorious winter morning, out the back garden and onto High Street and climbed up through a mist layer towards Arthurs Pike. Shortly after breaking through the fairly thin mist layer I heard them coming up the lake and after quick search I spotted them, well just the tail fins. They were flying just below the mist and the fins were sticking up through it! I swear I coould hear the theme tune from Jaws coming from somewhere....

Slightly more on topic, we had a Hawk come through this afternoon, down Kirkstone and hard pull round Silver Point. The RAF still give us regular flying displays :-)

[Col.]

Steve is building Hawks and it's taken me five pages to notice. Oh the shame. Better late than never though.

[Engineer66]

Just been having a flick through the latest copy of Model Aircraft whilst giving blood and came across an interesting picture on page 62;

A brace of JP's and a Chippie!

Al

[CedB]

Steve that's a gorgeous panorama shot... if you want to get it printed don't use the rip off Internet guys, just go to your local print shop. They'll certainly print standard sized paper (so mine had a maximum of A3 sideways) but I think I paid less than £20. The frame was more, of course.

HTH

[Miggers]

Yea, good innit?

Hooligans!!!!

I remember driving through Mid-Wales(the Llangurig-Newtown road IIRC)and the Mrs saying "What's that?".

Daring to have a quick glance,I glimpse an Albert turning hard standing on a wingtip

with two sets of Hawk drivers razzing around after it rolling their socks down with the "g"

[Fritag]

That's my favourite spot in the Lakes. Have camped at the campsite between Buttermere and Crummock Water many a time - and refreshed myself in the hostelries after a walk - Garden of Eden no less. Lovely panorama. Ah yes I can taste that Bluebird ale and Cumberland sausage in onion gravy mmm ...

Tom - We stayed at the Bridge Hotel between Buttermere and Crummock Water and refreshed ourselves each evening in the bar there after walking Plenty of Ale but also no cumberland sausage - wife's a veggie - cracking veggie restaurant only 30 mins up the road in Cockermouth tho .

I've come to your same conclusions that the Airfix kit is the best starting point for an accurate Hawk model. The Italeri kit is best used to supply parts. In any case, the definitive 1/72 Hawk has yet to appear. Revell has announced a new tool for this year, I'm keeping my fingers crossed..

Ah now - Giorgio - I read your posts in the Best Red Arrows Hawk in 1/72 thread before I even started. May have influenced my thinking a little

Can't build 'em can't give 'em away! .

Well now. I've decided that I like the Flightpath etch instrument panels the best - they're the the most accurate shape as far as I can see. Having spurned your offer HAMP man - can I now creep back and see if you've got any of the etch left?

Steve is building Hawks and it's taken me five pages to notice. Oh the shame. Better late than never though.

Missed nowt Col. Bit embarrassed about there being 5 pages and nowt to show for it yet.......

Just been having a flick through the latest copy of Model Aircraft whilst giving blood and came across an interesting picture on page 62;

A brace of JP's and a Chippie!

Ah yes - thanks Al There was also a crowd shot of the Huddersfield show printed in SAMi Magazine Piccie and I detect a couple of suspicious characters who masquerade on BM under the pseudonyms Woody37 and General Melchett. Seems like they let just anyone into the show at Huddersfield........

Anyroad up:

When I got back from the Lakes I found that my evil bay sourced original tooling Airfix Hawk had arrived so's I was able to compare it with the current tooling.

Old version back end (red plastic) reflects only the very very early hawks - so the latest one is best for me there:

At the front end the original tooling is rather better. Ignore the coaming - what I'm talking about is the way the original tooling captures the contours immediately in front of the windscreen better:

Also the windscreen in the original tooling is a better shape and size per se:

In fact the original toolings two piece canopy is better all round and I'm gonna use it as the basis to vac mould canopies for my Hawks:

The nose wheel bay on the original tool is a little further aft. And on checking plans/photos it is more accurate then the latest tooling. An easy enough fix I should think:

The original tooling main undercarriage bay is a better size but still not exactly the right shape - the wings can stay on the sprue

I still prefer the latest tooling but its curious that it's a step backwards in accuracy in a couple of areas. Still, bow I know and can do summit about it

I've been slowly continuing to build an acceptable tub with the idea of casting it twice in resin:

Some way to go yet.

This is how it looks so far inside a fuselage half. I've also removed the inaccurate front coaming and cleaned of the moulded in ribs - I'll replace them later:

I was musing on the MDC........

I've scanned the MDC decal from the Revell 1/32 Hawk - on the basis that it looks pretty accurate and has already done the work for me of producing a 2D profile - and reduced it to 1/72 scale:

I've also just been looking at dr_gn's fantastic MDC in his Tornado build. Trouble with the Hawk Mdc is that it is just so darned complicated. Much more so than was the JP5's. I think it may be beyond me to replicate all those tiny zig zags in wire. Probably have to reproduce them somewhat overscale or simplify them. This'll take some thought and any input is welcome......

More later.

Steve

Edited April 1, 2015 by Fritag

[Procopius]

Jolly interesting, thank you for the comparisons of old and new! Not to derail the thread, but would you say the old Hawk from Airfix wouldn't be a terrible starting point for an older jet? Does it have the original-style ejection seats?

[Fritag]

Jolly interesting, thank you for the comparisons of old and new! Not to derail the thread, but would you say the old Hawk from Airfix wouldn't be a terrible starting point for an older jet? Does it have the original-style ejection seats?

PC - It does have the older elections seats but rather simplified (as you'd expect)

Here's the old kit one alongside my WIP effort. The kit version is more of a nod towards the early Mk10 head box than an accurate representation.

The old kit is not bad at all - and better than the new one in some places accuracy wise.

But it's quite a hard plastic and I didn't like the feel of it.

It has raised panel lines as well - which is a big deal or not depending on your preferences.

I think a really nice Hawk could be made of it - but it'd take a bit of work.

The only real differences for a very very early Hawk is the back end - and I reckon you could file and sand down the back end of the new tool easily enough to deal with that.

You wouldn't have to worry about the seats PC

Edit: I typed in " *rse end " (without the asterix) and it was autocorrected to 'bottom end' I didn't know that 'Clean Reader' had infiltrated BM Anyways I've changed it to 'back end' like a good boy........

Edited April 1, 2015 by Fritag

[Procopius]

You wouldn't have to worry about the seats PC

I mean, I wouldn't, but in front of the men? I have to.

[HAMP man]

I've looked at the limited info I have and I believe the bits came from a PPaeroparts set. I will see what I have and post up some photos.

[perdu]

Nice pr­­écis of what's to be done to get a start Steve, I do like the tub fillerinner

Prime property methinks

That overcomplex and horribly horrible MDC set

How about turning this into 'new bow' time, taking a fresh leaf from Mark's songbook, mixing a few freshly chopped metaphors

And etching them, go on, you know you want to

And I can enjoy watching and learning

[Cheshiretaurus]

Knew I should have finished my next Hawk before this starts, nose wheel bay position noted + many other things. Good pre build research going on .

Along with Perdu I'd vote for PE for the MDC too.

Now what modelling services can I exchange for a copy of that tub?

[perdu]

A hushed chortle slips quietly across the room

[Dave Swindell]

I've looked at the limited info I have and I believe the bits came from a PPaeroparts set. I will see what I have and post up some photos.

Flightpath took over a lot of PP Aeroparts stuff, the Hawk T1/T1a detail set is one of the ex PP sets.

[mirageiv]

This looks promising.

I made the new and old tool kits a few years back to compare. Given I just sanded the raised and did not scribe the old tool bar a few hatches, the surface in my eyes actually looked better and more realistic then the heavy new tool engraved lines. On another new tool I filled the lines with superglue and did a complete scribe, made a big difference IMHO but took about 2 months to build a 1/72 hawk!. Anyways looking forward to more analysis of the kits. Cheers, David.

[HAMP man]

These might be of use, if not as is, but as the basis for resin masters or plastic card

[Tomoshenko]

I've also just been looking at dr_gn's fantastic MDC in his Tornado build. Trouble with the Hawk Mdc is that it is just so darned complicated. Much more so than was the JP5's. I think it may be beyond me to replicate all those tiny zig zags in wire. Probably have to reproduce them somewhat overscale or simplify them. This'll take some thought and any input is welcome......

After being transfixed by your Provost and dr_gn's MDCs (that's not a euphemism for anything ), forgive my approach to the subject, as having not yet attempted such a task it is that of a naive child, but couldn't you adopt dr_gn's technique? Instead of using drills in the jig, what about small strips of etch frets or beer / drinks cans? The material may be thin and strong enough to give you a sharp zig-zag bend as opposed to a wavy line from a drill. Still fiddly as you'd need lots of little strips slotted into a jig in order to achieve each bend for those tiny zigs and zags along each side. I haven't articulated that too well but hope you get the drift. Probably a completely daft and choresome idea, but maybe worth a quick trial.

Other than that then I think Perdu and Mr C's option is the best, and probably the only alternative. Another string to your bow.....

......OK I confess, I have an alternative motive , I too have bookmarked Mr C's home brew etch tutorial, and it would be good to see a "live" version. I reckon you would do a good job....oh yeh, I confess again, I fully intend to bookmark that as well

[dr_gn]

I was thinking that photo-etch would be the best option for MDC at this scale. As I said previously, what stops me having a go a DIY photo-etching, is the amount of dangerous chemicals required.