Hawker Hunter Mk3 World Speed Record Holder 1953 Revell/Pavla/John

[John R]

This represents the Hunter used to capture the World Speed Record of 727mph off the South coast in 1953. It was the original prototype modified to have an afterburning engine with an inlet under the rear fuselage presumably for cooling, no guns, a pointed nose and a conical windshield mounted in front of the normal one.

I started with a Revell kit and the Pavla modification kit but the latter was a source of problems and a lot of it was not used. A problem with it was that does not represent the a/c in the configuration used for the record flights nor is it correct for its current state as displayed at Tangmere. After the record flights the conical windshield was removed and the aft fuselage modified for experiments with the airbrake configuration and this is how it is at present. The Pavla kit represents this state but with the conical windshield but without any provision for fitting the original screen inside. It also has white decals for the underwing WB188 whereas they are now black (more of this later)

The new tail was OK with a bit of fiddling but I did not get the nozzle in the correct place (my fault). It should protrude from the jetpipe.

The replacement parts for the gun ports and the pointed nose did not fit but it was a fairly easy job to work around.

The canopy presented a real problem as I was determined to build it with the conical extension in front of the original windscreen and ended up with cutting the conical section of the Pavla one and mounting it front of the Revell part. This was not helped by the Revell canopy being too wide. What I should have done, I think, was to have mounted the Revell screen and cut it to fit the Pavla canopy over it. It should be noted that WB188 has a shorter canopy than the production Hunter. It ended up with the Revell canopy being 'bodged' to shape, the conical section being fitted and the whole being sanded and then polished smooth. (why do we do this to ourselves?)

After painting, Humbrol Gloss Red, and using Bare Metal Foil for the strip around the tailpipe I discovered a problem with decals. The underwing serials in the kit were white whereas the a/c, in its current state, has them in black. I posted a query on BM

which generated much useful information and showed them to be white. Fine, until I discovered that the decals would have covered the main u/c doors on the a/c if they were that size. Big problem as you can't print white when you make your decals.

What I did was to produce a decal of the correct size with white letters on a red background and print it on a white decal sheet. This was then trimmed to remove any white around the edge and applied to the model. However this leaves a trace of white around the edge where the underlying white decal sheet can be seen so this is carefully brushed with a trace of red paint to hide it.

The colour of the red background was determined by painting some white decal sheet with the paint used for the model and then scanning this into Photoshop. A test piece was then printed on the white decal sheet and then the colour adjusted until I was happy with the match. This was a lot easier than I feared it would be.

Finally some pictures. I have a problem with white undercoat showing around the masking was. does anyone know a way of avoiding this. Also the red looks uneven. It isn't that bad in real life but I don't yet know if the problem is in the camera, Photoshop/monitor mismatch or the hosting site.

Anyway I'm glad it's done. I have wanted one of these for along time.

John

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Head in the clouds.]

Very nice indeed, WB188 was more heavily modified than I realised.

[71chally]

That turned out very nicely John, excellent work modifying the jet pipe, nose and windscreen.

[John R]

I forgot to mention the additional inlet under the rear fuselage. I think that it was for cooling the jetpipe. Main post has been modified.

[RidgeRunner]

Very nice, John.

 

Martin

[RMCS]

Awsome 

[Bedders]

Very nice indeed, and well done on those underwing decals. Looks great, and nice to see alongside the original version of the prototype.

 

Justin

[Wulfman]

Excellent build of a beautiful aeroplane.

 

Wulfman 

[F-32]

Love it!

 

Here is a picture of the real thing at Tangmere

 

IMG_7447 by tony_inkster, on Flickr

 

IMG_7439 by tony_inkster, on Flickr

 

 

[John R]

It's just down the road from me. I was allowed to crawl under it to see the underfuselage intake.