Eduard UK Enhanced Paveway II Mk.13/18 (648518) 1:48

[Mike]

UK Enhanced Paveway II Mk.13/18 (648518)

1:48 Eduard Brassin

 

 

The Paveway II in RAF service was the fitment of a standard Paveway Laser Guidance kit to the UK 1000lb bomb to turn it into a guided bomb. This features a slightly different tail unit to the US Paveway and a collar at the front between the bomb and the guidance unit. The RAF realised during the Kosovo war that there were short comings with the Paveway in that its use was hampered by bad weather, cloud and during night time operations. This lead to the development of the "Enhanced" Paveway which added GPS guidance to the inertial navigation system. This can be seen on the bombs by the small round GPS antennas on the nose of the paveway section. In order for these to communicate with the aircraft a way had to be found to link the nose section to the aircraft plug behind the lug points on the bombs. This was done with a cable run made for the side of the bomb. To attach this in typical British style we just used two large jubilee clips, which can be seen running around the bomb body between the mounting lugs. 

 

 

As is now usual with Eduard's smaller resin sets, they arrive in the new shallow Brassin cardboard box, with the resin parts safely cocooned in bags, and the instructions folded around acting as padding.  Inside are two main bomb bodies, a set of forward fins for them both, some Photo-Etch (PE) parts and a choice of covered or in-flight seeker heads.  At the rear is a tail plug to which a number of tiny PE parts from the little fret are added all around.  The fins fit into keyed sockets on the bomb body, and after drilling a 0.9mm hole in the seeker head, it fits to a pin at the tip of the bomb.  Check your references to ascertain the correct sag of the head depending on where your subject aircraft is in its mission, and use the FOD covered part for a parked aircraft.

 

Colour call-outs are in Gunze paint codes, and as well as the painting & markings guide at the front that gives you decal placement options, there are also colours called out during the build to assist you further.

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

A picture of a Paveway II Enhanced from our walkaround section.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

 

[Stephen]

Nice review Mike.

[Mike]

43 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Nice review Mike.

Thanks Stephen.  I had help from Julien in fairness - he's a bomb nerd