Harrier GR.3, 4 sqn

[PhantomLover]

When I was a teen, growing up in the east of the Netherlands, one of my favourite airfields was RAF Gütersloh. We spent quite some time along the fence there in the eigthies and early nineties. Gütersloh was really a great place to go, with a lot of flying activity by the local Harrier force and lots of interesting visitors from all over Europe. The Harrier, especially the GR.3 was always one of my favourite jets. So when I started modelling again a few months ago, this was one of the first kits I just had to build. I found out, there are not that many good Harrier kits around in 1/48 scale and bought the Airfix kit. The box art looks great, but inside I found a relatively simple kit. I guess it's a reboxing of a very early kit, not a great deal of detail, raised panel-lines etc. 

I bought a few aftermarket parts, mainly the intakes and the exhausts, I think from Pavla. Also I tried to scrapbuild some stuff. 

 

In the end I am not unhappy with the result.. I am especially satisfied with the metal plates behind the rear exhausts that I scratchbuilt out of some tea-light aluminium (in the Airfix kit they are just not there at all). Also the rbf tags were made of this material.

 

On the other hand, I wish I had paid more attention to the joints of the wings with the fuselage. I should have used more putty and more sanding there.. Well, it shows once more that patience is one of the most important modelling skills..

 

Anyway, hope you like my Harrier.. 

 

DSC_2457 by Gerben Wessels, on Flickr

 

DSC_2448 by Gerben Wessels, on Flickr

 

DSC_2461a by Gerben Wessels, on Flickr

 

DSC_2450a by Gerben Wessels, on Flickr

 

DSC_2464a by Gerben Wessels, on Flickr

 

Kind regards,

Gerben

Edited April 19, 2020 by PhantomLover
more pictures

[Quid100]

Fantastic model of a fantastic aircraft, well done you 

 

Cheers 

Matt. 

[speedy]

Looks good to me👍. See if you can weight the wheels though, it will make a big difference to the presented model.

[SAT69]

The model certainly looks well done to me. You can be proud of it!

[Tiger331]

Gerben,

 

You have done a great job with that old Airfix kit. I know from experience that it is not the easiest of kits to put together and is showing its age. Fortunately Kinetic will come to our rescue sometime this year or next (depending on the outcome of COVID-19) with a state-of-the-art kit of the classic Harrier GR.1/3 so you can look forward to that one next !.

 

In the meantime, 'Well Done' with your portrayal of the Harrier !  

[Sky Keg]

Gerben, your Harrier looks superb and I see no significant flaws with it.  This is one to be very proud of.  

 

Mike

[F-32]

Very very cool, that's a great build

[trickydicky210]

Great Harrier, looks fantastic in the wrap around camouflage 

[Matt P]

Lovely looking harrier 👍, although you should of corse have come to Laarbruch. A much more friendly place and better class of aeroplane 😊

[PhantomLover]

Laarbruch was a great place as well.. I even remember seeing Hunters and Buccaneers there as a kid... sigh.......

[Hockeyboy76]

Great looking Harrier. 

[jimmyg352]

That's a great looking build, well done!

[exdraken]

Wow, very nice!

What are those rocket pods?

Those from the kit?

They look really nice!

[PhantomLover]

@exdrakenyes, the rocketpods are from the kit 🙂

[TimB]

Very nice, especially from the old Airfix kit.  I really like the rear jet heat shield - you have done well there.  There are lots of other nice touches such as the aim undercarriage doors drooping - very accurate.  

 

Well done again.

 

 Tim

[phildagreek]

Looks good from here! You’ve done well with what’s not the greatest kit, good effort!

[bobsyouruncle]

That's a lovely looking Harrier there. I do like that wraparound camouflage paint job. I got this one for my lad some time ago, but it's sitting on the shelf of doom.

Nicely done.

[Selwyn]

1 hour ago, PhantomLover said:

@exdrakenyes, the rocketpods are from the kit 🙂

This is a really nice build using a very old outdated kit, you have done a cracking job on a bit of a sows ear of a kit.!

Unfortunately the kit has some unfortunate problems, the first being the  Royal Navy No7 36 x 2inch rocket pods which were only used on the 1(f) Sqn GR3's during the Falklands war, and not at all representive of the 18 shot M155 Matra launchers  that the GR3 normally carried. Another bugbear is the horrible gunpods which are totally mishaped at the front and have the wooden cone shaped blanks in the gun barrels which indicate that guns are not fitted in the pods. Again only something that would be seen on field deployments. and of course the curious moulded in rear nozzle heat shields!

 

Selwyn

Edited April 19, 2020 by Selwyn

[mackem01]

Hi Gerben, nothing wrong with your Harrier at all. It's a great build of a long missed aircraft.

Well done.

[RMCS]

Lovley 

[PhantomLover]

Thanks a lot everyone for the kind replies! @SelwynI didn't know about the rocket pods, so thanks! But did you see I scratchbuilt the small step under the right intake? Got that idea from another of your comments 😉

[Selwyn]

Just now, PhantomLover said:

Thanks a lot everyone for the kind replies! @SelwynI didn't know about the rocket pods, so thanks! But did you see I scratchbuilt the small step under the right intake? Got that idea from another of your comments 😉

Yes I spotted it! We used to have hours of fun  when someone got in the cockpit and closed the canopy which retracted the footstep. You stuck a rocket box under the footstep  and trapped them in as they couldn't open the canopy, I learnt a lot of new (if muffled) swear words that way!

 

Selwyn

[bar side]

Nice result from an old kit.  It’s easy to dismiss the kit, it’s harder to make a good model of it and you have.  Did one a couple of years bak so know how it is.  Well done

[russ c]

Great looking Harrier, really nice work

[_alfisti_]

Great looking modell, the Gr.3 is my favorite version of the Harrier. I removed this old kit years ago from my stash, it doesn´t ever made it an my bench. It´s nice to see it built on such a high level.