We're going on a Jag hunt

[Phone Phixer]

Looking good. Keep on beating it into submission.

[chrislowe]

Well, strange times and it would seem that my mojo for updates deserted me. Not because I want doing anything just because available modelling time was so short I wanted to get on with it rather than writing about it. I'm blocked now, waiting for the parts in the post so it seems like a good time for the longest update I've ever done. Let's hope that I remembered to take occasional pictures.

 

Last time I posted, I'd been filling and sanding gaps ready for paint.

 

First next job ( bear with me ) was the pylons. The ones in the kit are notoriously French and pointy so j having glued them together

 

 

 

I set about them...

 

I've seen pictures of pylons wiith and without the extensions that cover the sway bars. I don't know why, but I decided to go without

 

 

Once fitted, I attached the overwriting pylons from the Flightpath set and I was ready for priming

 

 

Running low on my preferred Tamiya fine surface primer, I turned to a bottle of Ammo "rust" primer and convinced myself that a brown primer under the browny pink desert camo paint would be champion.

 

Here's the first go, just using the primer to highlight  areas that need more work.

 

 

Masked for filling the wing roots

 

 

 

 

If I could ask you at this point to look at those same two pictures over and over until what seems like the end of time that will be nearly as long as it took me to get finish I was happy with.

 

Eventually I did get the finish I wanted but by that time I had swapped back to the trusty grey primer. Here with some shadow pre-shading to help.

 

 

On with the colour then

 

 

 

Oh... Here's this

 

 

Happy with the paint so I went for some decals. Not many stencils on the desert pink ones it seems. I guess that makes sense but it means there's not much to do here

 

 

 

Some weathering here around the rear of the engine fairing and a slightly grey filter to take the brightness out of the xtracolor paint

 

 

Once I got to this point I was generally happy with it

 

 

So I went on to the reskit engines. I don't know if I did a something wrong here but the end cans were much to long and they were also to large in diameter so after lots of faff, I ended up getting the kit cowls onto the resin assembly. In hindsight I would say that the kit engines are perfectly good considering you can see almost nothing of them once installed. 

 

Even less when the pictures that bad!

 

Underside

 

 

And time for some undercarriage.

 

White metal parts assembled, some brake lines added and a wash

 

 

 

Fitted

 

 

And the front

 

https://flic.kr/p/2k1gnyh

 

Speaking of the pointy end, I unmasked the nose

 

 

And the canopy

 

 

 

After the u/c came the stores. The tanks in the Flightpath set are lovely.

 

 

As are the AIM9Ls

 

 

With paint in some places ( I swear I primed then )

 

 

Not sure what this shot was supposed to show, but you can see the recce pod in place

 

 

 

And a blurry shot apparently of the full payload.

 

 

 

Sidewinders in place

 

 

Doors to the avionics bays

 

 

But as always there's some choppy water

 

 

Which brings us to the last picture and up to date. Canopy RBF tags and the missing antenna.

 

 

Nearly done but I'm waiting for some lenses for the front u/c door to replace the awful ones in the kit and I'm waiting for something to scratch the arrester hook after I managed to destroy the PE one that came in the box.

 

If you made it this far, thanks for persevering. I promise not to leave it so long until the next update.

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by chrislowe

[chrislowe]

So all that's left to do on this beast is a few today up jobs. First, some lenses in the lamps on the u/c door. As I mentioned before the kit items were awful and went in the bin but here's a before and after with some 2.5mm silver backed lenses.

 

 

 

 

Next was the arrestor hook which also embed up in the bin, but this time it was probably my fault do being ham-fisted.

 

 

I made that one out of .8mm square section rod. I found it really quite difficult to find pictures showing exactly what shape it should be and how it fits at the fuselage end so I hope the people who know Jags better than I do think it's not horribly bad.

 

And finally the replacement mirror. Eduard sell a while sheet of PE mirrors so the carpet monster can have the one it ate, I have another!

 

 

Thanks to everyone who followed the build, especially @Phone Phixer whose knowledge of the type and the short-comings of the kit helped me get a decent result.

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2020 by chrislowe

[matto21]

Excellent! It looks brilliant! 

 

I have the French version of this kit but keep putting off building it. 

[Phone Phixer]

That is a fantastic result. It shows a good model can be made from this kit with a bit of skill and hard work.

I'm more than happy to pass on my knowledge of the Jaguar.

[chrislowe]

Thanks everyone.

 

RFI : https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235085240-diplomatic-service-jaguar-gr-1-from-the-148-kittyhawk/

[Kev Gregory]

On 14/06/2020 at 10:51, chrislowe said:

I've been working away bit by bit on this since I finished the Chinook, but I thought that the time had come to start a WIP and get y'all caught up.

 

So, what are we looking at? It's Kittyhawks GR.1 / GR.3 kit which I think will build up into a pretty good shape. There are some gotchas to be aware of though. The kit is really designed to be made with avionics and gun bay doors open and airbrakes too. It's not my usual style to build like that, but I've heard it's can be a struggle to build this kit with those parts closed. Also when I dry fit the two halves of the fuselage, they touch each other at exactly one point, so making something straight and true out of two curves is going to be "fun".

 

As far as after market goes, I have the resin cockpit from Aires plus their replacement airbrake set. Also the SAC metal undercarriage, the Flight path RAF tanks and pods, some pitot tubes and the Kits World decals.

 

Following on a Recce theme from the GR.1A Tonka, I want to model a Jag in the reconnaissance role, so I'm making XZ358 W of 54 squadron. 

 

Pictures coming soon. 

 

Chris

Hi Chris,

 

Hi Chris,

 

Have the same kit in build, although you are further ahead, so interesting to see how you are progressing.

 

With regards 54 Sqn, I didn't think they ever had a recce role, certainly not on the time I was on the squadron, that was carried out by 41 Sqn.

 

Here's my build, being undertaken by Del I hasten to add, I just take the pics.

 

 

I also have an album of Jag pics from at RAF Cosford.  These were to give us the detail needed for our build, they may be of some help to you:

 

 

Regards,

 

Kev.

 

 

 

 

[Kev Gregory]

EDIT:  Just realised yours is finished, so the above will be no help to you.  Nice build BTW 🙂

 

Kev.

 

[chrislowe]

33 minutes ago, Kev Gregory said:

Here's my build,

Hi Kev, thanks for the link  I've been watching your thread with interest, it's going to be fascinating watching it come together.

 

I'm not very good with Jag squadrons, but doing my research I found lots of shots of XZ358 with Recce mission markings and / or pods, so hopefully I'm not too far wide of the mark. 

 

Best of luck with your build.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2020 by chrislowe

[baldwin8]

1 hour ago, Kev Gregory said:

I also have an album of Jag pics from at RAF Cosford.

 

 

I am enjoying t his build and thank you @Kev Gregory for the link to the album. Much appreciated.

 

[Phone Phixer]

2 hours ago, Kev Gregory said:

With regards 54 Sqn, I didn't think they ever had a recce role, certainly not on the time I was on the squadron, that was carried out by 41 Sqn.

Hi Kev.

 

In the "brave new world" of operations after Granby (GW1) basic recce flights were done by all the squadrons as they took there turn out at Incirlik or Gioia Del Colle.

41 were still the dedicated recce sqn. But after the huge recce pod was replaced with the smaller Vicon pod that fitted onto the centreline pylon, everyone could play at being Kodak Kids.

It was the same in reverse. TIALD pods for designating Paveway LGB's were not solely used by 6 & 54 sqns, 41 got to play with them too.

 

Rob. 

[Kev Gregory]

1 hour ago, Phone Phixer said:

Hi Kev.

 

In the "brave new world" of operations after Granby (GW1) basic recce flights were done by all the squadrons as they took there turn out at Incirlik or Gioia Del Colle.

41 were still the dedicated recce sqn. But after the huge recce pod was replaced with the smaller Vicon pod that fitted onto the centreline pylon, everyone could play at being Kodak Kids.

It was the same in reverse. TIALD pods for designating Paveway LGB's were not solely used by 6 & 54 sqns, 41 got to play with them too.

 

Rob. 

 

Ah, thanks for that Rob, interesting to know, by that time I had been dragged screaming and kicking from Jags to Tornados.