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What am I doing to myself? 1/48 Airfix Tornado GR1A


RMP2

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Late to the show with a choice of the 1/48 Revell GR4, Italeri F3 or........ the worst thing to ever have been injection moulded? Yep. Im going there. Beer is in stock, wish me luck!

 

I am having a nightmare with Flickr at the moment, uploads are more miss than hit, but managed to get these two to play ball so you can see the box is suitably (and understandably) untouched aside from sprue escapes.

 

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Plan is to continue my II (AC) Sqn collection, adding to "that" Jag and the Phantom, thereby completing my favourite three RAF cold war aircraft, aside from the Lightning of course!

If it all starts to go more sideways than I feel is recoverable then Ill dip the clutch, spin out and look at the Italeri F3 next and hold the Revell GR4 as a back up. See! Im not completely mad. :)

 

 

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Good luck with this one.  I built the “Desert Storm” boxing when it was first released and expended a lot of Milliput on the front fuselage joints;  I never got round to rescribing all of the lost panel lines though.  On a positive note though the cockpit is at least the right length, unlike the Airfix F. Mk. 3 which is too long at the back by about 2 (scale) feet.

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Thanks.

That fuselage join is the most worrying of the lot. Playing with it now - removed the locating pins, looking at adding plasticard tabs to get it somewhere near.

 

Overall thoughts of the fit so far.... absolutely dire. 😂

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Annnnnd..... the nosewheel bay is missing from the kit. Second time this has happened to me so far with second hand kits. Hey ho. Might try scratch building it, will be just as messy as tyring it Wheels Up I suspect given the fit of doors.

 

Bugger.

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you could do worse!

 

great you are able to join as well!

 

I did the "updated" i.e. worsened F3 some time ago.. and it looks like a Tornado! 

 

definitley buildable!

 

some putty, some test fitting, some local reinforcements and you will be good to go!

 

:thumbsup:

 

 

 

 

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On 10/9/2020 at 11:37 PM, RMP2 said:

Annnnnd..... the nosewheel bay is missing from the kit. Second time this has happened to me so far with second hand kits. Hey ho. Might try scratch building it, will be just as messy as tyring it Wheels Up I suspect given the fit of doors.

 

Bugger.

Go the wheels up option, the jet looks more elegant in flight, especially with the wings swept back. If the doors fit badly, make new ones using the kit items as a guide. If you make the nose gear doors from a single piece of plastic sheet, you can just scribe all the various panels in but being a single piece, you wonJt have to try and get  multiple doors to align. You may also save yourself some time as you avoid the work of building and painting the landing gear

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited by Pappy
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Welcome long RMP2, You definitly a challenge to build the Arifix kit. On the plus side you get the JP233 dispensers for a lot cheaper than the aftermarket ones...

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  • 1 month later...

Right. Brace Yourselves....... Ive actually done stuff!

 

Locating pins didnt, so they got removed from the fuselage and some plasticards strips happened. I know, I was impressed too. After that things arent mostly looking dire, could be better but to be honest, I was expecting worse. Brakes and blanked gun ports being the worst offenders so far, bloomin orrible.

 

Its going as a 2 Sqn aircraft to go with my Jag, Phantom and (awaiting work in KUTA) Hunter. I figured that if I could get at least this and the Hunter to the painting stage then kill em both at once as theyre the same camo colours and save some hateful work cleaning the airbrush. Thats the plan anyway.

 

Oh, no painting has happened yet as I didnt want to waste my time and colours if this turned out to be a right pigs ear. Instead I have just lobbed it together with little concern as per my (also unfinished) Omani Jag and that has turned out really nice up until now.

 

Enough waffle. Evidence below.

 

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10 minutes ago, exdraken said:

oh wow!

 

and suddenly we have a Tornado here!

:clap:

 

Easy tiger, I still doubt this will turn out very pretty. Its 2020, remember, hopes are not a thing ;)

Edited by RMP2
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Great to see some progress on this. You can use the 2 week extension to good effect. No 2(AC) squadron is a popular choice for builders and kit manufacturers so you will have a good series when you're done. Note a lot of the GR1's in Shiny 2 were actually GR1A's with the cannon deleted to be replaced by photo windows on the fuselage sides and a sensor bulge below the rear cockpit. These are quite easy mods to make if you fancy the challenge.

Good to see plenty of nose weight going in there.

 

Colin

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18 hours ago, Colin W said:

Great to see some progress on this. You can use the 2 week extension to good effect. No 2(AC) squadron is a popular choice for builders and kit manufacturers so you will have a good series when you're done. Note a lot of the GR1's in Shiny 2 were actually GR1A's with the cannon deleted to be replaced by photo windows on the fuselage sides and a sensor bulge below the rear cockpit. These are quite easy mods to make if you fancy the challenge.

Good to see plenty of nose weight going in there.

 

Colin

 

Yep, 2 Sqn being Recce biased meant that all(?) should have been GR1As, but were delivered mainly without the onboard gear. The linescan came first but there were delays in the side looking IR gear. As such Im planning on this one being a "GR1a" - with linescanner, but no windows as per a couple of photos I found.

 

As we stand this morning:

Stuck it all together yesterday and filler came out. First time using Perfect Putty and applied with a cotton bud, seems to save an awful lot of sanding but still a bit of clean up required and then a coat of primer (if I can find it) to see what is what.

Quite pleased with some of the seams as they cleaned up well with just a scraping session and the front fuselage doesnt appear to be as bad as I expected. Locating pin removal and plasticard strips seems to be the way.

 

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A second swipe with filler is obviously needed in places and the top side of the intakes will be interesting which is a bit of a shame as on the sides and underside they came out pretty good. See what today brings. :)

 

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Note to self.

 

When retrieving aerosols of primer from the garage, allow the can to warm up before spraying.... Face. Palm.

On the brighter side, not looking too shoddy. But Tunes have happened via an unexpected live DJ set on FB, beer opened, virtual party has kicked off, so the clean up can wait. :D

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5 hours ago, RMP2 said:

with linescanner, but no windows as per a couple of photos I found.

The windows are really no big deal as they were transparent to IR so opaque to visual light. On my GR1A i used black decal film to make the 'windows'. There are some pictures of mine in the Reference section on the first page of the GB board

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28 minutes ago, Colin W said:

The windows are really no big deal as they were transparent to IR so opaque to visual light. On my GR1A i used black decal film to make the 'windows'. There are some pictures of mine in the Reference section on the first page of the GB board

 

Cheers, its not that - the decals for the windows are on the kit sheet. I just wanted it a little different and an early example was all as if I get around to sticking the Revell  GR4 together I will have an example of the earliest and latest ;)

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