Airfix 1/72 Armstrong-Whitworth Seahawk FGA 6

[Nomore Shelfspace]

Hello and hope everyone is okay, here's one of my now very infrequent models! This is my attempt at Airfix's prehistoric A W Seahawk, which is poor even by the standards of 60 years ago. It is more inaccurate than accurate. My copy was from the early 90's, an indifferent product of the Heller factory and the instructions refer to parts such as the stand that weren't even in the kit. I built it mainly because of my interest in the old RNAS Ford, or HMS Peregrine, which is just down the road from me and saw practically all Naval types during the 1950's.

   Apart from a lot of Revell Plasto filler, I added parts including the vanes in the air intakes, a cockpit coaming and gunsight, an ejector seat, jet pipes, a pitot tube, main undercarriage doors from sheet, the landing light in the nose, various new undercarriage bits and the two "fins" under the fuselage - I think these are cartridge case deflectors for the cannon, not antenna, although I may be wrong. I removed the weapons pylons. I also carved cannon troughs, sanded the trailing edges of everything that had one, reshaped the tail "bullet" and filled the areas on either side of the front canopy to remove the odd "bulge" which Airfix's designer thought was there. The model was airbrushed with Humbrol matt 90 and 79. Decals went on okay over two coats of Klear and using Klear as a decal agent. Luckily there's not too many... final coat was the indispensable Xtracrylic matt varnish. I do note that brush painting Klear always results in "pimples" which are either air bubbles or flecks of dust - these can be carefully rubbed down with micro-mesh before  spraying the Xtracrylic, but this only works here because there's not much surface detail! Final touches were wingtip lights (clear Tamiya acrylic - mine has nearly dried out and had to be revitalised with alcohol - must be Navy) and silver pen for the nose light. I admit it's not the best model I've ever done but it looks like a Seahawk (which itself looks like a flying penguin...), at least from a respectful distance. Hope you like it anyway.

Please excuse overspray inside canopy...

What RNAS Ford looks like now;

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by Nomore Shelfspace
spelling

[adey m]

6 minutes ago, Nomore Shelfspace said:

What RNAS Ford looks like now;

Good job the Seahawk and all other RN aircraft had short wingspans .....................

 

regards, adey

[Nomore Shelfspace]

1 minute ago, adey m said:

Good job the Seahawk and all other RN aircraft had short wingspans .....................

 

regards, adey

I don't think the trees were there then...

[bigbadbadge]

Looks lovely and looks very much like a Seahawk so great work.  Things haven't changed that much, I built the Trumpeter 48th kit thus year and had to do a lot of what you listed needed doing on this one, at a lot more money for the kit!!!

Chris

[Vulcanicity]

Nice work! This was the kit that,many years ago, made me sit up and realise that not all model kits you bought from the toyshop were equally good!

[Nomore Shelfspace]

51 minutes ago, Vulcanicity said:

Nice work! This was the kit that,many years ago, made me sit up and realise that not all model kits you bought from the toyshop were equally good!

Oddly I recall this and various other basic Airfix fare such as the Saunders Roe 53 being offered as a promotion with orange juice (Suncrush or something equally archaic), where you sent off so many botttle tops or whatever and got the kit of your choice in a plain box with no branding. They were crude even then.

 

[RMCS]

Niiiice 

[stevehnz]

That is a great job you've done on that, hardly a part left untouched. It has come out looking really good.

Steve.

[Nomore Shelfspace]

1 hour ago, stevehnz said:

That is a great job you've done on that, hardly a part left untouched. It has come out looking really good.

Steve.

Thanks! I like posting to Britmodeller, even though I probably only build three kits a year now...

[David Womby]

I like that.  Nicely improved.

 

I actually think the Frog one is the more accurate of the two.

 

David

[swralph]

Nice one.😀

[Bell209]

Nice work! Sad to see another airfield going to ruin, though - it seems to be a common sight in the UK nowadays.

[SteveMc]

A nice job on the Seahawk. A lovely looking aeroplane.

I remember making this kit way back in the late 1960’s. I lived near Culdrose then and non-airworthy Seahawks and Gannets were used for dummy deck training. 

[Team Aer Lingus]

Great job the kit maybe crude but your efforts have really paid off it looks fantastic 

 

thanks for sharing

 

regards 

 

Eamonn

[adey m]

You have done a lovely job on this old kit, it is always good to see these old kits built, and built well. The Seahawk was a beautiful aeroplane.

 

Royal Naval Air Station Ford must have been a fascinating place to live near during the 1950s, the amazing variety of Navy aircraft coming ashore as well as other visitors.

 

Royal Navy airfields were so different to RAF ones, they had four and sometimes five runways so the Navy pilots could always land into wind, the runways were narrower and the parking aprons were quite narrow, as if to keep the pilots used to the idea of the limited space aboard the carriers. And off course they would taxi around with their wings folded.

 

The Navy three storey control towers were interesting too, as well as the sheer number and variety of hangars they were provided with.

 

regards, adey

Edited December 23, 2020 by adey m

[F-32]

Nice job on such an old kit

[Colin @ Freightdog Models]

Great result from a pretty horrid kit, I had have one under construction now for a few years (and the rest) on the shelf of doom, all I've managed is some cleaning up and removing the wing pylons. Hope one day I can build it as nicely as you have.

 

Colin 

[Brigbeale]

That’s one good looking Sea Hawk!!

I have just found this build from an internet search for a Sea Hawk I’d like=e to depict.

My one is a restoration project (it’s what I do) and is in the plain white plastic so that gives an indication to its age.

Your Sea Hawk has given the inspiration to do what I can to bring mine kicking and screaming up to date.

 

Now I will only see a flying penguin when I look at it😆

 

[Wulfman]

Nice work on a very basic kit !

 

Wulfman

 

[ColinChipmunkfan]

That is a very good Seahawk from a very old kit, well done sir.  Sad to see the picture of Ford, I flew from there many years ago.

Colin

[Eric Mc]

On 22/12/2020 at 09:21, Bell209 said:

Nice work! Sad to see another airfield going to ruin, though - it seems to be a common sight in the UK nowadays.

Not going to ruin at all. It's still a government establishment - namely, HMP Ford - for low risk prisoners.

[426]

That is a great outcome from that kit - I remember tackling it in the seventies!