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Harrier GR.1 XV802, 20 Sqn 1971


Alan P

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Hi again, Britmodellers!

 

Kicking off the first new build of 2021 (yes I know I'm supposed to be doing the Buccaneer, but!) with a subject I haven't seen since the early 80s. 

tn_PXL_20210129_170635785

Shiny new BIG box with included paint and glue! (Plot twist - I'll be using my own :lol: ) I think the '50 Years' refers to the age of the kit rather than the aircraft itself.

 

It's infamous for being designed from the pre-prod Harrier GR.1 XV278 which was at Gatow in West Berlin. The kit as produced means you can make that one unique airframe unless you are willing to make some modifications! 

 

It's a very big box for what isn't a whole lot of plastic:

tn_PXL_20210129_170716040

The kit dates from the early 80s which means chunky moulds, raised panel lines and soft details:

tn_PXL_20210129_172347598

This is the cockpit and seat as produced!

 

The general shapes are 'a bit off' with the area immediately aft of the intakes being the worst culprit - more on that later. I can't fix all the various issues and to be honest I don't want to. This kit was a product of its time and it's the only game in town if you want an early Harrier in 1/32.

 

That said, I want to build XV802, a 20 Sqn GR.1 which was lost in a fatal crash in Germany 1972 (there's a lovely pic of it in its shiny glory HERE ) so...there will be some surgery required - wish me luck!

 

Alan

 

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First steps - addressing the empty cockpit...

Luckily I have a Trumpeter GR.7 in the Christmas stash with a Wolfpack resin cockpit, so I liberated the kit cockpit and trimmed it to suit. 

tn_PXL_20210129_172403528

The control column was wrong for the early version so the Revell version provided the stalk while Trumpy was used for the top'n'tail. I was lucky enough to fly the Harrier simulator at Wittering a couple of times so I remember the chunky top end with its incredibly powerful trim hat switch! It still needs some remedial work but way better than the provided kit.

 

The seat is a spare Mk12 which I will endeavour to sculpt into a Mk9A. 

 

The next step to tackle is rebuilding the area around the forward intakes with Milliput to better represent the shape - it's the one bit of the Revell kit that's too wrong even for me!

 

Alan

 

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21 minutes ago, (ex)Sgtrafman said:

Awesome! I look forward to seeing this progress 😎👍

 

Iain

 

5 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Looking forward to this Alan, I remember building the kit in the 80s as a youngster.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

Chris

Cheers guys! Very much looking forward to this, it's a nostalgia trip in itself. 

 

My original build of this kit features in this thread from five years ago!

 

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You mentioned the area forward of the exhaust nozzles as being "off". Strictly speaking, I think they are actually accurate because the kit portrays a P1127 (RAF), which was a small batch of pre-production aircraft that were constructed prior to full production for the RAF and USMC. I think the serials for the P1127(RAF) airframes was XV276 to XV281 with 281 being representative of a production standard airframe. 

 

There is a photo of XV276 on this page below.

 

 http://www.vicflintham.co.uk/post-war-military-aircraft

 

BM.

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7 hours ago, Alan P said:

First steps - addressing the empty cockpit...

Luckily I have a Trumpeter GR.7 in the Christmas stash with a Wolfpack resin cockpit, so I liberated the kit version and trimmed it to suit. 

tn_PXL_20210129_172403528

The control column was wrong for the early version so the Revell version provided the stalk while Trumpy was used for the top'n'tail. I was lucky enough to fly the Harrier simulator at Wittering a couple of times so I remember the chunky top end with its incredibly powerful trim hat switch! It still needs some remedial work but way better than the provided kit.

 

The seat is a spare Mk12 which I will endeavour to sculpt into a Mk9A, or maybe I won't bother. getting lazy into old age! 

 

The next step to tackle is rebuilding the area around the forward intakes with Milliput to better represent the shape - it's the one bit of the Revell kit that's too wrong even for me!

 

Alan

 

If you  are putting straps on your modified seats please remember that the long seat straps depicted in most kits of the GR1/3 Harrier did not appear  on  this aircraft until 1981/2 so would be innapropriate for this build.

 

Selwyn

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23 hours ago, Blue Monday said:

You mentioned the area forward of the exhaust nozzles as being "off". Strictly speaking, I think they are actually accurate because the kit portrays a P1127 (RAF), which was a small batch of pre-production aircraft that were constructed prior to full production for the RAF and USMC. I think the serials for the P1127(RAF) airframes was XV276 to XV281 with 281 being representative of a production standard airframe. 

 

There is a photo of XV276 on this page below.

 

 http://www.vicflintham.co.uk/post-war-military-aircraft

 

BM.

Unfortunately the kit as moulded doesn't even match the P. 1127 (RAF) either. Hopefully this is a quick demo of the intake shape problem:

 

This is the XV278 Intake area - note the narrower intake trunk and standout nozzle fairing with squarish corners:

35

This is the same as the Kestrel FGA.1 in Cosford:

36

This the production GR.1 - note the blended, smooth fairing:

37

And this is the kit - kind of a mashup between the two shapes:

tn_PXL_20210129_170716040 (1)

I imagine if you weren't fussy this wouldn't be a make-or-break issue, but you can see you'd need to do some work on it whether you were making a P1127/Kestrel or a production GR.1. I did consider making a Kestrel FGA.1 as a NASA XV-6A but the work seemed too much, not to take anything away from @speedy's amazing effort linked above! You'd need to radically alter the intake area and nozzles, delete the airbrake, remodel and rebuild the main gear bay and door as well as the leading edge and wingtip mods. Happy to leave that to more enterprising modellers! :lol:

 

Cheers,

Alan

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So I had a go at the intake area with milliput:

tn_PXL_20210130_164837613 tn_original_a554ad70-d179-4262-968b-3ddecf87645f_PXL_20210130_164907941

Hopefully it will look more the part when sanded back.

 

Also added some trunking on the inboard part of the intakes, where there is mnone in the kit:

tn_PXL_20210130_170753149 tn_original_c5a7c9ce-33b0-402c-87ee-f251d4d85983_PXL_20210130_170807840

This will be tricky to mate to the compressor face but I'll cross that bridge when I get there!

 

Last improvement was to finish the control column:

tn_original_0029ba99-c3c9-4a8c-999b-e4e4e41189b9_PXL_20210130_171024251

Not perfect, but a vast improvement on the original.

 

Alan

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Another Harrier, goody.

The father of a good friend was SATCO at Wittering in the early days of the Harrier and gave me a lot of useful literature ( some of it still marked Restricted ) on the subject, but unfortunately has not survived the move to France.

Your work on the control column is excellent.

Looking forward to more.

 

John

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Thank you very much John @Biggles87 and Chris @bigbadbadge 👍

 

Big update coming - loads of work done on this over the past two days:

 

tn_Harrier (23)

Bashed the seat into something resembling an early MB Mk9A (thanks for the tip @Selwyn) - the added headbox details are from plastic card and blutac 😉

 

Trumpeter cockpit painted:

tn_Harrier (31) tn_Harrier (32)

New control column fitted. I went with the decal front panel even though the round central screen display wasn't a feature of the early GR.1. Nobody's looking anyway... :devil:

 

 

tn_Harrier (19)

Seat painted decalled and washed.

tn_Harrier (18)

Very pleased with the improvement over the kit original!

 

More soon...

Alan

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Thanks again Chris 👍

 

Moving on to the other interior parts:

tn_Harrier (33)

Compressor face painted and added the central hub which merges with the intake ducts.

tn_Harrier (25)

Can't really see from the photos but it does merge with the intake duct parts I added earlier.

tn_Harrier (26)

 

Next was the airbrake bay, which is just an empty space on the kit:

tn_Harrier (34)

 

This was a beggar to fit - in the end I had to brace it from the inside using lengths of sprue:

tn_Harrier (24)

Very pleased with how this came out, should look nice when painted.

 

Cheers,

Alan

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tn_Harrier (27)

Moving on to the tailcone - decided to add some additional details like the ventilation grilles (the kit is correct for the subject - these vents weren't on the early GR1s, but I wanted to add them!) and the roller valves for the reaction control system on both sides and underneath.

tn_Harrier (28)

 

Also added the RCS nozzles above and below the wingtips:

tn_Harrier (21)

 

Next adjustment was the bacon slicers on the stabilisers - the kit moulded parts look a bit nebulous and soft:

1

Made new templates from plastic card:

tn_Harrier (29)

I considered making the stabs all-moving by making a central pivot point but that's a step too far for me! Just stuck the template to the fuselage and cut the attachment holes for the stabs.

tn_Harrier (30)

Much better than the original.

 

Final bit of improvement was the nosecone:

tn_Harrier (35)

Beefed up and reshaped the camera port to better reflect the real one. Also opened and detailed the RCS nozzle underneath.

 

Finished this sesh by fully assembling the airframe, and I'll save those pics until tomorrow! 

 

All the best,

 

Alan

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26 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Great work on the seat especially the headbox.

Thanks Stephen, hope you'll look in from time to time as one of the go-to Harrier guys 👍 will be doing a 21st Century GR.9 next so you'll be needed 😁

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8 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

I didn’t know that 21st Century did a GR9

Ah, maybe I shouldn't have capitalised it, I meant from the 21st century rather than manufacturer 😁 That would be impressive if they did though! 

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On 2/4/2021 at 7:47 PM, bigbadbadge said:

Looking good Alan with the extra details going on ,  this should be impressive. 

Thanks Chris 👍Let's hope so...!

On 2/4/2021 at 7:55 PM, AdrianMF said:

Love the extra detailing.

Thanks Adrian.

On 2/5/2021 at 3:06 PM, ice315 said:

Interesting build!! I have this one in my stash too.. Well, who has not... 😉

Keep up the good work!!! 

Thanks Peter 👍 It's the only 1/32 early harrier so we might as well make something good from it!

 

tn_PXL_20210205_163044190

Major assembly completed. It's bigger than I thought it would be. Revell have done a pretty good job with the structure, it fits together nicely.

 

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Added some extra detail on the vents over the engine covers - opened up the streamlined vents and added ductwork and grille to the others.

 

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Opened up the intake auxiliary doors and puttied some of the gaps, Also sended off all the raised detail.

 

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Needs a fair bit of surface treatment (some panels and rivet detail to be added) but I'm glad to have got this far so quickly. It's a feelgood build his one!

 

Also need to put a big shoutout to Hannants - ordered a set of Reskit wheels which arrived very quickly but incomplete. They're going to replace the missing part, so that's a big load off.

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