Airfix Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1 (A18001V) 1:24

[Mike]

Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1 (A18001V)

1:24 Airfix Vintage Classics

 

 

The Harrier is an iconic (in the truest sense) example of what was possible when British Aviation was at its prime.  It was a revolutionary design back in the 60s, and has seen many improvements and even a complete re-design in the shape of the Harrier II, which saw McDonnell Douglas get more heavily involved, giving the US Marines their much beloved AV-8B, and the British the Gr.5/7/9, all of which had new carbon-composite wings, massively upgraded avionics and improved versions of the doughty Pegasus engine, which was always at the heart of this legendary design.

 

The Harrier is a difficult aircraft to fly due to the high pilot workload, and requires the best pilots to do it justice in the hovering flight mode particularly, where the pilot has to control the throttle, direction of the airflow, and also make minor adjustments to its attitude and altitude with the use of puffer jets, even before having to do anything trivial like avoid obstacles or land.  The original Harrier to reach service at the very end of the 1960s was the GR.1, which still bore a substantial familial resemblance to the prototype and the earlier Kestrel, having a pointed nose and relatively confined canopy that hadn't yet been ‘blown’ to improve the pilot’s ability to move his head around to gain better situational awareness.  The following GR.3 had a more powerful engine, the peculiar looking laser tracker in an extended nose fairing, as well as many sensor, avionics upgrades and Electronic Counter Measures (ECM).  With the re-development of the aircraft into the Harrier II, the anteater nose was phased out and the new composite winged GR.5 with massively improved avionics, engine and other systems took over the mantle.  For the most part, the general public don’t really see them as different machines, and the media’s persistent reference to them as “jump jet” makes the corners of eyes twitch for those that know.

 

 

The Kit

Airfix made headlines in the modelling press in the 1970s when it began its range of super-kits in 1:24 that included the Spitfire, Hurricane, Bf.109 and others, plus the GR.1 Harrier that we see again now after a rest period for the moulds.  It is a product of 1974, when standards were less than they are today, which is why it has the V suffix to its product code, and the Vintage Classics scroll on the box, so that potential customers go in with their eyes open.  That said, the surface detail on the fuselage and wings is pretty impressive for the day, having engraved panel lines and rivets all over it.  Some of the ancillary parts would be considered simplified by today’s standards, such as the Mk.9 Martin Baker ejector seat, and the level of detail on the engine, but these can be considered as canvases on which to improve either by scratch-building, or availing yourself of the few aftermarket items that are still available, such as the Airscale instrument panel.  The kit arrives in a large top-opening box, and all the space is needed to cater for the sprues and the massive fuselage halves that each have their own runners.  There are a total of ten sprues in light grey styrene, a sprue of clear parts, a separate bag containing five black flexible tyres, a large decal sheet, instruction booklet and painting guide sheet printed on both sides in glossy colour.

 

 

A word of caution regarding un-boxing your brand-new purchase, as although most of the sprues are enclosed with angular runners, there are a lot of flimsy gates connecting the parts to the sprues, and it’s likely that a few parts will have come loose by the time you get around to building your large Harrier, so watch for falling parts and double-check the bags for sprue-litter if you are disposing of them responsibly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the block of ancillaries on top of the Pegasus engine that is made up from a number of parts, and is prepared alongside the mechanism that makes all the exhaust nozzles rotate in unison later on.  The actuators are placed in the lower half of the engine on a number of supports, then it is clamped in place by gluing the top of the engine in place and adding the ancillary block and a few other small parts.  Each nozzle backing plate will affix to a rounded rectangular block at the end of the actuator axles, taking care not to get any glue on the edges.  At the front the big fan and its mounting ring are added, which will be visible through the intakes once the model is finished.  All through this process and the rest of the build the paint codes are called out in Humbrol codes in circles, the names of which you can find on the painting guide pages.

 

 

 

 

A pilot figure is included in the box, as was the fashion in the 70s, and he is made up from a front and rear half, plus a pair of arms for you to pose around the controls.  He’s surprisingly well sculpted for his day, and with some sympathetic painting should look the part and go some way toward hiding the slightly bland seat, which is next and has been provided with a pair of stencil decals for the sides of the headbox, and the instrument panel also has some decals for the dials, as well as a clear lens for the large central goldfish bowl.  A HUD is affixed to the front centre of the panel, and it is slotted into the cockpit tub along with the rudder pedals, control column, ejection seat, pilot, plus front and rear bulkheads.  The side consoles are well-detailed for the time too, and if well painted the cockpit should look pretty reasonable to a non-Harrier expert, with perhaps some ribs added to the sidewalls.  The nose gear bay is situated behind the cockpit in the space between the intake trunks, and this is made up next, to be inserted into the starboard fuselage half, securing on raised ridges for security.  The starboard bay door hooks into the edges of the bay and if left unglued, can open or close once the fuselage is closed up, remembering to insert the door for the other side.  The aforementioned intake trunking is then made up from an outer section and a slightly longer inner sleeve, which slips inside the fuselage half and clips around the bay inside.  The rear gear bay wall is attached to the centre of the fuselage to be completed later, and a stiffener plate is inserted into a groove inside the fuselage lower.  There’s a short interlude next to make up some of the sub-assemblies that you will need later.

 

The Harrier has four vectoring nozzles, two each of hot and cold (it’s all relative), although I can never remember 100% which is which, but usually assume the rear pair are the hot ones because of the plates behind them.  They are all made from two halves with two baffles inserted into the body on pegs, avoiding any hideous join-lines in the middle of the nozzles that would be very difficult to fill and sand.  The nose gear strut is made from two halves that trap the yoke between them plus three small parts including a landing light, and accepts a single wheel with two-part hub and black flexible tyres, which are firm but still slightly flexible.  The rear strut is a single part that has the twin wheels added, each of which is made from two hub halves, the flexible tyre, and a separate collar in the centre that is inserted without glue to allow the wheels to rotate freely - hopefully.  A pair of decals are applied to the outer surface of the wheels to give the impression of the holes that are present in the hub fronts, but you could always use them as templates to actually drill them out.  Another section of the rear bay is made up from four parts that link together with slots and tabs, and that too is inserted into the fuselage with the doors slipped into place before closing up the fuselage.  The elevators are slender, but the centre section is dual layer to avoid sink marks, and has the swash plate added to the root on a tab, with a short peg to slide through the fuselage later.  The tail fin is in two halves that are joined around the rudder, leaving it to swing freely if you wish.  Moving parts for playing were a big thing in the 70s.  The ventral air-brake is made up from three parts, two making the hinge, while the shovel-shaped brake has detail moulded into the inside face, and a similar hinge is made up for the short rear door for the nose gear bay.  If you are using the centreline pylon the two halves are joined together and added later, like the rest of these parts, which includes the two 30mm Aden cannon pods that are ostensibly complete save for the barrel tips that are separate and locate on a pair of shallow pins.

 

 

 

The starboard fuselage half has the engine inserted along with the air-brake bay and a collar that holds the elevator in place and allows it to rotate if that floats your boat.  A pair of protective plates are fixed to the fuselage sides on two pegs each, and if you plan on mounting the centre pylon, there are two slots to open up, after which you can close up the fuselage, remembering to add the air-brake, cannon pods or replacement strakes, and a couple of small bay doors under the fuselage.  The four nozzles are all fitted onto their circular plates, the rudder is slotted into the top of the tail, with a cap added to finish off the stinger, plus a couple of aerials under the fuselage and the two gear legs.  There is a forest of small parts festooned around the nose, and the cockpit itself has a separate coaming placed over the panel before the windscreen glazing is glued in place, and yet more sub-assemblies are prepared for completion of the wings.

 

The flying surfaces are first, each made of two sides, then the out-rigger wheels that were in the wingtips on the original design, each one made from a two-part leg that traps the wheel in between the yoke, then this is itself trapped between two halves of the upper section to allow it to rise up and down as necessary, with the final part the retraction jack.  The wheel is then spatted by a two-part fairing and put to one side while the four pylons are made up from their halves.  The mounting pegs are angled to suit the anhedral of the wings, so take care to mark their intended position so they hang vertically once installed.  Just like the real thing the wing is a separate assembly that drops over the fuselage, the lower surface being full-width.  The upper skin is in three sections plus separate tips, and when it is glued in place it also traps the flying surfaces and the outriggers in place, which get another fairing added to the front.  A pair of small inserts shim out the leading-edge root, and a pair of trailing tubes (possibly fuel dumps) fix between the aileron and flaps, with a large aerial and position light on the hump between the wings.  You are told to add the pylons at this stage, but the instructions advise you to apply the decals to the underside before doing so to avoid having to cut them into sections.  The last step building the airframe involves gluing the wings in place, adding the lift-off panel over the engine compartment, and fitting the canopy onto its rails to slide back and forth as per the scrap diagram nearby.  The rest of the parts are weapons.

 

There is a generous supply of munitions included in the box, including a pair of AIM-9G Sidewinders, which have separate forward and rear sections with paired fins that slide through grooves in the bodywork, sitting on an adapter rail.  There are also three 1,000lb iron bombs, which also have separate cross-fins, a separate tapering rear section and a front spinner for arming the weapon.  There are two dual-rail adapters to mount a pair of rocket pods each, which have separate nose cones and rears that fit on a two-part body, a pair of two-part drop-tanks, and a pair of 500lb Mk.83 iron bombs with separate tail and nose cones.  There is a page on the rear of the instructions with load-out suggestions for RAF and US Marine Corps. aircraft, but if you’re going for accuracy, check your references or ask the knowledgeable members of the forum for real-world suggestions.

 

 

Markings

There are two decal options included on the A4+ sheet, and each one has a full page of colour profiles on the folded A3 sheet, one each for the RAF and USMC.  From the box you can build one of the following:

 

• Harrier GR.1, No.1(F) Sqn., RAF Wittering, England, 1973
• AV-8A Harrier, VMA-513 ‘Flying Nightmares’, USMC Beaufort (Merritt Field), South Carolina, United States, 1973

 

 

Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.  our example received a little damage to one corner during transit, but it shouldn't affect the general usefulness of the sheet.

 

 

Conclusion

Bear in mind that this is a 1970s vintage tooling, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the level of detail on many of the parts, and if any areas appear a little bland to your 21st century eyes, there’s plenty of scope for improvement using a little modelling skill or by opening your wallet.  At the end of the day you’re going to be building a large scale early Harrier though, you lucky devil!

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

 

 

 

[Shalako]

Who can say no to an 1/24 Harrier?? Definitely a must-have!

[Jack Ruskin]

Mike, it's actually a Mk.9 ejection seat not Mk.10 (ala Sea Harrier)

[RunRookieRun]

My wallet really needed this to be a bad one.

 

Oh well, christmas is around the corner after all.