A salty sea... wolf ! Marina Militare AV-8B+ (1/72 Hasegawa)

[Giorgio N]

Let's try it again ! I mean, let's try taking part in a Britmodeller GB and may try finishing something... or even starting something.

So, why a sea wolf ? Couple of reasons: in Italian language we use the term "lupo di mare" to indicare a "sea dog", and this simply means sea wolf. So would make sense to use the term sea wolf for an Italian old sailor..

Second reason is that the subject I've chosen is from the Marina Militare 1° Gruppo Aereo (1st air group of the Italian Navy), that is known as "lupi", wolves. As such the AV-8B+ of the unit wear wolf paws on the rudder and a number of aircraft have been decorated with a wolf's head and the name "wolves".

 

Now when I said let's try again I should have added let's try again building this model ! Yes, I had presented this subject before in a previous GB a few years ago but in those days I never managed to do any progress. Moreover, back then I did not have decals while now I have these and a few other bits.

 

So let's start from the box: this is not the basic issue of the Hasegawa kit but a later one dedicated to the aircraft of VMA-223. The content of the box is however the same apart from the decals

 

 

Notice the Modelzone sticker.... no, I didn't buy the kit from Modelzone, it was bought from a fellow Britmodeller here on the forum. Sorry can't remember who I bought it from, in any case if you're looking and can remember the kit, then yes, I'm finally building it after so many years!

 

As can be seen below, I had already separated some parts. I had also started working on the nozzles... well, I believe this is under the limit for previous work on a kit to enter a GB...

 

 

Here are the kit decals and the ones I'll use. They are from a small Italian brand named Model Friends, now long OOP. There are other options around for an Italian Harrier, Caracal features an aircraft with a wolf head on the tail on one of their sheets, CTA offers another aircraft and Tauromodel recently issued a laser printed sheet. Since I have the Model Friends sheet, I'll use this. I considered buying the Tauromodel sheet a few weeks ago (I was ordering some other stuff from them) but then I wasn't convinced by the laser printed nature.

 

 

Now in my forst attempt I was planning to use a resin cockpit set made by Arma Hobby when they were a resin aftermarket producer. In the years that have passed since then I added a couple of other aftermarket sets, of whic the most important is IMHO the nozzles set. These are from Pavla and are meant for the Airfix kit, I hope that they fit the Hasegawa plastic...

The Quickboost airbrake should sort an annoying thing with this kit: the airbrake is moulded closed while these aircraft always have this open when on the ground. Using this will require a bit of cutting, hope to get it right... The resin part is for the British variant, I'll check my references to see if there's any real big difference from the one of the AV-8B+

 

 

 

I forgot to take a picture with the various reference material I have, let's say that I have a few books on the Harrier and some cover the AV-8B pretty well, Most useful will be the AirData volume on the AV-8B, that includes a walkaround and a chapter specifically on the B+ variant.

What I have also not shown yet are the loads... these aircraft have accumulated a respectable number of combat missions over the years and have always been among the best equipped aircraft in Italian service (actually for a while they were the best air defence asset of the Country). I will probably go for a ground attack configuration, with LGBs from a Hasegawa set and a Litening pod coming from the Academy F-16.

 

Over the build I may add a few historical notes, the acquisition of the AV-8B+ from the Italian Navy was a long process with a lot of politics involved and some aspects may be worth mentioning. So are the various operations in which these aircraft took part, from Somalia to Afghanistan.

Fingers crosse, I hope I can finally build this model and complete something for a GB....

 

[Col.]

You have my attention now Giorgio

[Bertie McBoatface]

Definitely one to keep an eye on. 😃

[Giorgio N]

Well, sorry for the late start ! I have finally put some work into this model

 

Starting, as pretty usual, from the coclpit. Hasegawa kits like this one are usually known for some good things (good engineering, good fit, sharp moulds with nice surface details) but also for some not so impressive aspects. One of them is that cockpits are pretty basic. here's what Hasegawa provides:

 

A tub wit flat consoles and a flat instrument panel, onto which decals can be applied. May be sufficient for many modellers, more so as the original AV-8B kit is for sale in Japan at a pretty low price. It's not going to work for me though, not for this model at least. Reason why I have Attack Squadron's set...

This is not too difficult to use, however there are some things that tell me that whoever designed the set didn't really test it in the kit. The consolles for example would end yp too low in the cockpit to meet the instrument panel. This can of course be easily sorted by adding plasticard of the right thickness over the kit parts.

One other aspect that is a bit puzzling is how the rear end of the sidewalls do not match the same angle of the kit part.. strange, but something that I'll have to sort somehow.

Said that, the parts don't look that bad when in place...

 

 

Notice that I've also removed the pedals as moulded in the kit. The Attack set gives these as PE parts, that I will only add before closing the fuselage halves to avoid any damage.

One other thing to sort will be the instrument panel... this requires the modeller to chop part of the original kit coaming (already done here)  but the shape of the panel and the shape of the coaming do not match where they meet. I will have to use milliput or similar to blend them in, something easy in theory but will be made more complicated by the fact that this is something I need to do after xclosing the fuselage halves... meaning the panel will be painted by then,

 

Now some may wonder, why did it take all this time to do so little ? Well, one reason is of course that I got distracted by a certain German WW2 fighter in a different GB... one other reason is that the power cable of my drill broke, so I waited until I could repair that to keep working on the cockpit. Some plastic need removing from the fuselage sides and a drill with a set of bits is a very useful tool for this kind of things. In the end I haven't sorted the drill yet so I decided to just use a modelling knives set and sandpaper to make room for the resin sidewalls. Took longer but it's done now.

 

 

 

 

[Giorgio N]

While the 2-component epoxy was setting, I used the time wisely ! In fact I started gluing some other assemblies. Here are the wings and LERXs ready

 

 

Fit wasn't great here, see for example the wide gaps on the LERX lower surfaces. The wing also suffered somewhat and the alignment of the top and bottom surfaces forced me to some decision: keep the wing fences aligned with the result of misaligned wingtips or do the opposite ? I decided to keep the fences aligned, although maybe I could have just cut them and replaced them with plasticard....

[Col.]

Good to see you getting into this one Giorgio

 

 

 

[AlxBNE]

Looking forward to watching you build this whilst learning some recent Italian political history.

[Giorgio N]

Thanks folks !

Oh yes, the story of the Italian AV-8B program... story that "officially" starts after the Falklands War but really can trace its root much further down in time...

Starting from the Falklands, this conflict saw a clear winner in the Sea Harrier ! Yes, there were a number of things that made the Sea Harrier look probably better than it really was (one thing was fighting against Mirage IIIs armed with obsolete missiless and radarless Daggers at the extreme edge of their combat range, a different story would have been fighting agains more modern and better equipped combat aircraft of the era) but there was no doubt that the Sea Harrier proved to be a fantastic fighter.

Moreover, the concept of the "through deck cruiser" carrying STOVL aircraft was proven right, it was possible for a navy that could not afford a "proper" carrier to field some sort of air element capable of conducting both air defence and ground attack missions. The idea of using such aircraft from similar ships was not new, the Spanish Navy had been doing something similar for years and the Harrier had been tested from various vessels quite early in the development of the type. There had also been a number of concepts from the "naval" side of things, with different proposals for light carriers equipped with STOVL types. However it was only when the people at BAe put a radar on the Harrier that a true multirole STOVL fighter became available.

Of course the Italian Navy was very interested in these studies as they had been among the very first proponents of the use of aviation, both in the early days and in the second postwar years. The Navy had been at the forefront of the development of the helicopter cruiser concept, of which they had built 3 ships of 2 classes and was awaiting the delivery of the Giuseppe Garibaldi, the first Italian through-deck cruiser. Having the Sea Harrier on board the Garibaldi would have been the ideal culmination of decades of work on the Navy aviation component.

There was however a problem, and not a small one: the existing laws prevented the Navy from having their own fixed wing aircraft component ! A specific law, dated 1937, gave the Air Force the ownership of any military aircraft. A later revision, dated 1956, relaxed the previous rules but still gave the Air Force the right to be the only service that could field fixed wing aircraft with a weigth over 1,500 kg. While this allowed the Navy to use helicopters (and the Army to use types like the O-1) clearly excluded something like a Sea Harrier....  how did this happen ? I'll briefly touch on this in the next update...

 

Back to plastic: as I said my drill has yet to be repaired and this led me to delay one important task: make room for the new resin airbrake well. In the end I decided not to wait for the drill to work but I grabbed some very coarse sandpaper and started thinning the fuselage walls in that area. I also better reworked the opening as my first attempt was not great. The airbrake front arms are actually not spaced like the hasegawa fuselage engravings, so I had to cut wider and then fill the area with thin plasticard. Not 100% perfect but I can live with it

 

 

Above the fuselage halves is the Aires airbrake well, already primed. A few other things can be seen in the picture, one being the quite shallow panel lines on the aircraft belly. This is just the result of moulding limitations, I will deepen them after the fuselage halves are glued together. The exception are the wheel wells door lines, that I've already deepened (and the scriber did slip on one of them... )

 

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by Giorgio N

[Grandboof]

Thanks Giorgio for another of your informative threds . Always a pleasure to follow your work 

Martin H

[Col.]

Your explanation of the processes behind Italy becoming a Harrier operator is fascinating Giorgio, thank you for taking the time to share it with us, good progress on the kit as well.

[Bobby No Mac]

The Italian Harrier is definitely one of the lesser-spottedmodelled of the species (see also the Thai AV-8S). It'll be great to see one among the Salty Sea Dog fleet 

[CliffB]

Great to watch Giorgio and I'm particularly enjoying this history lesson 

[Giorgio N]

Thanks folks, glad the history of these aircraft is raising some interest ! I always find fascinating myself the history behind the selection of one aircraft or the other. This one was also quite controversial so becomes even more interesting... even if the controversy was mainly political more than technical.

 

On 3/3/2023 at 9:29 AM, Bobby No Mac said:

The Italian Harrier is definitely one of the lesser-spottedmodelled of the species (see also the Thai AV-8S). It'll be great to see one among the Salty Sea Dog fleet 

 

Indeed ! Even if these aircraft have not been hiding in their airbase but on the contrary they have seen action in several hot areas. The Thai ones are even rarer, I'd love to build one of their AV-8S at some point.

 

[Giorgio N]

Well, since the history behind the Italian Harriers seems to have raised some interest, let's jump back in time...

The Italian Navy have a reputation for being among the most innovative services in the world ! In every area, not only in the equipment immediately related to warships. For example the then Regia Marina (that simply means Royal Navy...) was the first service to adopt a semiautomatic pistol when they adopted the Mauser C96 at the end of the XIX Century.

This also reflected in the very early interest the Navy had for aviation. Now I could write down a few things, but probably better just have a read at the official Navy history pages on the beginning of naval aviation in Italy:

https://www.marina.difesa.it/EN/thefleet/airfleet/Pagine/origins.aspx

 

Now unfortunately the English part of the website only includes short pages, the Italian pages are much richer... so I'll summarise here the Navy aviation element contribution in WW1...Anyone interested in reading more can look at the original pages in Italian, using their prefered translator:

https://www.marina.difesa.it/noi-siamo-la-marina/mezzi/forze-aeree/Pagine/primaGerraMondiale.aspx

 

WW1 in Italy is mainly remembered as a land war and most memories are of trench warfare, particularly on the Alps. The Navy however was tasked with a very important mission: closing the Adriatic Sea ! This may sound to most here something surprising but there were good reasons: the Austrian Empire's ports were in the Adriatic and the Empire relied on imports in many areas. By closing the Adriatic the Italian Navy conducted a mission similar to that of the British Home Fleet in the North Sea: deny foreign supplies to the Central Powers. A mission that was vital in strangling the economy of the enemy.

Aircraft played a major role in the naval war over the Adriatic, providing reconaissance and also performing bombing missions. For these reasons the Adriatic Sea also saw the mssive use of a type of aircraft that was rarely used in other theatres: the fighter flying boat (or hydro-fighter). As a consequence the Italians took this kind of aircraft very seriously, developing and building several types.

The Navy started the war in 1915 with 3 airships and 15 flying boats. By the end of the war the Navy fielded 15 airships, 550 flying boats of all types and 86 land based fighters.

After the end of the war the leaders of the naval aviation components started looking farther and into a proper carrier based naval aviation. The Navy had 2 seaplane support ships in WW1 but having seen how aircraft could impact the naval battles of the future they wanted to move to proper carriers. For this reason at the Washington naval conference of 1922 Italy requested and obtained the possibility of building 2 carriers, for a total of 60,000 tons. To speed things up and build expertise, it was decided to immediatly work on converting a transport ship in a vessel capable of carrying seaplanes. This ship, named Miraglia, was launched in 1923..

That year was 100 years ago and I'm sure some here already know what Italy will celebrate this year: the 100th anniversary of the Italian Air Force....  yes, the Regia Aeronautica was established in 1923 and this event seriously impacted the rest of our story...

 

 

Today's update is quite small: I've spent some time painting the cockpit. Or better, while painting the cockpit I spent a lot of time gluing the PE pedals in place, then knocking them off, gluing them back in place and so one... in the meantime I also managed to almost paint the cockpit. I say almost as the control stick is still missing

 

 

The resin parts are sure not at the same quality level of say Aires, they don't look bad once painted but I'd have liked them a bit more sharply moulded. In any case they look pretty good, don't know why the picture is so "hazy".. The pedals are a nightmare though, they don't want to stay in place. I removed the plastic pedals as directed by the instructions, however in hindsight I should have kept at least part of them and place the PE parts on top of the plastic. I'm sure that with some proper painting I'd have had a good result without having the problems of continuously losing the PE parts.

Edited March 10, 2023 by Giorgio N

[Giorgio N]

So where were we..... ah yes, 1923....

In that year the Regia Aeronautica was established and soon things started to change for the Italian Navy. In 1922 Mussolini was tasked with the formation of a new government and soon Italy became a single-party dictatorship. No point in going over the reasons for this here but one thing is worth mentioning: really the people behind the main aircraft manufacturers of the Country were not displeased with this (and some had also funded Mussolini for some time). In fascist Italy aviation was seen as the future of warfare and this for a number of reasons. To name a few...

The Italian air service in WW1 had been among the early proponents of strategic bombing, with the Caproni bombers being among the most advanced used in WW1. Part of this was due to the theories and actions of one of the most important names in the history of bombing: Giulio Douhet. General Douhet was maybe the first to write treaties on the use of aviation in war even before WW1 and his work led to the establishment of an Italian bombing component during the war. In 1921 Douhet wrote the book for which he is mostly remembered outside Italy, "The Command of the Air" (original title "Il Dominio dell'Aria"). This book caused a storm in military circles all over the world, with some very ardent supporters and other equally ardent critics. Amongst other things, Douhet theories envisioned the end of the influence of navies as an element capable of winning a global war... and this clearly did not go down well among naval officers...

Aviation for fascism also had a symbolic meaning: aircraft were a symbol of modernity ! Aviation was new and modern and these were values that fascism considered vital. Fascism was initially a reaction against the bourgeois state of late 19th- early 20th Century and as such tended to reject the ideals of that culture. The Army officer attending balls in his parade uniform was not the kind of soldier fascism wanted, the aviator who dared challenge the elements and the enemy in a brand new weapon was. It's no surprise that aviation was a very early inspiration in many of the cultural phenomena that led to fascism in Italy. Futurist artists were fascinated by aircraft and the famous poet D'Annunzio was so in love with aircraft that during WW1 he took part in many combat flights as an observer and was behind the famous flight over Vienna. And both the futurists and D'annunzio were key elements of the cultural views of fascism

Most important... aviation was seen by fascism as a way to balance the superior power of other countries in terms of resources. Italy could not compete with countries like Britain and France, countries that thanks to their colonial empires could rely on much superior resources. Italy could have not been able to afford the number of divisions or warships needed to counter the threat of an empire. Aircraft promised to be able to disrupt this and since italy had done well with local production during WW1, it was felt that aviation would have allowed the country to offset such disadvantage. Afterall the materials needed for early 20's aircraft were available in Italy, the steel needed to build ten battleships was not.

 

Ok, most of the above may sound of small importance in a story about Harriers... but helps explain why in the end, with the birth of an independent air force, the government looked with less and less favour to the work done by the Navy in building a carrierborne aviation element.

The first blow was dealt in 1925, when the government stopped a project for the construction of a carrier. At that point the Air Force leaders started to work to bring all aircraft under their control, A second blow came in 1931, when the naval aviation component was put under command of an air force general. Aircraft were formally owned by the Navy but all pilots were from the Air Force and Navy personnel could only operate as observers. The final blow was in 1937 when all aircraft were passed to the Air Force.

This was the situation that the Navy suffered at the start of WW2, the Air Force controlled all aircraft and could decide how many aircraft assign to navala operations. No carrier was ever built, although at some point work started on one ship and a number of types were considered and tested for use on the same and the only "navy" aircraft were the ones based on the larger warships for recce purpose, of course owned by the Air Force.

 

Well, the history of the Italian Harriers has turned into a history of Italian naval aviation.... sounds like I can't resist this forum tendency to go off topic...

Back to the plastic though, I've finally done something that took a lot of time: closing the fuselage.

Let's see why it took me time... there are mainly 3 things that had to go in the fuselage: the cockpit, the airbrake well and the engine fan.

The cockpit should have posed no problem and yet it did. The resin sidewalls are quite thin and I did thin the fuselage halves, however I should have probably thinned the latter even more. The cockpit also kept losing the aligment when I closed the fuselage, so I had to add some plastic bits here and there to keep it in the correct position

The fan did not fit really well. For some reason the whole kit does not fit well, looks like the parts come from a worn mould... that could well be, this kit has been in continuous production for decades!

Then the airbrake well... this was a resin part meant for this kit and yet the fit was terrible. I tried everything to keep the well in the correct position for long enough for the glue to set but it took me ages to sort this.. and when it looked like it was sorted, the part fell off.

In the end I managed to sort all elements and here they are inside the fuselage halves

 

 

Notice the long white plastic bit: this was glued to the airbrake well to allow me to move the part in the right position after closing the fuselage. As the wing goes on top of the fuselage, there's a large gap left that allowed me to move the use the plastic bit and the resin well with tweezers. Not something I loved doing but did the trick.

Finally, here's the fuselage closed

 

 

Before taking the picture I added the rear cone and the front fin extension (not before drilling a hole for the intake at the front of such extension). The instrument panel is not glued yet, it's only in place for me to understand how much work will be needed to blend this in with the kit cowl. The latter is a bit narrower but hopefully some milliput/resin/filler will sort the area. The difference is not huge.

The fin extension will also need some work as the part is narrower than the fin... This may be a Hasegawa kit but it's not really behaving as a Tamigawa one....

 

 

[Col.]

Nice progress Giorgio. You're finding all the same issues with this one as I did and using similar solutions to tame it.

[Giorgio N]

On 3/21/2023 at 12:34 PM, Col. said:

Nice progress Giorgio. You're finding all the same issues with this one as I did and using similar solutions to tame it.

 

I'm kind of glad to hear that I'm not the only one who found such issues. This kit is kind of fighting me in terms of fit. Even to simply close the fuselage I had to remove all aligment pins as these led to an even worse fit. Without any pin I managed to get a good enough result

[Giorgio N]

Let's move on with out story... we're in 1940 and Italy enters WW2, of course without carriers as the aviation element of the Navy is almost gone, limited to observation types on battleships and cruisers (equipped mainly with the Ro.43 biplane). WW2 saw some more attempt at a naval aviation, of which the better known (and reproduced in model forms) aircraft was  the Reggiane Re.2000 OR. The fascist regime propaganda of the day declared that Italy didn't need carriers as the Country itself was an unsinkable carrier into the Mediterranean Sea... that really considering the aeronaval operations in the MTO was not that wrong as in all occasions where naval forces were confronted by aircraft, a proper escort could have been arranged with land based element and even today there are conflicting views over the survivability of carriers in the relatively confined spaces of the Mediterranean. It was however clear that the Regia Aeronautica was not capable of providing proper air cover even if this was technically possible and the Germans didn't really bother that much, This left in the Navy a very bad taste ! At Matapan the Italian sailors aboard the battleship Vittotio Veneto couldn't believe that the attacking Swordfish were escorted (by Fulmars) while the Italian ships had no aircraft escort at all..

With the end of the war both the Navy and the Air Force were severely reduced in capabilities by the peace treaties, however the Navy was determined to have their own air cover, one way or the other ! The first chance came in 1949, when Italy joined NATO...

As part of the rearmament of the Country, the US agreed to pass to the Italian Air Force a number of Curtiss SB2C-5s... that were renamed S2C-5 because according to the peace treaties Italy could not have bombers. The first of these aircraft, meant to operate in the anti-submarine role, arrived in September 1950. At the same time the Navy convinced the Minister for Defence to discuss with the US the supply of aircraft and an escort carrier. This was found hard to fund for the Navy but the service wanted to at least start working on it! So they sent a number of officers to be trained directly by the USN on the same Helldivers received by the Air Force and in the end they received 2 aircraft, the first of a number to be used for anti-sub missions together with the ones assigned to the Air Force. These aircraft sported an anchor over their roundels and retained the whole equipment needed for launch and recovery from a carrier, equipment that had been removed from the aircraft given to the Air Force. In December 1952 the two Navy Helldivers launch from USS Midway and fly toward Naples, escorted by the Panthers of VF-61. Reached the limits of the Italian air space, the Panthers wave good bye and the two Curtiss beasts later land at Naples airport... parking in the area assigned to the USN ! During the trip the pilots have found that the Air Force has discovered the "plot" and has lobbied to have all aircraft impounded. 6 months later the two now former Navy aircraft joined 86th group of the Air Force.... Another 46 aircraft remained in storage until stricken and sold for scrap.

The Navy had to abandon the hope of receiving their carrier and plans for a "fighter" group on AD Skyraiders. The same Navy however was a very early proponent of the use of Helicopters from warships and the Bergamini class corvettes were actually the first in the world to have an helicopter as fixed component of the ship antisub armament. This was also made possible by changes in the legislation that from 1956 gave the Air Force "only" the control of fixed wing aircraft over 1500 kg. Helicopters were therefore outside the sole control of the Air Force.

Next stop of our story, 1982 ! And then I'll be talking about the Harrier !

 

Next update on the model... now !

What took me a while was sorting the instrument coaming. The Attack Squadron resin part was a bit wider than the Hasegawa plastic, so I had to fair these together with epoxy filler (in my case Tamiya). As often happens, this was a story of add, sand, prime, check, find faults, sand again, prime, check, add filler, sand, prime... you know how these things go...

With the part primed and looking decent enough (there will be no perfect in this story I'm afraid..), I could then focus on gluing the wings in place. These went on quite decently but the LERX part was a bit more troublesome. As a result I had to glue both at the same time, trying to move one relative to the other and the fuselage until I had something that I could then work on. With the glue properly set, some little sanding sorted the few small ridges and this is now what the model looks like

 

 

For some reason the picture above is more contrasted than it looks to the naked eye, it's however interesting as the sanded area show pretty well...

Now I'm happy enough for the top of the wing, the lower fit however is a different story, with quite big gaps between LERX and fuselage:

 

 

Next step will be to sort these gaps... although I wonder if I should really bother that much with an area that afterall is not very visible. Should I mention that the radome will also require some work to sort gaps ?

Edited March 28, 2023 by Giorgio N

[Giorgio N]

Addendum: a picture of one of the Navy Helldivers can be seen here:

 

http://www.aviastore.it/?p=5332

 

It's a subject I may build one day... even if these markings were very short lived

[Grandboof]

23 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Addendum: a picture of one of the Navy Helldivers can be seen here:

 

http://www.aviastore.it/?p=5332

 

It's a subject I may build one day... even if these markings were very short lived

That would be great Giorgio . I assume they retained their USN finish .

Martin H

[Giorgio N]

2 hours ago, Grandboof said:

That would be great Giorgio . I assume they retained their USN finish .

Martin H

 

Yes, standard USN Sea Blue finish of the time... which Sea Blue ? Well, there are a couple of threads on the evolution of this colour in the WW2 section of the forum so I'd study these before choosing the paint.

The aircraft given to the Air Force featured the same scheme, see for example these pictures from the same website

http://www.aviastore.it/?p=5103

Very visible in the pictures is the designation S2C-5, that as mentioned above was used because Italy in theory could not have bombers...

 

[Giorgio N]

So, 1982, the Falklands War... no need to discuss here that conflict, what matters is that the Sea Harrier was celebrated as the true decisive weapon of the war. Of course today we can discuss at length the various aspects of that conflict but it's undeniable that without the Sea Harrier the british task force would have not been able to defend themselves from air attacks and to strike at the enemy on the Island.

I was young but already very interested in aviation in those days and I can remember very well the impact of the war: suddenly everybody was talking about the Sea Harrier! Articles were published continuously not only on the aviation press but even on daily newspapers. The Sea Harrier had gone in a few months from being a better-than-nothing replacement for a conventional carrier aircraft to the best aircraft in the world. The pages of aviation magazines were full of accounts on the combat capabilities of the Sea Harrier while the result of exercises seemed to show that a small Sea Harrier force could have easily defeated much larger forces of conventional aircraft.

Of course what I was seeing was not only the right amoung of interest due to the experience of the Falkland War, there was also a lot of PR from BAe ! Really, a lot of PR !!!

I was young and impressionable back then but already something didn't sound quite right. Later, with a degree in aerospace engineering and a better knowledge of military aviation, a lot of those articles sounded more like what they were, pieces that tried to steer the public opinion to support the view that any navy should have bought Sea Harriers. And of course the PR was not only coming from BAe... guess who else was very interested ? The Italian Navy !

The Italian Navy was first introduced to the Harrier many years earlier when a development GR.1 conducted brief trials from the helicopter-carrier cruiser Andrea Doria in late 1967. Andrea Doria was in a sense the first step of the Navy towards a carrier: she and her sister ship Caio Duilio were missile armed cruisers that featured a flight deck at the rear capable of operating a number of helicopters (4 X AB-204/212 or 2 X SH-34, later replaced by SH-3). Andrea Doria entered service in 1964 while 5 years later the Navy received the following step in the evolution, the cruiser Vittorio Veneto. This ship had a much larger rear deck that could operate up to 6 Sea Kings or 9 AB-212.

Both the 2 Doria and the Vittorio Veneto were meant to use their helicopters mainly for antisub missions, although their air groups were also involved other activities, for example the support of marine infantry elements or SAR operations. The Navy however wanted to move further and in 1974 they started work on a larger project characterised by a flight deck covering the whole length of the ship. This was approved by Parliament in 1975 and construction started in 1980. This ship was to be named Giuseppe Garibaldi, after the famous hero of the Country unification process in the mid 1860's (and a character that would be worth talking about at some point as he was really a man worth a Hollywood movie).

The tests from Andrea Doria went fine although clearly this ship was not really equipped to support a proper air group (these were 6.500 ton ships, quite small), The Vittorio Veneto would have been better suited however the Navy does not seem to have trialled the Harrier from this ship In any case there was still the problem that the law prevented the Navy from operating their own aircraft and this was clear to the people at then Hawker Siddeley who kept promoting the Harrier to the Italians but without much hope.... until 1982 of course

 

So a big step in time with my history but a small step in my work on the model....

I've started sorting the gaps on the bottom surfaces but more important has been the addition of a few more parts: the radome and the chaff/flare launchers

The radome comes in two halves that when glued don't really seem to give the proper section to the tip of the radome. Sandpaper to the rescue !

With a better looking section achieved through sanding, I could glue the part in place. A test fit had shown that the FLIR would have been slightly raised over the fuselage surface so what I did was to add epoxy glue in this area so that with the radome in place the epoxy would have been "squashed" between the FLIR and the fuselage so filling the gap. Must say that the trick worked ! The rest of the section fortunately did not suffer from fit issues.

The chaff/flare launchers are integrated in humps that go over the rear fuselage, one each side of the tail. Hasegawa gives separate parts to allow the mould to be used for variants that do not feature these but it's not IMHO a great idea as separate parts do not look as well blended with the fuselage as the real things. The shape is also a bit suspect, I believe they should be wider, particularly toward the inner sides. I could do something to improve the look however I'm now getting a bit tired and I think I'll just add some filler to close any gap. In any case the model is now starting to look like an AV-8B+ !

 

 

Next step will be gluing the intakes in place. Before doing this though I will have to prime and paint the area of the front fuselage that goes inside the intakes. These, as with almost every US aircraft from the late '50s on, will be in white

[Col.]

Nice progress on both your model and the history of the subject Giorgio  

[Giorgio N]

The story continues... as I said in 1982 the aviation world was suddenly stirred by the performance of the Sea Harrier in the Falklands. Articles kept appearing not only in aviation and defence magazines and journals but also in the generic press. In Italy this was also due to ana underground fight between the Navy and the Air Force. As I wrote earlier the Navy at the time had the Garibaldi under construction and it's clear that the plan was to have some aircraft on the deck. The law still prevented the Navy from operating aircraft but now with the RN experience in the Falklands right in the eyes of the public opinion it was possible to push loudly for a separate naval aviation component. And this they did ! Almost every day there was an interview with a defence expert or a former admiral or a politician who claimed how important it was for the Italian Navy to have their own aircraft. Of course not only the Falklands were discussed but also how the lack of carriers had affected the naval battles in the Mediterranean during WW2. And at the same time there were articles illustrating how a squadron of Sea Harriers could easily defeat every opponent thanks to their manouverability.

The Air Force however did not stand watching ! Every other day there was an interview with a defence expert or a former general or a politician who claimed how the Air Force could easily cover the Navy ships in their assigned area of operations, At the same time there were articles showing how the Sea Harrier was really not comparable to land based aircraft, how a Tornado could be a better antiship weapon and how really what Italy needed were new interceptors to replace the F-104s.

The Sea Harrier was in the middle of the fight. One day it was the best aircraft in the world.... supersonic performance were useless as they used too much fuel, the great manouverability of the type would have made the Sea Harrier the winner in every aerial encounter, the capability of operating from every small surface allowed power projection everywhere. The following day it was the worst aircraft in the world... it was more expensive than most land based aircraft without having the same range or weapon carrying capability, it was an easy prey for SARH missiles, had a limited radar compared to other types.

 

Where was the truth ? Of course today we know that the truth was in the middle ! The Harriers are a very specialized family of aircraft. V/STOL operations require design choices that often put these aircraft at a disadvantage against conventional types. The weight of whatever gear used to control thrust is something the aircraft has to carry around for the whole mission, meaning that payload and range are generally lower. The Harrier nozzles system is also not suited to supersonic speeds and in combat there are situations when speed is important. V/STOL aircraft are also more complex and complexity means higher costs. Yes, other aircraft were expensive but one thing is being expensive because of very advanced avionics and weapon systems, a differnt story is being expensive with a weapon fit that is nothing special... and the original Sea Harrier was indeed nothing special from this point of view! The original Blue Fox radar had been designed under severe constraints and really its main job was to detect targets like the large Soviet bombers and patrol aircraft. The payload of the Sea Harrier was also nothing special, really in air defence missions it was a couple of Sidewinders (later 4 through a pylon adapter). Yes the F-15 may have been more expensive (as the Italian Navy fed sources claimed) but the F-15 was in a totally different league in terms of combat capabilities... however the F-15 could not land on Garibaldi-sized carriers. A Sea Harrier could!

 

Interestingly a few years later Sea Harriers fought against Italian F-104s in exercises. Here the pros and cons of each aircraft were put against each other and the result was... a draw ! Yes, in the end none of the two groups managed to prevail on the other. The Sea Harrier had advantages in certain areas but the old F-104 had advantages in other areas and the pilots of one aircraft did their best to exploit their advantages and the opponent weaknesses. The F-104 pilots knew that the Sea Fox had problems in acquiring targets close to the ground so flew low and then zoom-climbed to "launch" a Sparrow. The Sea Harrier pilots knew they had a more manouverable aircraft and a superior IR missile (Italy did not use the AIM-9L yet on the 104) and tried to force the Starfighters to manouver. So in the end nobody won... or better, nobody won according to those that kept bragging about aircraft capabilities on magazines. In reality everybody won because the goal of exercises is to learn and both parties learnt a lot in those days.

The Air Force however did not make any mention of these exercises. At a time when they were trying to get funding for new aircraft, it was not wise to say that the F-104 could still do something in an exercise....

 

What matters most to our story is that people in the FAA and at BAe knew about the limitations of the Sea Harrier and were already working on a variant that eliminated some of the issues, the FA.2.. or F(A).2.. or F/A.2...

 

So, what have I done in these lat 10 days ? Mainly struggled with a few things...

Gaps were one thing. I've had to fill some gaps and rescribe after filling and so on. Then there were the intakes. These fit kind of Ok, but again needed work to blend with the rest of the fuselage. The intakes also needed to be painted internally before being glued in place. Not only the white areas of the intake interiors had to be painted, I also painted the grey areas. That meant deciding on a paint.... but more on this in a later post.

Then it was time to add some details. All Harriers have small intakes on the back just behind the canopy. The kit offered these as separate parts however there was a problem: these in the AV-8B+ have a different shape compared to all other Harrier II variants. Of course Hasegawa forgot this and give the standard type as used on the original plain B variant (on which this kit is based). The original type have a semi-circular section, the + intakes are circular. What to do ? In the end I robbed the rear set of intakes from the Airfix GR.7/9 kit !

These are the "elephant ears" intakes used on aircraft with the 100% LERX that I did not use on my model because I built an aircraft with the smaller LERX. They are a bit smaller and different in shape from the front intakes on the AV-8B+ but they are better than the original.

Now as the AV-8B+ also features the 100% LERX this variant also has the rear intakes in that style. Here I simply reshaped a bit the ones moulded on the Hasegawa part

At some point I also considered using the Airfix IFR probe (on my model I had used the open probe so I had the closed one left on the sprue) but in the end I decided that the Hasegawa part looked better.

One other detail that is totally missing from the kit is the fairing for the control jet exhaust behind the radome. This was made with a plasticard rectangle sanded to shape. I feel mine interpretation may be a bit too large but I'm now getting a bit tired... this model is not going to be really accurate because of the choices Hasegawa made when adding the parts to the original AV-8B kit, so I can live with one more inaccuracy...

And here's the pictures:

 

 

 

Now I just need to glue the canopy in place.. that will mean adding the HUD first. Then it will be time to spray a final coat of primer and start painting. I've also primed the pylons, I may glue them in place before painting, I'll see.