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Revell BAe Hawk T1, Red Arrows


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Dedicated to the memory of FltLt John Egging who tragically lost his life whilst performing with the Red Arrows on 20th August, 2011.

RIP Fltlt Egging, blue skies and godspeed

salute.gif

Hello everyone,

Here are a few images of the Revell Hawk in 1/32nd scale. I bought this model from a nationwide discount retailer (Argos) here in the UK when it first came out. It was a spur of the moment, impulse buy but I'm glad I did. For just £18.99, Revell have given us huge value for money.

After watching a few on-line builds and hearing of a few minor quibbles I began with the cockpit and seats.

One area that has been criticised are the seats. It would appear that Revell have molded their replicas with the seat base at its' highest position giving a somewhat squat appearance when compared to many reference photos. However, one gentleman on another forum explained that the seats are left in that position when the crew leaves the aircraft so I chose to leave the seats as they are.

For the most part, the detail is good even down to the rocket pack beneath the seat base but there are areas where some extra TLC can be used to spice things up visually.

The first area for attention is the drogue chute and top of the seat headbox. This is devoid of any raised detail straight out of the box so metal foil and bits of lead wire were added to liven things up. A second area for help are the straps. Revell thoughtfully provide a suggestion of the straps on the decal sheet but in this scale those decals are n't particularly convincing. Again, metal foil was used to create depth.

 

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The pilot and pupil IPs are identical and Revell provide a one piece decal to cover all of the instrumentation. The plastic has raised switchgear molded in relief and I was n't confident in the decals ability to conform to the panel so I opted to punch out the instrument faces and add them seperately on top of the painted parts. The tub side consoles are also provided as decals but I chose to paint the panels instead.

One notable omission is the ribbing on the inside face of each fuselage side. Whereas the full sized airframe has an obvious framework visible, the kit is smooth in this department so lengths of Evergreen plastic extrusion were used to simulate the various beams and cross members.

 

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I also chose to add a GPS device to the front IP coaming from plasticard with a foil cover over it as well as a foil document pouch on the rear bulkhead behind the rear seat. One or two pipes and wires were added to the voids in the front cockpit beside the seat to give those empty areas a lift.

A last tweek involved creating a "bib" for the rear seat to tidy up the straps whilst the Red Arrows pilot performs his/her display. This was made from foil again (useful stuff this metal foil ;) ).

 

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My intention is to finish the model all buttoned up, parked between displays. The canopy will be closed, I'll use foil to create cloth effect intake and exhaust covers and I'll add a selection of RBF streamers around the airframe. I'd like to lower the flaps as I've aleady seen a number of great builders who have paved the way on that one. I'd also like to show the airbrake deployed too and thanks to some superb photos here on BM (thanks Mark :thumbsup: ) I should manage to add a pipe or two in there.

One of the things that has me scratching my head most though is the undulating stressed skin effect to the rear of the cockpit just above the intake trunking. The Hawk has a number of obvious bulged panels in that area so recreating that effect will be a challenge. I'll let you know how I get on in due course.

Thanks for stopping by, see you all next time.

:cheers:

Edited by geedubelyer
Replaced lost images
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Wow! I've never seen metal foil look just like plastic, cloth and metal(!) to that effect. I'm seriously impressed with the whole tub and I'll be eating a whole lot more yoghurt this week as the brand I buy has a metal foil lid.

Your painting is amazing too. The more I look, the more detail and little touches I see.

Its also nice to see at least one of these kit being finished as a Reds machine!

Phil.

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Excellent work GW!

Like the strap work, really completes the seats.

I've gone ahead a bit and done the decaling and can report they go on really well and withstood a fair amount of riving around to get into position. They do come out a slightly bluey white to my eyes but definately opaque. The only one I had trouble with was the white band over the nose area (50?) I just couldn't figure out how it should fit. It looks like a feature of the latest scheme and I had no references to help.

Looking forward to seeing this done.

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Excellent work GW!

Like the strap work, really completes the seats.

I've gone ahead a bit and done the decaling and can report they go on really well and withstood a fair amount of riving around to get into position. They do come out a slightly bluey white to my eyes but definately opaque. The only one I had trouble with was the white band over the nose area (50?) I just couldn't figure out how it should fit. It looks like a feature of the latest scheme and I had no references to help.

Looking forward to seeing this done.

Decal No. 50 represents the 'cover' to the joint between the front and rear canopy sections.(The canopies are made as separate sections, IIRC, and this cover smooths over the joint). Hope this helps.

Cheers, Brian

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Lovely work on the cockpit.

Nice touch with the apron on the rear seat too.

I hope my cockpit looks as good as this when I get round to painting it.

Will be following the rest of the build with great interest.

Mark

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Hello everyone,

Many, many thanks for your kind words and comments. I'm thrilled that you like the work so far. I'm quite chuffed with how the cockpit turned out too but since I cribbed most of the ideas from the likes of Antony, Iain and Mark etc. I can't really take the credit. I just copied what those blokes did. :winkgrin:

jet-mech said:
.................... What photo references are you using??

Hello jet-mech, thanks mate. I used Mark (Marples) walkaround here on BM for the most part plus one or two images from around the net.

PHIL B said:
and I'll be eating a whole lot more yoghurt this week

Phil.

See, reading on-line builds is even good for your health. Is there no end to the benefits of plastic modelling? ^_^

Glad you like it so far Phil. The stuff I use is what wraps around the cork on the odd wine bottle. Even tastier than some yoghurts.......... ;)

So I'm aiming to get the fuselage closed up but there are one or two bits to stick inside before I do. I've got the various nose gear bay components in place in the right hand side of the fuselage and I've joined the two halves of the jet pipe together and glued that in too. Incidentally, I don't think I've ever come across better fitting parts than the two halves of the jet pipe. For those that are using the kit parts look forward to next to no seam filling or sanding. Plus, the lip of the jet pipe is commendably thin and to scale. Lovely work Revell. :goodjob: If I'd known that it looked so good before I started assembly I might have changed my mind about using the FOD cover.......

Anyhoo, I continued on with a couple of airframe mods. Very minor stuff but worth doing in my humble opinion.

Starting on the right hand side toward the rear of the airframe....

 
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1/...this small exhaust (?) is left as a hole in the kit but the full sized jobby is a tube. I simply cut a short length of plastic tubing at an angle and glued it behind the hole.

2/...The NACA ducts near the base of the fin are just scribed on the kit so I opened up the hole and slid a triangular sliver of plasticard up into the recess.

3/...This sight gauge has an index marked vertically and a display that rotates to show the fluid level. I painted a very thin red line vertically down the centre of the rear face of the clear kit part. On top of that I painted a white quadrant then finished off by painting everything black. From the front the red line shows on top of the white which has the black behind it. By painting the sides of the clear plastic gauge it creates a kind of recessed tube, much like the full sized article. This is repeated in the left side of the fuselage.

4/...This particular sight gauge is only on the right hand side of the fuselage and differs from the first version. For this one I did away with the kit part. Instead, I punched out a clear disc of acetate (from waste packaging) just big enough to fill the hole in the kit and painted a thin black line vertically on the rear face. I pushed this into the hole leaving a slight recess behind it. I dipped a larger white disc into some tinted Future/Klear and then glued the larger white disc in place behind the clear acetate window.

5/...This ram air vent only appears on the right side of the fuselage but is missing from the kit so I drilled a hole, squashed a 0.9mm micro-tube a little then pushed that through a disc of metal foil that I'd poked rivet detail into. I glued the whole lot in place.

6/...the hot air holes seemed to me to be too large when compared to reference photos. I plugged the kit holes with plasticard discs then drilled out new, smaller diameter holes instead.

Same for the other side.

 
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The final airframe mod is to create a small NACA style intake duct just ahead of the windscreen and slightly off to one side.

 
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Next up......the airbrake well. Thanks for stopping by to take a peek.

Cheers.

:cyclops:

Edited by geedubelyer
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Hello again all. Thanks for the kind words Mark, Chris and buccy

markmarples said:
IM GLAD MY PHOTOS ARE OF HELP

A great help. I'm on with the airbrake well soon and your walkaround has some brilliant shots of that area. :thumbsup2:

buccy mad said:
will you be adding rivet detail to the aft section?

Yes, I'll attempt to add the raised rivets with some Archer surface detail transfers. I'll be sure to post up a pic or two when I get to that stage so folks can judge for themselves how they look.

Another point of conversation on the various build threads that I've followed is the stressed skin effect, particularly aft of the cockpit above the intake trunking.

This Airliners dot net image shows the effect well.

Some suggestions and guidance here on BM came in handy. I used dymo tape as a guide then gently dragged a curved blade along the plastic. It is remarkable how little material needs to be removed before an undulation becomes evident. With a number of very shallow vertical lines scored in the surface of the plastic at intervals I first sanded up and down the grooves with the rounded end of a sanding stick. Once I'd smoothed out the shoulders of the grooves a bit I sanded across them with a sanding sponge to round the shoulders even more. Using gradually finer and finer grades of sanding pads I ended up with a smooth, rippled surface.

I't not easy to photograph this effect directly but I hope these couple of images give a clue to how it looks in the flesh.....

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I might knock the ripples on the nose section down a bit more yet, it depends how I feel after I've looked at them for a while.

Anyone got any pics of the blow-hole on the spine of the beast please? I can't be sure but I think the Revell version is a smidge too small.....plus I'd like to craft a JFS exhaust to plop inside it and plug up that nasty void ;)

Bye for now.

:bounce:

Edited by geedubelyer
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Anyone got any pics of the blow-hole on the spine of the beast please? I can't be sure but I think the Revell version is a smidge too small.....plus I'd like to craft a JFS exhaust to plop inside it and plug up that nasty void ;)

Bye for now.

Does this help?

http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/Ha...1182/1819510/L/

I'm thinking to use 3/8" plastic tube as the inside diameter will give the small lip seen in the photo. How do you plan to add the missing JFS intake grille on the right fuselage?

This is a fantastic build with lots of great tips; watching this with interest.

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Looking superb so far Guy, love what you've done with the cockpit and the stressed skin effect - something well worth attempting on a Hawk as this is such a prominent visual feature of the aircraft frame.

Really nice, and another masterpiece in the making I'll wager ;)

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