Airfix 1/48 Harrier FRS.1

[Rich F]

I been looking forward to this one for a while and at the same time dreading it. The basic shape of the Airfix kit is sound but is let down by the raised panel lines and lack of details. So over the years I've collected a few bits for it.

I've also gone a bit further and hopefuly time allowing going to build a little deck scene for the SHAR to sit on. The Aircraft in question is this one XZ498 from 800 NAS. I'm going to model her as if she was aboard HMS Ark Royal in the 90's.

Here's a bit of reference material...

And the bits and bobs I'll be using...

Not shown in the photo is the decals I'm going to use, I'll be using Sky Decals Harrier-AV 8 sheet for the squadron markings and Xtradecals Falklands War Harriers sheet for the stencil data.

Really can't wait too get off the blocks on this one.

Edited September 1, 2011 by Rich F

[Doug Rogers]

Nice one Rich, got this one in the stash too, hopefully get round to doing it later.

[Stephen]

Looks good, the Datafile has lots of good tips from Nick Greenall about building and correcting the Airfix Harrier.

Stephen

[Karl]

Looks good, the Datafile has lots of good tips from Nick Greenall about building and correcting the Airfix Harrier.

Stephen

Yea - it's quite a good reference guide; Wish I'd had it before I built my 1/24 Sea Harrier

Karl

[bigbadbadge]

Crikey can't wait to see this one finished, good luck with the build.

All the best

Chris

[Rich F]

Looks good, the Datafile has lots of good tips from Nick Greenall about building and correcting the Airfix Harrier.

Stephen

Yep Stephen your not wrong, its like my SHAR Bible, using the scale drawings and Nicks 1/24th Shar as a guide.

Anyway sofar got the pit and bang seat painted, although Neomega detail is a bit clunky compared to Aires it still looks good and is a lot easier to paint.

Bang seat, Instrument panel and pit painted with Xtracolor's Dark Admirality grey with a little bit of white for scale effect, I used some of Mike Grants stencil decals for the head box.

The I/P also had the Mike Grant treatment with his jet cockpit decals, then sealed em with a drop of klear. I wish my eyes had a Macro mode, might have helped with the decal alignment.

A couple of the seat with the pit.

I'm going to work on the Aden gun pods next just to sharpen my scribing techniques before i start the fuselage halves, oh and make a centre line pylon as the Airfix kit hasn't got one.

Cheers

Rich

Edited April 21, 2011 by Rich F

[Dads203]

Nice work Rich, always look forward to your WIP's mate.

BR

Dan

[Doug Rogers]

Nice looking work Rich, real improvement!

[Rich F]

A bit of progress made this week on the stores etc,

First up was detailing the Aden gun pods, Airfix provide a decent outline but definitely in need of some improvement. So I did the following to them;

1. Reshape the area around the muzzle as it was looking a bit square, Also reshaped the rear of the pod for the same reason.

2. Drill out recess for barrel. Add barrel made from plastic rod.

3. Drill out 5 (cooling?) holes behind barrel.

4. Rescribe panel lines and added rivet detail.

5. Sand off fairings on the side of pod as too shallow and too short. Then added some more made from Mr putty and Mr Surfacer 500, then sand to desired shape.

6. Open door on side of pod and added 2 vents.

7. Added Flightpath Etch to rear of pods.

8. Gun pod fuselage seals added, made from 0.13mm evergreen sheet and cut to size.

Here's a comparison with my modified pod next to the Airfix one.

And both of em together.

As i was going to add a 1000lb bomb to the centreline pylon I was going to have to make one as it isn't provided in either the kit or the Pavla pylon set.

It was made out of plastic stock following the drawings out of the Harrier datafile book and then added the sway braces.

Heres how it looks loaded with Flightpaths 1000lb'er.

I also tackled the drop tanks, these were relatively simple and quite a good fit so no filler needed They were sanded until the seamline disappeared then the panel lines scribed and Archer raised rivet decals added.

Thats it for now, I'm moving on to scribing and detailling the fuselage next, I'll leave Flightpaths sidewinders till later as these are mini kits all on there own!

Cheers

Rich

Edited April 21, 2011 by Rich F

[bigbadbadge]

Awesome stuff, were the rivets the Archers transfers

Keep up the good work

Chris

[Rich F]

Thanks Chris, yep thats right they were the Archer transfers.

Finally got the fuselage halves scribed, not one of my favourite jobs alot of the Airfix raised panel lines were in the wrong place or just made up so using the drawings in the SAM Shar book i got scribing.

I also added a a few panels with 0.3mm styrene sheet to add a raised look, i also cut out the camera window and added a lens behind, even if you can't see it. I've also stuck palva's intakes which didn't give me too much trouble.

I've cut out the vent on the top and made a a new one with plastic stock and metal mesh, although i not really happy with the end result, hopefully after a coat of paint it might not look that bad.

I've cut out the front gear bay as Airfix did'nt seem to bother with one. I made a bay, but i could'nt find any decent pic's so had to improvise a bit.

I've filled in the slot for the elevators and cut a new slot with the trailing edge of the tailplanes down, I've also rescribed, reshaped the tailplanes and added the buffer plates.

I'll close up the fuselage add a few more bits and bobs then move on too the wings!

Rich

[xffw45343tg]

Very nice work indeed.

Are you very attached to the nose landing gear bay or would you like a pointer to references? I'm sure I've seen some somewhere and could dig something out for you. There are frames visible but the bay also contains the reaction control duct, some nitrogen(?/ hydraulic) reservoirs (? maybe accumulators) and the ducts for the bleed air. The cavity needs to be tall enough to accomodate the nose wheel too. At the aft end, the bay narrows because it is within the innner intake walls - which meet at the fan. The most notable stuff is the strut mounting trunnion and retraction jack.

Like I said, shout if you'd like me to look for some references.

Looking forward to the next installment.

[AnonymousAA72]

Coming along nicely Rich!! Cracking build so far!

[Dads203]

Quality workmanship Rich, one question fella, did you use the Archer decals for the rivets on the gun pods?

They really look the part.

Regards

Dan

Edited May 25, 2011 by Dads203

[Rich F]

Cheers for the kind words chaps.

Kirk, if you've got some pic's I can use them, thanks.

I really only intended to represent some depth to the front U/C bay as its going to sit on a deck dio away. The pic only shows half of the U/C bay when i cut the blank away from the kit U/C bay there is about 3mm of plastic that i will sit my bay on top of so it will be almost double the depth that you see. Also i cant make it anymore deeper as it will interfere with the Neomega cockpit above it.

Cheers

Rich

[NG899]

Rich,

Cracking work so far, I admire you're rescribing patience. Yes, I can help you out with front u/c bay references if you drop me a PM with your e-mail addy in it. If you get the Kagero Topshots book on the SHAR FA2 the bays are identical, in 48th anyway! It's also a great SHAR ref for both marks, as 85% or so was the same. It's also cheap and can be downloaded as a pdf these days it seems...

BTW, the gas turbine starter / auxiliary power unit exhaust on the prt side of the engine bay covers didn't have a mesh cover on it, only the GTS/APU intake opening on the stbd side had the mesh cover, for obvious reasons - to stop FOs being ingested; not much gets in through the exhaust port so to speak!

Keep at it, cheers,

Nick

[Doug Rogers]

Crikey Rich, that's some really nice work, it's going to be a cracker!

[SaintsPhil]

This is going to be a great build judging by current progress!

I've got a couple of these and I'm dreading scribing them, far from my favorite job. You've made a great neat job though keep it up!

Are those Pavla bits still available do you know?

[xffw45343tg]

My references would be the same as/worse than Nick can provide you. Go with those if you can.

Kirk

[Rich F]

Firstly a big thanks to Nick for providing me with some great pic's of the front U/C bay, even if I'm going to chicken out on superdetailing it this time.

I'm still busy with the fuselage, the end is almost in sight with it though, the Airfix kit has so many things that I wasn't happy with that needed correcting, anyway here's a run down with where I'm at now.

Flightpath's drain mast added.

Pavla's exhaust nozzles, sprayed with various Alclad shades.

Flightpaths heatshields, again sprayed with Alclad.

At this point I joined the fuselage halves together, well thats after I gave the area surrounding a coat of Mr Surfacer 1000 then a coat of Xtracolor DSG. I did this because the fit of the Pavla nozzles is pants so i had to glue these in place and i thought trying to paint these after would be a bit difficult.

Whilst i was waiting for the glue to dry on the fuselage havles, i decided to have a go at making some inflatable intake covers. I first cut some plastic card to the shape of the intake holes, then added milliput for the bladders.

Then i gave them a liberal coat of Mr Surfacer 500 to smooth things out a bit. Next up i added some Tamiya tape cut to size to replicate the raised detail and then added some handles and tie-down points.

Here them in place roughly anyway, I'll probably give em a coat Mr Sufacer 1000 to seal it all in before i paint them.

I've done a bit more but I'll add the rest later.

Cheers

Rich

[bootneck]

Hi Rich,

I've got the 1/24 Harrier FRS.1 to do, with the same trepidation that you had.

Hopefully I will pick up some good info and reference points by following your build here.

Good luck with it.

Mike

[Rich F]

Quality workmanship Rich, one question fella, did you use the Archer decals for the rivets on the gun pods?

They really look the part.

Regards

Dan

Thanks Dan, but no I didn't use decals on the gun pods, the rivets were made using Trumpeter's rivet wheel, then i went back over them with a 0.3mm drill bit.

Right I'll carry on with the second part of todays update.

Tail end details; underside RCV detail added from the Flightpath set, and mesh covers added with Hasegawa mesh punched out with Woldron punch and die set.

Airbrake bay lined with plastic sheet to get rid of the huge seem line and detailed with plastic strip, not entirely accurate but you get the idea. I originally scribed the ALE-40 dispensers but i didn't think they looked very convincing so i cut out 2 squares and filled them with plastic sheet cut to size and suitably drilled to represent the holes in the dispenser.

The Airbrake door with Flightpath detail cut to size to fit the Airfix door as its meant for the Tamiya SHAR.

A view of the belly, I've added some thin plastic card to represent the belly panels, these still need sanding down and rivet detail added. I also added the Flightpath TACAN/Doppler panel, i had to get the placement just right, first time as the CA was going to stick like a stuck thing straight away, luckily its not to bad.

One of the tailplanes in place showing them trailing edge down as Shar's are always seen when parked up.

This one shows the massive gap I'm going to have to fill under the I/P coaming, I've even shaved the I/P panel down as far as I dare but its still about 2mm

I tried to shave a bit off the coaming aswell but I ended up wrecking it i might just be able to repair it.

Thats all for now.

Rich

Edited June 10, 2011 by Rich F

[Nick Belbin]

Thanks Dan, but no I didn't use decals on the gun pods, the rivets were made using Trumpeter's rivet wheel, then i went back over them with a 0.3mm drill bit.

Great idea!!

Oh, great build as well – enjoying all these Harrier builds.

Nick

I really ought to join the Harrier SIG!!

[Vingtor]

Very nice. Very nice!

Nils

[bigbadbadge]

Wow looks great, just caught up. Thanks for sharing

All the best

Chris