Revell BAe Tornado GR1 conversion to F.3 ADV 1:32

Cockpit tub

First of all the cockpit is different at the rear so the kit tub would not do. For this project I used the Avionix resin tub, which has some amazingly fine detail cast into it and the ejection seats again are some of the most detailed and brilliant cast seats I have seen. As this will have pilots in I decided that the seats I would save as they would have pilots in anyway so the detail would be lost. So I took the resin seats for an Aires cockpit set I have as they looked better than the kit ones.

The fit wasn’t exact, a fair bit of sanding and adjusting is needed in order to fit into the kit parts. The cockpit and seats were painted with Vallejo Air 049 Medium Sea Grey and the instrument coaming and rear monitors painted with Vallejo Air 251 NATO Black, dry brushed with light grey and instrument details picked out.

Aircrew?

As this was going to be an inflight project pilots would be needed; no pilots are supplied with the kit so I looked to the aftermarket products. At that time there was nobody who made a 1:32 modern RAF pilot, so I would need to fashion one. I used PJ products German F-4 pilot as a starting point and with reference photos and some Milliput fashion my pilots as best as possible. The reflective strips that are present on the back of the helmet were fashioned with thinned down plastic strips.

Main build

As stated above, there are a few physical differences between the kit GR. variant and the F.3 ADV. Luckily whilst scouring e-bay I came across a resin conversion set that had been roughly cast by someone.
This included:

• the correct nose cone
• mid and rear fuselage plugs
• belly panel with recesses
• wing shoulder extensions
• extended tail fairing
• missile rails and chaff dispensers.

To say that the conversion kit was rough was an understatement, poor fit all round meant a lot of work needed to be done just to be cleaned up let alone to actually fit to the kit. Some of the kit plastic also would have to be cut away in order to fit some of the resin parts. In all a lot of filling sanding and re-scribing needed here. In total I think I spent two weeks just making these resin parts fit well with the kit. A necessary evil in order to prevent me having to cast my own parts.

Read on…