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Undercarriage units
Just about every Harrier I’ve ever built (and that isn’t many to be honest) has had the same problem of all the wheels not being in contact with the ground at the same time – how bizarre is that? This kit is no different, with the left or right wing (plus the main gear units of course) contacting the ground, but not all together. There being about 2mm that needs to be dealt with. In fact, it isn’t too difficult to correct. I test (dry) fitted the wheels in their locating holes. The fix that’s needed is to sand a decent flat onto the main central gear unit tyres and nose wheel. That takes care of nearly 1mm and when you look at pics of the Harrier the tyres do sink under the weight of the bulky airframe.
The second stage is to re-work the outrigger units. They can be lengthened about 1-1.5mm without looking odd and this is just enough to fix the problem. What you need to do is remove the rectangular locating tab at the top that attaches each unit to the wing bay. I then cut a slightly ‘taller’ rectangular replacement from scrap plasticard, securing with cyano. Using white PVA glue I temporarily re-attached all the gear units and great! They all make contact. Ok, off with them and a little water on a tissue removes the PVA. All are set aside for later painting and attachment to the completed airframe.
