Subscribers’ Gallery – Aircraft ‘H’

With the dust now settling following Scale Model World 2016, here’s a little showcase of my 1:24 Harrier T.2 conversion that I’ve been working on over the last six months. Easily the most difficult, demanding and technically involved project I’ve ever undertaken, this Harrier is the culmination of thirty years of wanting this model in my collection and developing the skills to finally bring the project to fruition.

As many will know, the conversion is 99% scratchbuilt, created in collaboration with David Haggas, Nick Greenall and Dave Fleming who all provided technical information on every aspect of the conversion, Mal Mayfield who created the masks that allowed almost all of the markings to be airbrushed on, Tim Perry who created the patterns and vac-formed parts for the amazing ferry tanks that are fitted under the wings and finally, Haris Ali who vac-formed the canopies and laser-cut the wonderful base that the model sits on. Thank you all so much!

I hope that you like it! :)
Spencer P.

This is my Bae Harrier T.4 made from the 1:48 Kinetic kit.

Matthias B.

I used the SMN Red Arrow Hawk Full-size Info and found it very useful for detail painting of the model interior and exterior, one example being the interior of the wheel doors which were shown as grey in the instructions but SMN photos show them to be red!

The Hawk was built pretty much out of the box, with the exception of cutting the flap slats down to the scale length shown in the SMN full-size details and the addition of a Master pitot tube as the kit one was more like a pole for vaulting!

Paints used were Halfords white aerosol primer flatted with 3600 Micromesh underneath Hannants Xtracrylix Red Arrows Signal Red for the main scheme with Tamiya Light Grey used in wheel wells.

The off-white canopy bands were painted using a lightened Humbrol Linen acrylic sprayed on before masking for the airframe red.
Tamiya Flat white used for the underside Arrow touch up around the decals.

Tamiya Rubber black for the tyres and Molotow Chrome Paint Pen was used for the chrome undercarriage details and noselight reflector.

Alclad 2 metallic were used for the exhaust tailpipe and smoke fluid injectors.

Flory polishing sticks were used to get a gloss for the decal application, and where the blue fin decal gave some challenges but Micro Sol softening solution came to the rescue with some use of Hannants Roundel Blue to touch up edges. Next time, I will mask and spray the blue rudder area!

Post decaling, the model was sprayed with Alclad2 Light Sheen clear lacquer and I am pleased with the realistic level of gloss on the model using this method.

All in all, a great model, available around the £20-30 price point with a few minor tweaks can be completed as you see here and yes I have bought another one!

Stuart M.

Revell 1:32 scaleThe greatest “must-have” kit since, well, I suppose the Airfix Sea Vixen. I guess we’ve never had it so good? Bring on those Airfix Lynxes!

First impressions on opening the box were very favourable, once I got past “Gosh, It’s Red!”. It is an experience that can only be likened to opening the box of the Hasegawa RAF Rescue Sea King. It’s rare for me to start a kit the day I bring it home. Most of them sit in the stash for a while. But this one went straight onto the production line. Two more boxes went straight into the stash, along with a selection of Xtradecal recent releases.

The build was pretty straightforward, but I did need a little filler at the wing roots especially underneath between the wheel wells and the intakes.

Since I was aiming for an out of the box Red Arrow, I decided to capitalise on that bright red plastic. As has been described in the review, the plastic surface is slightly textured, so I went over it lightly with fine glass paper first. After a good soapy wash and thorough drying, I sprayed thinned Revell no. 31 enamel direct onto the plastic. The result was a beautifully smooth satin finish. The rear portion of the tail fin was finished with Revell’s no. 51 enamel.

The decals are beautifully thin and conform very well to surface curves and details. Micro Sol was barely necessary. If there is a price to pay for the thinness of the decals, it is in a slight lack of opacity in the whites, but I think that they got the balance right.

There were a few near disasters along the way though…

Disaster number one was realising that in my eagerness to progress the build, I had forgotten to add any weight to the nose. What to do? Open the airbrake wide enough to take the weight? Maybe.

Next up, imagine my horror when I peered into the cockpit one day to see the front instrument panel had taken on the appearance of a badly corroded battery terminal! I think I must have been a little more liberal than intended with the cyano that held the front fairing in place. So out came the decal sheet from one of the two other Revell Hawks in my stash, the scanner and inkjet decal paper. Every cloud has a silver lining though, when I took the fairing off, it revealed a space big enough to conceal a lead fishing weight!

Disaster number three was mistaking part of the front undercarriage for a sprue entry gate and leaving it behind when removing the parts!

The final horror. I never quite got to the bottom of how this happened, but when the end was nearly in sight, I came home to find one of the main undercarriages broken. I think the moral of that tale was not to leave your pride and joy on the kitchen worktop beneath an over filled biscuit cupboard. This had to be drilled out and strengthened with wire.

Here’s my Hawker Hunter made from the 1:48 scale Academy kit. Pretty much hand-painted and Xtradecals for the markings of No.74 Squadron RAF. I made up some FOD guards for the engine intakes and jet pipe.
I just use a pencil to add some highlights to the panel lines and work this subtly in and around the airframe with a cotton-bud.
Hope you like it… Graham M.

These are of my most recent completion – the 1:48 Airfix Hawker Hunter F.6.

I have added a Quickboost ejector seat and used Xtradecal sheet X48192 for the 92 Squadron markings.

I painted the model with AlcladII lacquers on the undersurfaces and MRP lacquers for the camouflage colours. It was weathered with MiG panel line washes and final varnish coat was Vallejo Matt Varnish.

Thanks, Phil J.

Here’s the 1:32 Revell Hawker Hunter in F.Mk.6 guise. A really nice, simple kit to build and looks great in the larger scale. If you can get a cockpit set for it that will add a bit to your finished model and here I used the True Details resin tub and seat.

I drilled out all the rivets just to add some interest and I think it adds a bit to the finished model.

Hope you like it…
Geoff C.

Revell 1:144 scale
Here’s my most recent Revell 1:144th Hunter from the Abu Dhabi Air Force, sprayed with cellulose paint, gloss varnish, decals, matt varnish and pastel weathering.

Airfix 1:48 Hawker Hurricane Mk.I kit. Aside from some Eduard seat belts the kit was made more or less from the box.
I drilled a small hole in the inside of the wingtip lights and filled these holes with red and green paint as appropriate to represent the bulbs.
The only issue I found with the model was a slight step on the front underside of the wing where it meets the underside of the front of the fuselage. The step was covered by the large air intake on the tropical version of the kit and so was not apparent. However, here I found it hard to disguise as filling and sanding would have eradicated the moulded detail. Clamps were used to hold the wing and fuselage firmly together while the glue set, in an attempt to reduce the appearance of the step. I have not heard of anyone else having problems in this area so I think that this was probably a problem with my inept construction rather than any shortcoming of the Airfix kit!
The model was finished with Mr Hobby paints which performed brilliantly and are now my favourites.
All in all this was a highly enjoyable build and I’ll certainly be building another – perhaps as a night fighter?
Dai W.

This is my Hurricane Mk.I, 1:24 by Airfix. I had this in my stash since the 80s. Back then, these kits were very hard to find in Greece and my older cousin bought it for me, in Sweden, and gave it to me. So, I dedicate it to him, since he got me into modelling when I was much younger.

The kit is well detailed, great fit, and poses no problems. Just be careful with the fragile frame that supports the engine cowls.

I built it OOB, just to enjoy the engineering of the kit (ok, I am lazy…) and I really liked the light blue colour of the plastic spues! It brought back a lot of childhood memories.

The only add-ons were the decals (Techmod, I think) and P/E seatbelts. I think paper or fabric seatbelts would be better than P/E.

It’s mounted on a round wooden base and the pilot is from PJ.

I wanted a really weathered model and when I found a colour profile of a heavily chipped Hurricane, I was on! But, I took it a bit further and I used a lot of sponging, heavy washes (especially on the undersides), local fading by airbrushing, pencils (for a first time) etc.

I hope you like the end result. Now, the Me109E is gonna be next, after I find Galland’s markings…
Panos H.

This model was made from the Airfix 1:48 Hawker Hurricane Mk. 1 (Tropical) kit.
This an excellent kit which I found went together very well without any issues. The only additions that I made were some seat belts from an Eduard set as none are supplied in the kit.
I drilled a small hole into the inside surface of each of the wingtip lights using a 0.4mm drill (I found it easiest to do this while they are still on the sprue). The holes were then carefully filled with paint to represent the red and green bulbs).
The model was finished using one of the schemes available in the kit which represents a training aircraft used by the South African Air Force.
The finish was overall Alclad Aluminium, but note these aircraft were not left in natural metal but were actually painted in silver overall, so having panels of slightly different shades is not appropriate here (though it would probably look nice!).
Weathering was kept to a minimum as these aircraft were not used on the front line. Exhaust staining was added using pastel chalks. The panel lines were outlined using highly diluted raw umber oil paint. Some chipping was applied to the anti-glare panel using a silver pencil.
The aerial wire was made using Uschi Van Der Rosten elastic rigging thread (standard size) and the lead-in wire was made from a piece of wire rolled straight under a steel ruler and coloured to match with a dark grey marker pen.
I had masked the canopy with Tamiya tape and I first sprayed the frames with the interior colour. The Alclad was then sprayed over this, the intention being that the interior colour would be visible on the inside of the canopy. The interior colour is a little prominent for my liking so perhaps next time I’ll invest in some ready cut masks which would probably give a better finish.
Hope you like it.
Dai W.

Here’s my Airfix 1:24 Hawker Hurricane MKI using aftermarket decals of No. 303 Polish Sqdn, September 1940 and some seat belts. Other than that, pretty much out of the box.

Hope you all like it.
Andy PP.

Airfix 1:48 scale Hawker Hurricane

This kit was built straight from the box as this was a commission build. Like all my models lately, this one received a first layer of Alclad black primer.

Paint used is Gunze Aqueous which I spray in very thin, almost translucent layers. This way you can create several shades of colour without mixing paint. Some shading with lighter shades of the basic colours was done.

Kit decals were used over a coat of Future, followed by a wash of Mig Productions dark wash.

Final coat is Alclad matte coat.
René van der Hart

This is the PCM model OOB except for Eduard Sutton harnesses; painted with Tamiya and Lifecolor paints.
This kit fought me all the way but was worth the effort I think. She really captures the look of the Hurricane.
Regards, Gerry D.

I finally got round to taking fresh photos of the Fisher Sea fury T.20. It is done in the scheme of WG655 as it may have looked after two harsh years in the Northern Ireland weather, (1954-56 RNAS Eglinton, GN for HMS Gannet).

It’s built out of the box, but the serials and station code were cut from Tamiya masking sheets and sprayed on.
I used Vallejo model air and Vallejo metal with Tamiya flat coat.

Hope you like, Kenneth M.

This is a Fisher 1:32 Sea Fury which I have had in my stash for some time but never had the confidence to take on the mad paint job. Having used my airbrush previously only as a spray gun I was daunted by the shading on the cowl and phasing into the decals. Fortunately attending the recent Scale Modelling Now Workshop set that concern to right so I had a bash at it!

I modified the standard kit by fitting the Fisher Centaurus engine and cowling. Paul Fisher wasn’t 100% sure it would fit this particular kit as it was designed for the RN version. There were a few adjustments required, but I’m pretty happy with it.

Paints used were Tamiya Fine White Surface primer. Mr Hobby Base White 1000 and Tamiya Chrome Yellow (spray can). The business end of the plane was airbrushed with Mr Hobby Hobbycolor acrylics. Metals were Vallejo Metalcolor and engine was detailed with Rowney oils over a Vallejo Metalcolor base.

Best Regards, Alan R.