1/72 Xtrakit/MPM Sea Harrier FA.2

[jnbattleship]

Decided to tackle another subject in FAA GB, this time the MPM's depiction of FA.2





This one will be OOB with some non-serious plastic torture if needed (I do not think so at this point). I am not sure if kit's decals or Sky Model's will be used at this point.

TheRohalla vel jnbattleship vel Marek

[rodrant]

Nice, I will enter also with this kit ! , will follow your build with interest ! Good Luck !

[Twokidsnosleep]

Very cool aircraft
Should build up nice

[chief5437]

Nice choice! I've never built an Xtrakit before, be good to see what they're like.

[jnbattleship]

Well, the xtrakit welcomed me with words of caution ; "Be xtracareful!"

In my case, main fuselage halves are of not equal length by a 1-2 mm. Not a big diddy but creates panel misalignment and need for a file party. We'll deal with that soon.

More thorough sprue shots:





I started cleanup and some assemblage, tanks, cockpit structure, nose cone etc,



added 'seatbelts' (they will have to do for our purposes) to the seat.



I have filled the very annoying sinkmarks spanning whole length of intakes.



Mostly cleaning up and musing on 'How to make that work without foul language....'

For builders of this kit;
pan pan pan
backplates for the nozzles that are to be glued inside the fuselage need careful play to fit right ones in the right places. Instruction was indicating A23 front and A22 back. For me it was rather(Starboard front A23, SB rear A22 - Port front A22 and P rear A23). When you look at the sprue, it becomes obvious that there is some misnumbering going there. But it is not really obvious what goes where. dryfit dryfit dryfit.

Hopefully next update soon.

[jnbattleship]

I feel more relaxed now with this kit as I put both halves of the cockpit part together. I thought that more massaging would be required but so far the kit did not fight too violently. I better shut ... it still has many possibilities .

Some shots of cockpit parts apriori and post closing.







The HUD will need to be scratchbuilt which is fine with me. A lot of partying before I can put it together with main fuselage.







As far as 'office furnishings' I am going for closed canopy so work here should be sufficient ('for government work' of course)

As the Iron Maiden's song went 'Harrier can't wait'

Marek

[jnbattleship]

Quick update,
build continues, now I wish I had chosen either Airfix or Hasegawa's rendition (latter one I would just modify with xtrakit nose). Nose section fit to the fuselage gave me palpitations. If you fit intakes right you get a misalignment of about 5 mm! If you work it out a bit you get sort of OK alignment inside intakes but there is a step both behind the canopy and down at the intake lip. I chose the latter since dealing with step inside would be almost impossible and I would need to scratchbuild intake covers (not a bad idea for later).





Overall the airframe is almost all there, lots of sanding and rescribing still in the immediate future:




I am sticking with this kit though. It does look like a shar already, even if being more needy

[Avgas]

I salute your determination sir.

[jnbattleship]

I salute your determination sir.

The only thing I determined is that this kit would not be garbage in 2000 but it definitely is in 2017 . It is by far the worst of later MPM productions. Their Seahawk was more balanced even if surface detail was worse.

[Avgas]

Can't be any worse than Airfix's GR3. I literally threw that in the bin from across the room. It flew like it built.

[jnbattleship]

Can't be any worse than Airfix's GR3. I literally threw that in the bin from across the room. It flew like it built.

And they say that everything can fly if you attach the engine big enough. Believe me, I was close at least 2 times to do the same with that one. I guess the adage 'hard to get vtol right' stand true to the letter .

[martin57]

Excellent work so far.
Looks like a very challenging kit.
Best of luck with the rest

[pourquoi61]

Great job so far.

[RossiM1]

Your determination is paying off that looks a pig of a kit, I salute you sir

[jnbattleship]

OK, I stuck with the kit and hit self-inflict button during paint session, but that in a second.
First: I have used a clear acetate sheet (for overhead transparencies) as a HUD display.







After many hours of cleaning up, refilling and cleaning up again, I have arrived at the at some passable paint-to-contact point. Intakes were masked off (how well, we will see) and I have decided to used vallejo on it since I have whole RAF-FAA set (got it as a present some time ago) and wanted to use what was supposed to be their medium sea grey ... brrr ... gross mistake. What vallejo indicated as Medium Sea Grey is more like Extra Dark Sea Grey. Oh, well, c'est la vie. Change of plans, ...hmm, I am out of tamiya so time to break the seal on Lifecolor. Did I mention Lifecolor? Lifecolor decided to be on a lighter side, oh well. I'll stay with that. Meanwhile, vallejo decided to peel off on me on the nose cone. clean, sand, respray.

Finally I have arrived at this:







But at least I see the light in the tunnel, and it is a sea harrier not a train.

[RossiM1]

I doubt if Michael Angelo got the Cisteen Chapel ceiling right first time, he must have used Vallejo as well cause that is peeling something terrible when me and the boss saw it.
Your persistence is paying dividends if it was me that plane would ditched never to be seen again. good job

[jnbattleship]

I finally had some bench time on Harrier, here and there, during the week, I managed to put primary colors, leaving enough modulation for it to avoid being absolutely boring. I had to use Life Color (my Gunze came in on Friday, of course). Paintjob is not to competition standards but neither am I .
Glossed it with Alclad Aqua Gloss, which hid the minor paint inconsistencies.











Hopefully, tonight is going to be a decal time!

[jnbattleship]

At this moment I have decals on, Aquaglossed it and then after 24 hours, I have dumped little of Ultimate Concrete wash. Needs to be cleaned little bit more, this time with some hefty 1600 sanding paper (first for me) to provide for little aged surface. I will keep the weathering to absolute minimum, even though I ... love them dirty. But these looked always shipshape surface-wise, with just a bit of discoloration in most suspect places









The last one is a teaser for me, 'SHAR FA2 CAP, Fair Isle area, early morning hours'.

[AdamLuscombe]

Nice work

[jnbattleship]

Thank You!

[jnbattleship]

Sanding was not bat at all, even though I went light on it and results are light as well. Attached all antennae, pitot tube, the 'electronic' wind indicator and all other strange bits. Since what comes with the kit originally is more along the lines of nudging your imagination toward real airframe than providing materials to do this, I have sourced the bits from spare PE parts ranging from ... SU-100 to old defunct Swordfish.

While working on the PE, I had a freak instance that once again showed me how important protection is; I was filing one of the antennae and it just sprang right in a direction of my eye. If I had not have glasses on (I would have safety glasses on anyway) it would be a part of my eyeball now. KEEP SAFE GUYS.

I also managed to put the patient on its legs. The main part needed to be shortened by about 2-3 mm for the machine to touch the ground with all 4 points.

[jnbattleship]

I grew very tired of this kit thus it was rushed into completion. I persevered but mojo is definitely not in a best shape. Instructions defeated me at the end and positioning of outboard pylons was soooooo clear to me ... that I had to go through 10+ frontal photos of the real thing to figure that out. Short run, short life, short fun.

Proper reveal photography will follow within days







For now this 'unofficial trailer' type imagery should be sufficient. Overall, kit gets medium marks for short run and modeller is reprimanded for being quite a hamfisted guy with it, dropping it, spilling glues, using wrong wash and to delicate sanding. Oh well, maybe I'll learn. Stay tuned for proper pics.

[jnbattleship]

Uploaded the photos to the reveal catalog. Thank You Guys for providing support all the way through the build! Hope you like the final product.