Hawker P1127

[RangerNeil]

Going tbrough the stash for items small enough to fit in display "holes" I came across the Arfix "Vintage Classic" release of the Hawker P1127 - predecessor of the Harrier.


First the instructions - very simple as it's a very basic kit:






And the painting/decal instructions:


Opening the box gives you this:


These are the sprues - I did say it was very basic:


And these are the new decals for the kit:


The build
Being a very early moulding the rivet details are raised which is going to make rubbing seams & filler down somewhat "interesting".
First job was painting the cockpit black together with the intake side walls.


Then fitting the vectored thrust nozzles:


Unlike the Harrier release these nozzles aren't linked for movement so need to be posed individually. I've opted to pose them in the Vertical take-off position. For now....
First issue of note was the gap between the bottom of the sidewall and the fuselage:


This was filled some fragments of plastic card.


Next job was filling a couple of ejector marks on the fan panel that would have been highly visible:


Once that had been rubbed down it was time to join the fuselage halves - even with all the clamps:


it wasn't the best of joins. A bit of filler was needed around the tail and the nose probe as well as the two undercarriage bays.






Whilst waiting for the filler to dry I had a look at the pilot figure supplied as it looked a bit small. It was!! The painted figure was left over from the big Mil-V-12 build. I've tried it in the seat and it looks much better than the kit figure.


Lastly - and a right PITA - the main undercarriage leg was a 8short-shot to the point the entire bottom end inc.the axles is missing. So I've contacted Hornby to request a replacement... May take up to 28 days.....

[digger303]

Always thought retiring the jump Jet and going to conventional jets was a backward step for defence. It would be a ideal type in the Ukraine where runways aren't perfectly smooth and easy targets.

[Stokesy44]

Blimey, its easy to forget how basic some of the older and smaller Airfix kits were. Its quite a challenge you have there and I can only admire your dedication. Shame about the landing gear short shot, just shows Airfix dont learn, what with their new Sea Fury suffering from reported short shotting.

[Stokesy44]

Always thought retiring the jump Jet and going to conventional jets was a backward step for defence. It would be a ideal type in the Ukraine where runways aren't perfectly smooth and easy targets.

Not much good being able to take off from my front garden if you're a sitting duck once airborne. Once we Brits decided not to update the Harrier the way the US did, our versions were always going to be retired ahead of theirs. Our military brass had their sights on bigger and shinier toys like operating the Typhoon and saving up for the F35.

Retiring the Sea Harrier a decade before it would be replaced should have put certain admirals up for court martial but nobody was ever held accountable. It came down to money in the end. At least by the time we got the F35 the thing actually worked and is proving to be a helluva machine - despite being ugly as a bag of rocks.

[RangerNeil]

Always thought retiring the jump Jet and going to conventional jets was a backward step for defence. It would be a ideal type in the Ukraine where runways aren't perfectly smooth and easy targets.

Not much good being able to take off from my front garden if you're a sitting duck once airborne. Once we Brits decided not to update the Harrier the way the US did, our versions were always going to be retired ahead of theirs. Our military brass had their sights on bigger and shinier toys like operating the Typhoon and saving up for the F35.

Retiring the Sea Harrier a decade before it would be replaced should have put certain admirals up for court martial but nobody was ever held accountable. It came down to money in the end. At least by the time we got the F35 the thing actually worked and is proving to be a helluva machine - despite being ugly as a bag of rocks.

Purely a personal view - but for me Harrier went the way of TSR-2, Rotodyne, Nimrod Mk2, Avro Arrow and others. Sacrifice on the altar of politics by politicians who put money over all else including defence of the nation. Sadly its the way of the word and always will be.
F-35 continues to be a - thorny - issue over things like weapons systems. RN has a perfectly good AAMRAM (sp?) missile that needed to be tied into the F35's systems. US developers refused to allow BaE access to the coding and it was "suggested" the UK scrap their system and buy the US one. It got a bit political at that point with it being pointed out we were paying 50% more per plane than the USN and USMC despit funding around half the development costs - threats of pulling funding from the program entirely got BaE the access required. Myself - I'm not sure the F-35 is a successor to the Harrier, it looks and reads like the only thing in common is the ability of one type of F-35 to go VTOL. The transition time seems, from video's to be a lot longer - bear in mind I saw Harriers in BAOR Germany come in at tree top height and transition to VTOL, landing in clearings, incredibly fast - literally "now you see me, now you don't". It maybe the F-35 can do this - but AFAIK no ones seen it yet. Nor can it physically pull the stunt the Sea Harriers pulled in the Falklands.

But this digresses from the build. I heard back from Airfix today - they confirmed it may take up to 28 days before the part arrives, seems they are rather busy for some reason. Luckily the design of the plane means I can progress the build and it can sit on the outriggers till the main gear arrives. For now its a case of careful sanding to lose the seams before priming in black as a base for the silver finish. Haven't got weapons pylons to worry about so the underwing decals won't be affected. Canopy likewise is a simple job for masking, only a single hoop. Going to make a nice change from the batch of Japanes canopies I've done recently. All in all this looks to be a nice little display item. Will look good berween a Harrier and, later, a Sea Harrier.

[digger303]

Always thought retiring the jump Jet and going to conventional jets was a backward step for defence. It would be a ideal type in the Ukraine where runways aren't perfectly smooth and easy targets.

Not much good being able to take off from my front garden if you're a sitting duck once airborne. Once we Brits decided not to update the Harrier the way the US did, our versions were always going to be retired ahead of theirs. Our military brass had their sights on bigger and shinier toys like operating the Typhoon and saving up for the F35.

Retiring the Sea Harrier a decade before it would be replaced should have put certain admirals up for court martial but nobody was ever held accountable. It came down to money in the end. At least by the time we got the F35 the thing actually worked and is proving to be a helluva machine - despite being ugly as a bag of rocks.

Was there no natural path of evolution for a newer better model ?
Runways are so easily damaged ( everyone knows where they are ) and modern aircraft require the smoothest of surfaces.
The F35 is a great machine which is made in USA and doesn't help your local industry as much as producing your own. The flip side is it's hellishly expensive to develop and produce a short run of aircraft.
Sorry I really like the Harrier

[Stokesy44]

Excellent, glad you can carry on while you wait for the part.

[Stokesy44]

Always thought retiring the jump Jet and going to conventional jets was a backward step for defence. It would be a ideal type in the Ukraine where runways aren't perfectly smooth and easy targets.

Not much good being able to take off from my front garden if you're a sitting duck once airborne. Once we Brits decided not to update the Harrier the way the US did, our versions were always going to be retired ahead of theirs. Our military brass had their sights on bigger and shinier toys like operating the Typhoon and saving up for the F35.

Retiring the Sea Harrier a decade before it would be replaced should have put certain admirals up for court martial but nobody was ever held accountable. It came down to money in the end. At least by the time we got the F35 the thing actually worked and is proving to be a helluva machine - despite being ugly as a bag of rocks.

Was there no natural path of evolution for a newer better model ?
Runways are so easily damaged ( everyone knows where they are ) and modern aircraft require the smoothest of surfaces.
The F35 is a great machine which is made in USA and doesn't help your local industry as much as producing your own. The flip side is it's hellishly expensive to develop and produce a short run of aircraft.
Sorry I really like the Harrier

Britain does not have the budget to develop a 5th generation fighter on its own so we were forced to buy from abroad. We're also not able to maintain many different weapons platforms, hence the decision not to develop the Harrier when the Typhoon and F35 were slated to be the front line options well into the 21st century.

And being able to land in a field or a forest clearing doesn't do you a lot of good if your basic airframe limitations means your survivability in the modern battle area is less than optimal. And yes, I love the Harrier too.

[RangerNeil]

Was masking up the canopy tonight whilst thumbing through some modelling groups on Farcebook and found an item by someone who'd built this kit. He reckoned the canopy was too wide for the fuselage. So I checked - and it was!! Not fractionally either but by a good mm!!. Looks fractionally too long as well, maybe by less than a mm. Length I can live with but whats the best way of reducing the width of the canopy????

[RangerNeil]

Don't know if it can be seen in the pots -but the difference in width between the canopy and the fuselage is very evident. To he honest I'm not sure how I can remedy this without wrecking the canopy.....








Meantime the silver has gone on. I used the "Natural Silver" from AK's Metals set. It looks a lot better than the Humbrol #11 the instructions called for.

[digger303]

In hate it when the canopy doesn't sit right. All that clear you have to be careful with and fettle to get right.

[Stokesy44]

Silver finish is looking good. Shows off the hard work during the build phase.

The only thing I can think of is heat treatment for the canopy. Heat over a naked flame but you would have to be very brave to try it since the window the reshape the canopy before its ruined is frighteningly small. The other option is immersion in very hot water with the same intent.

Fortune favors the brave but I'm not sure I'd recommend either!