Hobbyboss 1/72 Hawker SeaHawk FGA.6

[Miller]

Hi all,

well here we are, my first build on this wonderful site.

I am going to be building Hobbyboss' Hawker Sea Hawk in 1/72nd scale.

This is one of my favourite aircraft from this early jet era. It is somewhat of a crossover from the late piston engined designs and the early jets. I like the sleek and elegant look of the airframe, combined with the somewhat dated straight wing.

A little history: (Courtesy of the fantastic Thunder and Lightnings reference site http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/index.php Cannot recomend this sire enough.)

While Hawker Aircraft Ltd. was introducing their Sea Fury prop-driven naval fighter in 1944, they began to consider how to apply the new jet-engine technology to the Fury design. Rolls-Royce had just introduced a new engine, the B.41 (to be named the Nene), that had adequate thrust to propel the big Fury airframe, and in November of 1944, Hawker provided a preliminary concept of a B.41-powered Fury to the British government, with the designation P.1035.

The design team, working under Sir Sydney Camm, removed the Centaurus radial engine from the nose of the Fury, moved the bubble canopy as far forward as possible, and put the Rolls engine in the middle of the aircraft, with intakes alongside the fuselage and exhaust as a tailpipe going straight out the back. After a little more thought, the Hawker engineers came up with a follow-on proposal, designated the P.1040, in December, 1944; the new design had a major refinement in that the straight tailpipe was replaced with a split tailpipe, with each outlet in the wing root; this scheme meant the wing root had to be thickened, and so the intakes were placed in the wing roots as well. This layout reduced the amount of ducting and allowed fuel to be stored both fore and aft of the engine, preserving the aircraft's center of gravity as fuel was consumed. Avoiding having a long tailpipe also meant avoiding any thrust loss effects which were keenly felt on the earlier lower powered jet engine designs.


P.1040 VP401 lifting off on her first flight

The Fury's distinctive elliptical wing was abandoned for one with straight edges (to simplify manufacturing) and the tailplane was raised to allow it to clear the jet exhaust. The new design also had tricycle landing gear - the first Hawker aircraft to do so; it no longer looked very much like a Fury. Armament was specified as four 20-mm Hispano Mark 5 cannon. The P.1040 was intended for RAF use. Government interest, however, was mild; the war would clearly be over before long, and both the RAF and the Royal Navy had other jet fighter designs either flying or in the works. Nonetheless, despite the end of the war, in October 1945 Camm ordered the construction of a prototype.

By this time, RAF interest had disappeared completely - their air planners believed that their latest Meteors would be the hottest thing in the air for the foreseeable future - and Hawker Aircraft, faced with massive cancellations of orders for their prop fighters, hastily modified the P.1040 design for carrier operation and submitted the proposal to naval planners in January, 1946.

Much to Hawker's relief, the Navy was impressed with the design and ordered three prototypes and a test item; Hawker completed the prototype already in progress to provide the initial aircraft and quickly constructed the others. Camm's engineers then proceeded to refine the P.1040's design as a carrier-based interceptor - as well as to consider what could be done with the design to get the RAF interested again. This effort led to a number of other designs including a swept wing version (the P.1052), a rocket engined version (the P.1072) and a swept wing version with the jetpipe exiting at the end of the fuselage (the P.1081, destined for Australian use but cancelled in 1950). The P.1081 would however be the precursor of the extremely successful Hunter.

The first prototype flew on 2 September, 1947; the project was announced to the public a month later, disguised for some forgotten reason as a purely company-financed effort. This pretense was dropped when the second prototype flew a year later, on 3 September, 1948: it had folding wings, a stinger-type arresting hook, and was fully armed. This second prototype was used in carrier trials that indicated a need for a slightly longer wingspan and arresting hook.

The third prototype took to the air on 17 October, 1949; it was essentially a fully-functional production prototype, with longer arresting hook, provisions for rocket assisted take-off gear (RATOG) and attachment points for drop tanks. The powerplant was the Rolls Nene 101, providing 2270 kilograms (5000 pounds) of thrust. Service trials proved successful, and on 22 November 1949, the Royal Navy ordered 151 examples of the new aircraft, now formally known as the Sea Hawk. The initial batch of 35 Sea Hawk F.1s was partly used for further service trials (one of which ended disastrously when the folding wings unlocked on take-off) and to provide the first examples actually delivered to Naval squadrons (806 NAS receiving the first nine aircraft in March 1953).

When Winston Churchill had become Prime Minister again in 1951, he had initiated a "Super-Priority" scheme to speed the production of certain critical aircraft, and the Sea Hawk was one of them. The end result was that manufacturing was relocated to Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft (another member of the Hawker Siddeley group). AWA built 60 more F.1s. Pilots had noticed a tendency for the ailerons to go into oscillation, and to fix this problem the Sea Hawk F.2 was produced, providing power-actuated ailerons and a few other small improvements. 40 were built.



Sea Hawk F.1s
F.1s WF144 (foreground), WF143 and WF145 (background) in 1952; unknown origin

The next variant, the Sea Hawk FB.3 (Fighter Bomber), first flew in March of 1954 and incorporated a strengthened wing that could be configured to carry a variety of stores; test configurations included carriage of two 500 pound (225-kilogram) bombs and dual drop tanks; 20 7.62-centimeter rockets (each with a 27-kilogram warhead); and other combinations of bombs, rockets, and mines. 116 FB.3s were built, but the Royal Navy had been so overloaded by their Korean War commitments that they were unable to qualify most of these aircraft for full use of stores. Despite this embarrassing situation, an improved strike variant, the Sea Hawk FGA.4 (Fighter Ground Attack) was first flown in August, 1954, and 97 would be built in all.
By 1954, however, other nations were beginning to field aircraft that could break the sound barrier in level flight, and the performance of the Sea Hawk was beginning to become a concern. The Rolls-Royce Nene was a centrifugal flow engine, and it had become obvious by that time that this was a technological dead end - with the axial flow engine being the way of the future. This imposed a limit to the ultimate performance that could be expected from the Sea Hawk, but some improvements were still possible; when the 5200-pound (2460-kilogram) thrust Nene 103 became available, about 50 FB.3s and some FB.4s were re-engined with the Nene 103, becoming known as Sea Hawk FB.5s. The increase in thrust was too modest to noticeably increase the aircraft's top speed, but it did provide an additional margin of safety for flight-deck operations.

The new Nene 103 was also engineered into new production Sea Hawks, these new machines being designated the FGA.6. 87 were built. The type would soon see action alongside some FB.3s, providing close air support for the Anglo-French Suez operation in November, 1957. During Operation Musketeer, as the operation was known in the UK, 800, 802, 804, 810, 897 and 899 NAS aircraft were embarked on the carriers HMS Albion, HMS Bulwark and HMS Eagle. The Sea Hawks delivered the weapons that the RAF's new Hunters (based at Cyprus) did not have the range to deliver, attacking airfields, railways and anti-aircraft sites. Heavy groundfire resulted in the loss of two Sea Hawks and several returned with damage, but the aircraft acquitted itself well. It would not be the last time the Sea Hawk drew blood, but it would be the last time it saw action in UK service.

Also in 1956, 22 Sea Hawks were ordered by the Dutch to operate with the Naval Air Service (Marine Luchtvaartdienst - MLD), to be paid for with NATO funds; these machines were almost identical to FGA.6 aircraft, but had a Philips UHF radio and were designated as FGA.50s. Operated by 860 and 3 Squadrons, most of these aircraft were later modified to carry a pair of Philco Sidewinder 1A air-to-air missiles. At about the same time, the German Navy (Bundesmarine) placed an order for 64 Sea Hawks, with the order evenly split between day fighters and foul-weather/reconnaissance fighters; the machines delivered were also basically FGA.6 aircraft, but with a taller vertical tailplane. The day fighters were designated Mark 100; the Mark 101 was similar but carried a large radar pod on one of the underwing pylons.

In UK service, the Sea Hawk was on the verge of obsolescence with the new Supermarine Scimitar slated to be the replacement along with the de Havilland Sea Vixen. Phasing-out of the Sea Hawk began in 1958. By 1960, it had been completely removed from first-line service in the UK. The last production Sea Hawks were 14 FGA.6 aircraft, delivered in 1961 to the Indian Navy; the Indians had ordered 24 Sea Hawks. Split half and half between new-build FGA.6s and converted FB.3s, the Indians were impressed enough to later buy a further 22 Sea Hawks (a mixture of FGA.4 and FGA.6s). In Dutch service the Sea Hawk lasted until 23rd October 1964 when the final example was withdrawn from use. The Germans retired theirs the next year, and 28 of their machines were acquired by the Indians who were obviously still impressed with the type! The Indians would continue to operate their Sea Hawks for a much longer period of time, with the result that they were still operational when the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971 flared up.

On the day of the Pakistani attacks against Indian airfields that started the war, India's carrier, the INS Vikrant, had one boiler out of action which reduced her speed and manouevrability. Despite this and an attempted submarine attack she sailed for the major Pakistani port of Chittagong. On the 4th of December 1971, Sea Hawks from the Vikrant attacked Cox's Bazaar and Chittagong. Further attacks against other nearby harbours followed the next day, then Chittagong was attacked once more. For no losses, the Sea Hawks left a scene of devastation with the Pakistani port and its nearby airfield wrecked; thus the Sea Hawk played its part in the Indian victory. Five years later the Sea Hawk was still in service and on the 4th of March 1976, Cdr. Peter Debras had the misfortune to launched off the Vikrant when the catapult malfunctioned. The aircraft ditched in the sea ahead of the carrier and sank. Unable to stop or turn, the carrier passed over the sinking aircraft and Cdr. Debras waited in his seat until the carrier had passed before ejecting. He survived and set a world record for the deepest underwater ejection! The ageing Sea Hawks continued to serve until the early 1980s, when these old aircraft were finally replaced by Sea Harriers - another Hawker design of course.
The Sea Hawk, conceived in 1944, with last production in 1961 and serving until the early 1980s was in European terms a most successful aircraft - a production run of 524 and export success to three countries. It would be one of the last major export successes before politics nearly wrecked the UK aircraft industry. The Sea Hawk's clean and elegant design would eventually evolve into the Hawker Hunter, one of the major fighters of the 1950s onward, and an even bigger export success.

- See more at: http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk ... 8kRsU.dpuf


Here is the box art for the kit:



Sprue shots:



Parts show nice, fine recessed details. Also, the clear sprue is wrapped in thin foam, something I always like to see.


Three markings options are available:

WV805 on HMS Albion 1959-60


XE375 also HMS Albion 1956 in lovely Suez Markings


and a 300 Sqn Indian Navy machine on INS Vikrant in the 60's


I doubt I will do the Indian machine as a quick look at the decal sheet came up with this:


INIDIAN??? Well done Hobbyboss.


I will more than likely go with the Suez aircraft, for the added challenge of the stripes. Altough supplied as decals I will probably paint them.

Looking forward to starting.

Thanks

Stuart

[Paul]

Brilliant Stuart, look forward to seeing it come together

[Radzy]

Nice joice mate good luck!

[DC87]

Great job with the history Stuart .

Really like this aircraft , can't wait till you begin

[Rob]

Lovely plane, nice looking kit. I'll watch this one with interest. Thanks for the link to the site - great stuff on there

[fly1ngdutchm4n]

Great entry!
Looking forward to see this bird build

[Bridon]

Nice subject...there is something about these early jets that appeals and the Seahawk is one of them...looking forward to seeing this one 'evolve'.

Brian

[bullgill67]

nice one - looking forward to the build

michael

[Joesdad]

Really good stuff Stu, I'm with Bri on this mate, there is something about early British jets..maybe I'm biased or maybe it's because it's all gone. I've also quite like FAA aeroplanes, I've actullay got her a my Xmas wish list so Stu, I too will be following you.

Tim

[Lee]

Nice choice

[chief5437]

Great looking plane, I want one now! Hope it builds ok for you.

[Miller]

Update Number 1


Ok. so it seems about time to get this build cracking.

First port of call with this build is to study the instructions. This is a good idea before starting any kit, even one as simple as this seems to be.
It was apparent that the main fuselage is split into front and rear sections. The rear tail section is split vertically, as is traditional with most kits. The front however is split horizontally. It seems there may be some major joints to clear up with this one.

Before the front fuselage can be joined there are a number of sub-assemblies to be made up. The cockpit, landing gear bay, intakes, and jet pipes.

Here are the parts for the main landing gear bay cut from the sprue and cleaned up with a sharp blade and sanding sticks.



The detail is rather nice, and thankfully without any ejector pin marks.

One thing I like to do with any similar looking parts is to mark them with thier sprue number in pencil. Saves any unfortunate mistakes during assembly. Here we have part 11 being so marked.



Fit of the undercarriage unit is very good. A little extra thin glue and we have one completed sub-assembly.




Onto the next assembly, the jet pipes. These are in two halves unfortunately. Meaning there is going to be a seam to deal with. There is a resin replacement available from Quickboost (part no QB 72366) which would eliminate this problem.
Here are the two halves.



However with a little scraping with a sharp blade and a few dry run test-fits a good joint can be made. There is minimal clean up required here. Also, I think the scale thickness of the pipes is very nice. The seam work is a small price to pay for this.




The intakes are not so well done. The faces of the splitter vanes are quite rough.



I have sharpened these up, and thinned them down quite a bit with various files.


The fuselage top has an issue also. There is a prominent ejector pin mark right on the roof of the nose landing gear bay.



Thank heavens for skinny sanding sticks. Made short work of this.




The final assembly is of course the cockpit. Here all parts have been removed from the sprues and cleaned up. Detail is not bad for the scale.



The intakes were installed onto the lower fuselage section with liquid glue. You can see the reduced thickness of the vanes here.
There are also a number of holes to open up in the wings (remember to study the instructions ), these are for drop tanks and rockets. I used a suitably sized micro drill in a pin-vise.




The final job of this first update was to attach each small item to either a cocktail stick or a paper clip. This will ease handling of the small parts during painting.
I use a tiny dab of superglue to do attach these. Once the parts are ready, a little twist, and they pop off the holder. Simple.




So there we go. Ready for some paint on these small parts, then we can close up the front fuselage.

Cheers

Stuart

[chief5437]

Excellent update, hope things go well with the rest of it. Looks like a nice kit.

[Bridon]

Nicely composed, each section explains what needs to be done, very informative....good work

Brian

[Miller]

Update Two

Thanks for the comments guys.

Continuing with the build. Next up was to break out the airbrush.

I use a Harder and Steenbeck Evo, with 0.2mm nozzle, mainly Tamiya or Gunze Acrylics. I thin my paint with Tamiya X-20a and at a ratio of roughly 50% paint to thinner.

Air pressure generally 20-25psi.


First up to see some paint was the cockpit, seat, and the inside of the upper fuselage. The instructions would have this painted in a grey, however as far as I am aware, British aircraft of this era were black internally.
So out came XF-69 Nato Black. To spray pure black would be a bad idea. Especially in this scale. It would be too dark, and just would not look right. To achieve a good scale effect with your paintwork (in other words, to make your aircraft look real. Well, maybe just more real) you should lighten the colour you spray.
In this case XF-69 is much more a very dark grey than it is a black.

After the base colour was applied I swapped colours to XF-63 (German Grey). This is a lighter grey, though still dark. I thinned this a little more than usual, maybe 60% thinner to paint, and lowered my air pressure. Then spraying from a high angle (maybe 70 degrees), I dusted a few coats over the parts. This causes the upper areas of the cockpit to be highlighted by the lighter grey, whilst the shadow areas remain dark. A nice contrast is created.

A light drybrush followed with a paler grey shade XF-66 (Light grey). This "popped" the detail out from the background.






The trouble with British aircraft at this time is the black cockpits. They are basically just black holes, especially in scale model form. I like to add some real colour to bring some life to the cockpits of my models. In this case I did this with the seat. I painted the drouge chute bag in green, the seat back in brown, and the face cover handle in red (often these are depicted yellow and black striped, in actual fact most were a dull red). All the colours I chose were brighter shades than I should have used. I wanted the seat to really brighten up the cockpit.

I also decided to use an Eduard seat belt set. I chose a generic RAF WW2 belt set. Not strictly accurate but still looks the part.
Generally when using etched belts in this scale I dont bother with the multiple parts used to make one belt strap. I just use the main parts. Much easier and just as effective.

I'm afraid I was quite caught up on the build at this point and neglected some photos of certain stages. I washed the parts with Mig Dark Wash. Did a little chipping with some silver paint. And assembled.

Suffice to say here is the finished cockpit.






The wheel wells need to be painted in an aluminum shade.
When painting metallics I would normally use Alclad. However, I had read recently that, even though Tamiya Acrylic Metallics are pretty much the worst metallics ever (not many acrylic metallics are any good unfortunately), X-32 Titanium Silver is actually really good. I decided to test this out. And... its true. Its actually a real nice metallic shade. I think you could maybe even attempt a Natural Metal Finish with it.

The wheel wells were washed with some Mig Dark Wash and then dry fitted into the lower fuselage to see how it looks.




At the same time the exhaust pipes were painted XF-84 Dark Iron (a nice burnt shade), and the intakes were sprayed good old XF-2 White.

All components were then attached to the lower fuselage, and the cockpit installed in the top.






At this point the instructions do thier best to screw you over, and I almost fell for it.
I was just about to begin glueing the fuselage together when it occured to me that I might need to add some nose weight. I looked back over the instructions and no mention was made of needing any. But, the Sea Hawk is a tricycle undercarriage with a lot of backside hanging past the rear wheels. Theres no way I could do without.

So I mixed up some dilute PVA. Just regular craft PVA is fine, and just dilute with water about 30%. I use an old Tamiya paint pot to mix in.



For nose weight I like to use a product called Fluid Steel. Its essentially 2mm steel shot. Available from littlecars.com. Being steel, its much safer than lead, the small size means it can fit in small spaces, and its still real heavy. I fill the areas I need to with the shot, then apply the dilute PVA. As its diluted it can work its way all around the shot and ensures a solid hold.



Once dry the shot is held firm, and with none of the heat damage that can occur when any substantial amount of superglue is used.




While I was waiting for the PVA to dry I cleaned up the parts for the rear fuselage and assembled them. Nothing serious to report. The seams are not too bad. Some work will be needed but nothing major.



Something tells me joining the tail and main fuselage isnt going to be pretty. Its just a bad feeling ive got.

One slight disapointment is the tail hook. Its moulded in the up position. Having a choice would be nice, but its a small moan thats all.




Well there we are. Another update soon I hope.

Stuart

[Joesdad]

Well, that was all rather lovely, thanx Stu. Got to say, I haven't seen "liquid metal" before and good tip about using PVA instead of superglue... All in all great up-date. More of the same please mate.



Tim

[Jamesday1998]

The cockpit looks awesome with that drybrushing!
Your painting is excellent
The wash has really done a lot as well!
Can't wait to see the final result!

[T3hGuppy]

Some really great work dude.


Are we going to get an update???