AV-8B Night Attack Harrier VMA-311 “Tomcats” by Pierrig Salaün | |
Brand: | Hasegawa |
Scale: | 1/72 |
Modeler: | Pierrig Salaün |
AddOns: | - |
This is a nice Hasegawa kit, the fit is good (I just had to sand the separation between the single wing and the fuselage), the structure lines are finely engraved, the cockpit is relatively simple, as always. No weapons are provided (buy the Hasegawa weapons set !) except for 2 sidewinders and the optional gun pod (which I chose instead of the lateral strakes). Three option decals in this kit:
I enhanced the model with Eduard photo-etched (72356) which is very complete (cockpit, airbrake, exhaust nozzles, landing gears…). The result is very nice ! For the paintings, I used a mix of Gunze acrylics and Humbrol enamels (let it DRYYYY !!!): grey FS36375 (Gunze H308) for the underside, grey FS36320 (Gunze H307) for the upper side and finally greyish blue FS35237 (Humbrol 145) for the extrados, I don't know if those colors are really accurate (I forgot the tail fin, of course, it’s painted black Gunze H12). Then the whole thing is covered with Future/Klir (kind of gloss varnish), decaled and weathered. For weathering, I applied an enamel juice using dark grey (Humbrol 164) and airbrushed some clear smoke grey (Gunze H95) around the rear exhaust nozzles. The finish is satin. I’ve always liked this original aircraft since I visited an English carrier armed with Sea Harriers and saw it fly like an helicopter. I enjoyed building this kit and I hope you’ll enjoy the result. A big hello to all the “helicopter-jet” crews ! Pierrig Photos and text © 2005 by Pierrig Salaün November 28, 2005 |