Italeri 1/48 Hawker Hunter - Part 1

The Awesome Hawker Hunter

The beginning of the jet age saw the development of some very sexy looking fighter aircraft.  These first generation jet fighters were not supersonic and were designed on principles that were not too different to the last generation of piston engined fighters.  The Hawker Hunter is one such aircraft.  If the Spitfire marked the epitome of sexy for piston engined fighters, the Hawker Hunter does it for jets.  Some of these planes are now privately owned and still flying.  Check out the footage of one such aircraft below.

If you want to find out a bit more about the Hawker Hunter's development and history the Wikipedia article found here is a good start.

In this blog I'll be building a 1/48 scale Hunter FGA 9 which was based at Khormaksar, Aden in 1966 during the Aden Emergency.  I'm building this as part of a group build on the Flory Models website so I won't be starting until that kicks off.  Since it's close to Christmas Bob the Tomten, who has been hanging around on my desk, is going to keep a critical eye on proceedings.

My kit of choice will be the Italeri re-box of the Academy Hunter.  To this I will be adding the Aires resin detail set, Eduard masks and decals from Xtradecal.

The Italeri Kit

The Italeri hunter was released in 2012 and is a rebox of the Academy Hunter kits both of which were released in 1997.  While Academy chose to release the Mk 6 and the FGA 9 separately, Italeri has chosen to include parts for both variants in the same box.  The kit comes on 6 sprues of light grey plastic and one sprue of clear parts.  Colour callouts are given in federal standard FS numbers as well as Model Master and Italeri paint colours.

Sprue A has the fuselage halves which are split vertically.  These have nice detail especially on the tail and around some of the vents above the wing.  Of note is the large hole where the wing will go this is a departure from the usual slotted approach many manufacturers use.  It will be interesting to see how strong the wing joint will be and how good a fit.  Also apparent is that the rudder and the gun bay under the nose are both separate.  On the real aircraft the gun bay is a separate removable pack but on the model it allows for the different versions to be addressed.

Sprue B has the wings.  Again the surface detail is lovely.  Both the ailerons and flaps are separate.  When many aircraft are at rest they lose hydraulic pressure so you get drooping flaps and so on.  Having these as separate pieces should allow this to be captured in the model.

Sprue C has the horizontal tails, the intake trunking, ailerons and some of the landing gear detail.  There are a few ejector pins on the inside of the trunking but these should be easy to take care of.  Making the trunking seamless might be a bit harder given it's shape but we'll have to see when it is assembled.  There are also some nasty ejector pin marks on the inner face of the gear doors.  Given there is quite a bit of detail on these it will not be possible to remove these marks without also removing this detail.  Good thing I have the Aries set to replace them with.

Sprue D has the flaps, cockpit, tail cones, rudder, and a few other bits and bobs.  It's here that the first real criticism of the kit is apparent.  The cockpit tub is way too shallow.  Ridiculously so.  And as if that were not enough the ejection seat is way too small as well.  It has been said in another review that the seat is more like 1/72 scale than 1/48.  I didn't check this as I will be replacing it.  The flaps also have some light ejection pin marks on the inside which will be impossible to remove without removing all of the ribbing in the process.

There are two copies of sprue E.  This has weapons, drop tanks and wheels. All of these look very nice.

Lastly there are the clear parts.  These are passable.  They're not crystal clear like we've come to expect from some of the more recent kits that have been released and there's a bit of distortion present on the sides of the main canopy.

Italeri have been putting a lot of effort into their choice of markings and this kit is no exception to that.  It comes with a total of six possible aircraft: three based on the Mk 6 airframe and three based on the Mk 9 airframe.  The decals have been printed by Cartograph, the gold standard for decal printing, and are crisp and glossy.

All in all the kit is good in terms of general appearance and level of detail.  However it is not in the league of a Tamiya kit, but then again it's not the same price either.  As a base for further detailing it is great.

The Aires Detail Set

I mentioned earlier that I'll be using the Aires detail set in this build.  This set corrects some of the problems with the kit and adds a whole extra level of detail.  Aires tend to box their stuff up in a single bag and unfortunately that means there are a couple of broken bits in mine which should be easy to fix.

Remember the  the cockpit tub from the kit?  Well the Aires version is a lot better proportioned.  It actually has some depth to it.

The flaps are nice too.  No ejection pin marks here.

The Markings

The markings I am going to use are on the Xtradecal sheet.  This aircraft was used during the Aden Emergency and was based at Khormaksar, Aden in 1966.  It's in the standard RAF Green, Grey camo with aluminium undersides.

I'm headed off to Germany, the Czech Republic and Portugal over the Xmas and New Year break so, with oversight from Bob the Tomten, I'll start work on this when I get back in the middle of January 2015.

On to Part 2.

Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire Mk XVIe - Part 6

Back to part 5.
The Home Stretch
In this part we bring it all together and finish off the model.  After the gloss coat was dry the decals were applied.  The stencil decals were prone to silvering but responded well enough to decal softener.  The main decals were very thin and snuggled down nicely into the panel lines.

To ensure that the a wash would go over decals I used a sharp blade along the panel lines and applied more decal softener.  Once that was dry I gave the model another gloss coat and left it to dry for a few hours.  The wash used is Flory Models Dark Dirt.  This is brushed liberally all over the model.

It looks pretty awful once the wash goes on but we'll take care of that.

Once the wash was dry it was wiped off with a lightly moistened kitchen towel.  Wash remains in the panel lines giving a slightly dirty look. In the image below the wash has been cleaned off one wing but left on the other.  It adds a natural grimy look to the airframe.

Once the was was removed it was time to bring everything together. 

The model was given a flat coat and once that was dry the canopy was unmasked.  All that remained was a few final bits of assembly, some soot trails from the guns and some exhaust staining from the engine.

I'm calling this one done.  Check out the pictures of the final model here.

Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire XVIe - Final Reveal

Spitfire XVIe Final Reveal

Here are the pictures of my completed 1/32 Spitfire XVIe.  The fit of the Tamiya kit is great but my modification of the engine did not help matters.  Putting in the spark plug wiring pushed a few bits ever so slightly out of alignment making the fit of the cowlings somewhat snug.  The Eduard photo etch added a lot to the cockpit.  The Brass gun barrels from master were a bit problematic getting them to fit.  They're a bit too tight.  I am happy with the result.  it certainly looks like a Spitfire.  I just wish I was small enough to jump in it and fly it around.

Here's a few with the flash on.

Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire Mk XVIe - Part 5

Back to part 4

Getting the Wings On

Attaching wings to the fuselage is something that always worries me.  There's usually a risk of getting a nasty wing joint which requires filler and sanding in an awkward spot.  With this kit however that was not a problem at all.  The fit was wonderful.

After the glue had dried I carefully inspected the join lines and applied a little filler in the odd spot.  The good thing about using the Big Ed set on this kit is that I had masks for inside and outside of the canopy.

The canopy was spayed with the interior green XF-71 colour and the front part was glued in place. So, with joins checked and canopy done, it was time to prime.

The primer was left to dry for a few days.  Afterwards the panel lines were preshaded in black and painting of the camo commenced.  The lower colour is Tamiya XF-??.   After a good covering this was lightened with some white paint, thinned and used to mottle the centre of panels.

A similar approach was used on the two upper camouflage colours.

The entire model was then given a gloss coat and left to dry for a few days.

Next time we get the decals on.

On to part 6.