As the venerable Gnat
neared the end of its service life a decision was made that they should, for the
most part, go out in a blaze of glory rather than suffer the ignominy of being
melted down. Ejection seats were removed in order to lessen any danger to
civilians should a drone crash in a recoverable area, and ballast installed. The
wing tanks were also saved for scrap value, as they would not be necessary on a
short one-way flight.
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There were a few teary
eyes in the aircraft which shot them down, as most of the pilots had trained on
some of these. But all agreed that it was a better end than becoming pots and
pans.
This was the old Airfix kit, picked
up at a show for a couple of bucks. The only piece missing was the nose glazing,
and after messing about with this kit I almost wish that all the rest of the
bits had gone missing too. But I persevered perversely, and finally won the
battle. The nose glazing was replaced with a piece of clear sprue which was
filed, sanded, and polished to shape, and the cockpit was blanked off with sheet
styrene, as were the intake ducts. A cheap imitation of a Sidewinder was located
in the spares box, it was painted the standard gloss white with the distinctive
'rollerons' picked out in silver. A hole was drilled in the Gnat for the nose of
the missile, and a hole was drilled in the missile's tail for the 'flame'. This
was a toothpick which was painted yellow for the hot flame at the immediate end,
red for the cooler flame further back, and cotton wool was used to imitate
smoke. I honestly can't recall if the Sidewinder has a smokeless flame or not,
and I don't really care, because first, smoke looks cool, second it's a 'what
if', and third, MFM! The decals were extremely fragile, and applying them was
'touch and go' for a while, but I finally got them mostly in place without them
turning to dust. The ejection seat decals were left off as I may want to use
them on something else some day. Rather than try to replicate buckled metal at
the impact point I decided that this soon after impact there wouldn't be any, so
there. Any JMNs who disagree will be summarily ignored.
Dave Bailey, aka
"The Rat"
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