1/72 Italeri IAF Jaguar IS

Gallery Article by Vinayak Dutt Shukla on Jan 26 2015

India Republic Day

 

      

Hi Friends ,,, this is my rendition of an Indian Air Force 14 Sqn Jaguar IS .. This kit was one of the package of half a dozen kit's ..which were gifted to me by my buddy & bro Amitabh Ganguly.  The Jaguars were inducted into the Indian Air Force in July 1979 to replaced the ageing Hunters & Canberra's.  The first two Jag's were inducted into the 14 Sqn & the initial Jag's were basically Ex-RAF Jags.  Later on Jag's were locally built in India itself under license by our State owned Hindustan Aircraft Limited better known as HAL.  The production still continues ..& the Jag has seen sea changes from it's induction to present in IAF Service ... undergoing a series of upgrades ..which still continues & this aircraft is definitely on the road to a longer service in IAF well into the next decade.  The aircraft has taken part in the IPKF operations in Sri Lanka ..providing recon ,,,deployment in Kargil operations against the Pakistani army regular & terrorists who had infiltrated into Indian territory undertaking conventional bombing & recon missions besides other Multinational exercises. In one of which six Jag's flew right across the globe to Alaska to take part in "Cope Thunder 2004" with in-flight refuelling from IAF's IL-78 MKI refuellers.  The Indian Air Force operates 3 versions of the Jag's ..namely Jag IS, Jag IM & Jag IB.  A capable aircraft & a very good track record of reliability.

 

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Now coming to the kit & the modelling aspect.  The kit is absolutely free from any flash as such, but there are hardly any joints which u can leave without putty application.  Almost the entire length of joints had to be finely puttied & sanded ..& it takes a longer time & is very irritating for an OOB build.  The only scratch thing I did was to chop of the nose section ..a 4 mm part of it & rebuilt it with a piece of Sprue.  A tiny piece of plastic card & putty to give it the transparent Jag IS nose (range-finder) look.

The colours used are locally available Camel line of acrylic colours which come in a variety of shades in tube form & are excellent for hand brush as well as Airbrush use.  I mix & matched the same to produce the Grey & Green for the camo & the typical yellow on the wheel bays & all. 

The weathering was limited to subtle touch with tonal variations of the colours itself & a bit of chalk pastels.  The decals are from Model Alliance which are excellent, but the size of the roundels are a bit smaller than what's actually is on the a/c & also the decal maker needs to understand that you need to provide space for the scissors or knives to make their way through the decals while cutting the decals out.  Right now the sheet is do disgustingly crammed that while negotiating your way through cutting ,,it feels as if you are walking on a landmine infested field.  Future was used midway before decal application & then the entire paint & decal job was finally sealed off by a 50/50 mixture of future & Tamiya flat base.  

The armament is Drop tanks from the Italeri kit itself.  The over wing Magic missiles & Rocket Pods are borrowed from the Hasegawa Jag kit & the underbelly bombs are form Hasegawa Harrier kit.  The model was shot on different home made Dio bases under winter,  night & sunset settings using a normal cell camera.  Talking of photography, it was never a very important aspect to me, but for our American Uncle namely Kevin.R.Ingraham ...whom we lovingly & with high regards call "CHACHU"..taught me & drilled in me the fact ..that photography is much a part of modelling as much as the detailing & authenticity of the subject. The photo references came from my own collection, from some of my friends & the wonderful site & an authority on IAF subjects namely.... bharat-rakshak.com .Overall a time taking but very satisfying build.

Last but not the least ... this Jaguar IS model is dedicated to my late friend Flight Lieutenant Amit Singh ..who was a Jag Pilot & went down with his bird ..fair winds to you my friend.  A warm regard to all my fellow modellers ..my seniors at our Facebook modelling page "Indian Scale Modellers" & my people on our Republic Day 26th Jan 2015.

Best Regards

Jai Hind

Vinayak Dutt Shukla   Indian Scale Modellers

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Photos and text © by Vinayak Dutt Shukla