1/48 Hasegawa AV-8B Harrier II

by Malcolm Reid  

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It was with great enthusiasm that I bought this kit.  On first glance everything looked really good – hundreds of beautifully molded sprues firmly packed into Hasegawa’s usual high quality boxing.

It was only once construction commenced that the horror became evident.  Nasty fit everywhere.  The engineering of this kit in the forward fuselage / intake area is not good – I suppose Hasegawa was trying to accommodate future releases of GR.7/9 versions?  Problem areas aplenty:

  • Nose to fuselage fit  

  • Intake to fuselage fit

  • Gun and ammo pod to fuselage fit

  • Incredibly nasty seam between upper wing and fuselage on underside of LERXs

  • Unsightly gaps between intake trunking and forward fuselage

  • The nasty seam on the canopy which required an hour’s worth of fine sanding, polishing, more polishing and more polishing and finally a hairline fracture in the embrittled clear plastic just added to the frustration.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

Anyway, after several on and off builds over a period of two years the model was ready for painting and an end to the frustration was in sight.  Painting was quite complex around the intake area and exhaust areas. I used a combination of XtraColour gloss and Model Master matt greys.  Happily, the decals were the usual superb Hasegawa offering and went on very well with MicroSol/Set. Weathering was achieved with pastels and a final coat of XtraColour matt varnish ended the project.  The kit comes with wing tanks, LANTIRN pod and Sidewinders.  I added an LGB from the Hasegawa weapons set for a standard operational weapons setup  

Anyway, I suppose the end result is OK and it goes nicely with the rest of my modern jet collection.

Malcolm

Photos and text © by Malcolm Reid