1/72 Revell Tornado GR.1A

by Gareth

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Here are some pictures of my fifth kit for 2007, the Revell Germany 1/72 Tornado GR.1A. The aircraft is kitted with ALARM missiles, AIM-9L, Boz pod, Skyshadow pod and 2 X Hindenberger fuel tanks.
The number of parts is amazing for such a small scale aircraft and some of the smaller parts were rather fiddly and had a fair amount of flash.
The canopy was quite badly moulded but not unuseable.  Some of the clear parts were filled with flash so much so that they were rather unuseable, eg, the HUD.  I've since added a HUD using acetate and styrene sheet.  I've also since added the wingtip lights, which needed a fair amount of cleaning up of flash.
The exhaust has been sprayed with a combination of Alclad II Jet Exhaust and Polished Aluminium while weathering was done with firstly an oil wash of Burnt Umber followed by weathering the sooty areas with Tamiya Weathering Master set.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

Being my first swing wing aircraft, Revell must be commended on making it less frightening than if I had gone on to do a Hasegawa Tomcat.  Not that there aren't any fit problems but nothing a bit of elbow grease can't sort out.  The nose pitot tube was replaced with a brass tube and sewing needle and the nose down attitude has since been adjusted, as have the misaligned nose wheels and wonky fuselage antenna. I managed to lose a small underfuselage antenna which has been replaced with sheet styrene.  For my next few Tornados, I'll be replacing all the various blade antenna and probes with styrene or brass pieces.

Overall, I'm glad I took the plunge with this kit and seeing as how I've got another 3 more Revell Tornados in the stash, the lessons learnt on this one will be applied to the others.
Thank you for viewing this and please do not hesitate to correct me where I've gone wrong with this build.
Gareth

Photos and text © by Gareth