1/72 Airfix Harrier GR1

Gallery Article by Greg Kerry on June 20 2014

 

This is the new GR1 kit from Airfix and generally it is pretty good. The cockpit is nicely done, the huge air intakes are well detailed, main wings and tailplanes are cast as one piece mouldings making the job of setting anhedral quite easy. Instructions are good too, for example, explaining how the air-brake cannot be opened too far if the plane is sitting on the ground.

However, the nature of the real plane means the kit doesn't go together with complete ease. Those intakes involve some trouble getting a good finish next to the auxilliary intake doors (and the roundel decals definitely need setting solution to conform over these). I had trouble too getting the nose to close properly over all that cockpit detail - quite possibly my fault though.

 

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Painting is also a touch difficult just because of the wing\fuselage shapes: masking the demarcation under the jet exhausts is a headache as is getting the top color overlap just under the wing and tailplane leading edges.

My model is finished with the kit decals - more than adequately I reckon. The boarding ladder is scrtachbuilt, the figures are old soft plastic items (I think) from Esci, and the Land Rover is the old Airfix kit from the Bloodhound missile set from many, many years ago which I just tarted up a little with wing mirrors and an etched brass radiator grill.

All in all then, a nice little model but perhaps beginners would find it difficult to produce a really good model from this kit.

Greg Kerry

      

Photos and text © by Greg Kerry