So
I think it’s very understandable if I want to have TT-0214 model in my
shelf !
Just
until recently, there was no decent single-seat Hawk kit ever produced by
any kit manufacturers. Matchbox has it in 1/72 but IMHO, the shape of the
kit is seriously awful. |
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Thankfully,
Neomega of Russia released a resin conversion for Airfix Hawk 100 which was a
wonderful “dream-come-true” to me at first. However, further on my
inspection, I was not impressed by the quality of the kit. Although the exterior
side was smooth, the panels were not made by engraving the edges, but made from
thin panels embossed to the main body. It was still acceptable if the panels
were accurate, but unfortunately they weren’t, although not totally wrong
either. The interior side was rough and there were bubble-marks all over the
interior. Fortunately, none were in the cockpit area but there were some in the
nose landing gear well area.
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Neomega’s
instruction didn’t help much. Only a small printed paper showed breakdown
parts of the resin kit. But, the quality of the cockpit, front panel and
electronic/avionic box behind the cockpit were top-notch. Neomega gave one vac-formed
canopy which neither very clear nor scratch-free. During the process of cutting
the canopy, suddenly it cracked and my attempts to contact Neomega has no
answer.
I
cut off the front fuselage of the Airfix kit as per Neomega instruction then I
joined the rear Hawk 100 fuselage halves. Airfix fitting was good and minimal
filler was used. I re-scribed all of the panel lines as the kit panel lines were
shallow. I also sanded the whole plastic surface to eliminate the grainy
appearance. Some basic panel lines & rivets were corrected and added, but
into a minimal amount of works. Filling-in the chaff/flare housing above nozzle
was done but still, I didn’t want into super-accurate work on this one.
The
main landing gear housings were too shallow, so I cut and deepened them. Adding
walls into them and added some wiring using solder-wire & small spare-parts
to make them look “busy”. I replaced the plastic parts using Aeroclub white
metal undercarriage which were crisp & more accurate. This enhanced much to
the landing gear areas.
Airfix-supplied
wing had their own-problems. No mini outboard fences supplied, in-accurate small
fences (Hawk 100/200 series has smaller and greater number of small fences on
wing’s upper surfaces than Hawk 50/60 series), thick trailing edges and bad
join of the wingtip fairing-housings to main wing. The wing was thick while the
wingtip parts were thinner so there were quite noticeable “step” on each
wingtips! L
If
modelers want to cut and drop the flaps, other problems will arise but I don’t
want to write them here. I have experienced them on my previous Airfix Hawk
Mk.53.
Joining
the wings to fuselage straightly would make the wings “bent-down” so some
cuttings and sanding required to make the wing’s dihedral angle correct as it
should be.
Well…
now move on the front part…
Painting
the cockpit, front panel, etc using Gunze’s lacquer Medium Sea Grey required
no “protective” layer of Future when washing with oil applied. Satisfy with
the result, I moved to NLG housing which required Airfix kit parts. The fitting
was bad and required some cutting/sanding because the profile of the Airfix part
was different (it was for Hawk 100, which has different nose) and it was quite
hard to “push” it into the resin nose. There was a slot for the
electronic/avionic equipment behind cockpit but my references showed that the
base of the e/a equipment was at the same level as the canopy sills. The resin
had it below. More cutting and sanding….
Frankly
speaking, the layout of the front panel and e/a equipment was different to our
Hawk 209 but correcting them would required a heavy scratch-build. So, it was
out of questions….
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After
forcing to join the front fuselage halves with a lot of superglue pouring into
the kit, finally I got a Hawk 200 nose ready to be joined with the rear
fuselage. Couldn’t wait any longer, I joined them. The result was
“fantastic”… : the nose was pointing up ! L
I
grabbed all of my references and luckily a SAM magazine came with profile
drawings which help much. I cut the nose off again and about 2mm of plastic
sheet inserted at the upper join to make the nose a little bit pointing down.
The modification caused a much better appearance now. At this point, I haven’t
realized a problem that found later.
A
lot of my trusty Squadron putty used this time to fill the gaps. Sanding and
priming was heavily required this time to make the join disappeared. There is no
line there on the real aircraft.
Installing
the intake required filling as well. Mine needed almost 1.5mm thick plastic to
make the profile smooth to the rear fuselage. This made the wing needed another
small surgery but it was easily fixed.
I
added the formation-light panels on both side of the fin, rear fuselage
just in front of the stabilizers and below intakes as some of Indonesian
Hawk 209 has them. TT-0214 is one of them. |
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After
priming, I sprayed MM FS 30219 Dark Tan for the first color, then using
soft-mask method; I sprayed Humbrol 116 Dark Green & Gunze acrylic H-320
Green for substituting Humbrol 117 which was too “light” to my eyes.
Underside color was painted using MM FS 36495.
Gunze’s
lacquer super clear coat was then applied for the decal base. Model Alliance
decal for stencilings and 12th squadron badges, which unfortunately
too big. Insignias were from Scale Nutz’s “Indonesia Forever” sheet but
were translucent so I had to paint the red portions over the decals. Serial was
from Carpena & formation lights decal from CAM
I
applied Gunze’s lacquer clear once more to protect the paints and decals from
oil wash. Lacquer was much stronger than Future so there was no single area
which peeled off during the washing.
I
“armed” my Hawk 209 with a pair of Hasegawa AIM-9P (using -9J) on
wingtips but the nose was a little bit too long. I cut about 1mm at the
nose and glued it back. IMHO, it looks better. Single-rail AGM-65
launchers LAU-117/A were modified from triple-rails Maverick launcher,
again from Hasegawa, and mounted to outer pylons. |
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Did
I mention the problem arouse because I modified the nose/rear fuselage join?
Well, the vac-form canopy became too short and there’s no way I can display it
closed with no gap. No big deal, because why in the world we display a model
with canopy closed while we have well-detailed resin cockpit inside ?
I
added tiny small details to the canopy and glued the canopy to the canopy sill
using CA glue after installing Airfix’s windshield.
The
overall shape could be seen now and definitely the Neomega nose was too
“fat” in side view! There should be a slope straight profile from
windshield to nose which the kit didn’t have. Well, nothing I could do
now and had to live with it. However, it does looks like a Hawk 200 and
accuracy-wise, I could only hope somebody will release a better product.
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I
had CMK’s Hawk undercarriage set in hand which was superior but too late to be
installed, so I used the MLG doors only to replace the Airfix’s. Installing
the metal Aeroclub landing gears were very easy as they were direct replacements
of the plastic parts in better appearance & strength.
After
all are done, I glued other small details like photo-etched HUD taken from
spare, scratchbuild antennas, lights, etc.
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Well,
all were done and I have my Hawk 209 in my collection.
Alex
Jakarta,
Indonesia