1/48 Premiere TNI AU Hawk Mk53 

by Alex Sidharta

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  Indonesia Independence Day 2006 

 

Premiere was the only brand producing BAe Hawk kit in 1/48 before Airfix released the same subject a few years ago. There are two versions, the overall grey and the Red Arrows. Mine was the grey one.

I didn’t recall when exactly I got this kit but I remember I paid only $3.00 for it. What a deal! It was then stayed for a long, long time on my shelf when suddenly I grabbed and built it last May. It was intended for a present to my friends of Indonesian AF’s Skadron Udara 15 (Air Squadron 15) when I was invited to visit them.

 

I built this model for exactly 5 days. There's no major modification because the model has captured the Indonesian Hawk version closely. I corrected the rear fin-fillet above the exhaust and modified the ADEN gun pod to resemble a smoke pod.

 

In general, the Premiere Hawk's fitting is quite bad. A lot of putty was used especially on fuselage joints. Fuselage itself consists of six parts (!). Quite a lot for a small size model.  

I added 2 pilot figures taken from Hasegawa F-16B kit and forced them to “sit” in the cockpit tub. Tried the Airfix ones but they were definitely too big. The figures are eye-catcher because I painted them in orange-colored suit.

 

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Although the shape of the intakes is off, the overall look of the model is quite good. I think it would be hard to tell which is which when comparing to the Airfix Hawk model. The model was painted in 2 tone greys of Light Ghost Grey (Tamiya Spray) and Light Grey (Tamiya).

 

The quality of Model Alliance decal I used is very good. I didn’t weather the model as I want it clean. A coat of semi-gloss clear finished the process.

 

All of the members of Skadron Udara 15 (SkU 15) were happy to receive my model. They were all gathered in the dispatch-room to see the model I built for them. The commander was unfortunately on offshore duty that day. As soon as he saw the present, he sent me a thank-you message and invitation to visit their base again.

 

The military lives in the world that civilians like me would be hard to enter. But I want them to know that modelers support them in a way modelers do.

Alex

 

Photos and text © by Alex Sidharta