Red Arrows Typhoon - my first Whif - now finished!

[D-Angle]

I have been working on this for a couple of weeks now, it's based on the Revell 1/48 kit, I'm putting it together as per the kit but without weaponry. I have an Airfix 1/48 Hawk for the Red Arrows decals, but I couldn't adapt all of them, which has meant a long and tortuous paint job. I started with white primer, then masked off the parts I wanted to keep white, and the blue part of the tailplane, before laying down the red. I then removed the masking on the trailing edge of the tailplane, masked off the rest of the fusealge and added the blue, before removing the white masking. All would have been fine, had the paint not kept coming off when I removed the masking, I guess that's what I get for using cheap primer. I have touched it up using a brush, and it looks much better now, if not perfect. I haven't completed a model since I was about 14, usually things go wrong at the paint stage, so getting to this point with things relatively OK is progress at least.

Sorry about the quality of the pics, the only camera I have at the moment is on my phone, hopefully I can sort out some better shots when it's finished:

[lenny100]

looking good

[Cobra]

Very Cool You captured the Spirit of the Red Arrows with that Job!!!!!!!!

[AeroplaneDriver]

Very nice, and welcome aboard!!   

Dont know how true or accurate it is, but I recently read on another board that making the switch to Typhoons is/was actually under consideration.  The snippet I read said that it apparently would be cheaper to run a team of 4-5 Typhoons vs. 9 Hawks. 

[nev]

Although the Typhoon is a very easy aircraft to maintain (its in the contract that its MMHPFH is something like 7.9), I find it hard to believe that a twin engine plane like the Tiffie would be more cost effective than such a simple plane as the Hawk.  Not forgetting the cost of buying 4 new Typhoons versus 4 new Hawks....

Looks like a great Whiff Dangle, if you could get some better pics that would be fab.

[Tophe]

  Are you sure this is a Whif? It looks so perfect, it must be true-life-story, for sure

[Av8fan]

VERY nice.

You beat me to it. 

My builds move along in geologic ages.

I am glad to see it in the flesh.

[B777LR]

I'm not going to be gentle like everyone else. I LOVE it! My precious! Must have! Must do it! Love it!

It looks like an Arrow too!

[Ed S]

Looks good.  I might be tempted to critique your photography.    But your modeling looks good.

Ed

[Sauragnmon]

Got to admit, she looks just damn sexy like that, the red and white really looks nice.

[thedarkmaster]

not so much a what if more a what should be 

[tigercat2]

For your first What if - a superb job!!


Wes W.

[GeorgeC]

Dont know how true or accurate it is, but I recently read on another board that making the switch to Typhoons is/was actually under consideration.  The snippet I read said that it apparently would be cheaper to run a team of 4-5 Typhoons vs. 9 Hawks.  

Ah, costings... An interesting costing would be the generation of the additional flying hours for a 4-Typhoon display team, bearing in mind that the RAF may already have slightly more Eurofighter on order than it needs today, when there over 100 aircraft in service at 2 airbases.  Comparing that with the costs of owning and operating, including all the one-off costs to support the type and, perhaps, significant structural upgrades to a 40-year-old aircraft, a limited fleet of (say 12) Hawk T1 aircraft soley for the Red Arrows when they are the last of their type in service in the RAF might give some interesting answers once the current T1 fleet withdraws from service.  

Great looking model too! 

[D-Angle]

A couple of better quality pics:

[Captain Canada]

Very nice...what a sight that would be, eh ?

The new pics look alot better as well. I was going to mention, when it comes to crappy cameras, the basic rule is light, light, and more light !

Now hurry up and finish her off !