Airfix Sea Harrier FRS.1

[Mossie]

Thought I'd join in with what hopefully will be a quickie build of the new Airfix kit.

Trouble is the kit is already starting to fight me on that one!  The parts don't fit as well as I'd hoped for such a new kit.  The cockpit coaming didn't fit, the wing had to be sanded a bit to fit the fuse & prominent injection pin marks had to be removed before the inner wing panels would go in.  By far the worst is the fan duct.  It just doesn't fit at all, there's more than a millimetre gap when you put the parts together.  About two hours of sanding & checking fit later, I finally got it to fit.



I've had one other problem of my own making, the kit models the way the auxiliary intake doors appear when the engine is powered down.  I clipped the parts from the sprue & somehow managed to glue them to the wrong intakes, fortunately realised my mistake quickly but it means a bit more finshing will be needed.  Here's were I am now, fuse together & wings on:

[Weaver]

How about one of the late 1970s export proposals with nav-attack avionics in a SHAR-style nose, as proposed to China? Wouldn't take much: just chamfer off the end of the radome, fit it with an LRMTS window, and scribe some hatches on it to make that point that it's a "tin cone" not a radome any more.

[Mossie]

Oh pooh! ...and I was hoping you would limber up and do the Helicrane... 

Me too!  A small matter of a recent double kitbash has prevented me affording the resin required!  I also can't settle on things at the mo, I want to do a gazillion projects but I skit from one to the next in my head.  I thought I'd do this to hopefully kick my @rse into gear.

Looks good so far, I've got a couple each of both Airfix SHARS in the stash (FRS.1 and FA.2), they look nice enough in the box, interesting that you are having fit issues, I shall have to keep that in mind. I'm leaning towards RAN for one of my FRS.1's, one will probably be RW (booo....hisssss). As for the FA.2's, as yet I haven't given them much thought, maybe one will be Indian...

I might have made things a little bit difficult for myself.  The forward fuse was slightly warped on both sides, so I thought I'd try a little hot water treament to prevent it pinging open later.  A little bit of bending & flexing might have put things out of true a bit, but I don't think to extent caused here.  The intake duct actually fitted the shape of the hole for it perfectly, it just needed to come forward a milimetre or so, so I don't think my meddling would have made much difference?

How about one of the late 1970s export proposals with nav-attack avionics in a SHAR-style nose, as proposed to China? Wouldn't take much: just chamfer off the end of the radome, fit it with an LRMTS window, and scribe some hatches on it to make that point that it's a "tin cone" not a radome any more.

I think Dunc & a few others probably already know (I think I was talking about it as SMW & might even have mentioned it on here before), but I've already got the markings for this.  China's good, but not the one I've got planned.  I might be convinced to try a little conversion work though.

[Captain Canada]

I've recently bought a pair of FA.2s and one FRS.1...and for some reason, the late model SHARs fit together seemlessly, but the old-1 needs bending ! I ended up almost breaking the 'pit section in front of the intake to make them join.....

[Mossie]

Yeah, the fit on the FRS.1 is less than perfect in a number of areas, there's a fair bit of fettling & PSR to be done.  Some of it was just paint getting in the way of snug fits but some is definately just good old poor fit, that intake being pretty bad & the wing to fuselage joint is less than perfect.  Hope the FA.2 & new GR.9 kits are better.

I've done a little bit more work since I posted last, but not much.  I've got a little distracted with one of Airfix's new Spits but I promise I'll get back to this soon.