Before the United Arab Emirates
Air Force was formed, two of the seven emirates, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, each had
their own air forces and markings. Abu Dhabi was the first
with jets obtaining the Hawker Hunter FGA.76 version of the FGA.9 ground attack
aircraft. In 1970, the first seven were delivered and
initially based at the airport of a third emirate, Sharjah.
This is my third UAE submission
to the ARC Forum, following my F-16F and Mirage 2000-9 exactly two years ago.
I am now going to the beginning to model the first Abu Dhabi and Dubai jets,
starting with this one.
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The model represents the first of
these Hunters in its original Abu Dhabi markings. I started with the
Academy 1/48 Hawker Hunter FGA.9 kit and added the Aires resin detail set for
the cockpit and wheel bays. Since I hadn’t seen a photo of a Hunter on
the ground with the flaps down, I left these alone and the speed brake up.
I added a few photo-etched parts from Eduard’s set for the Academy Hunter F.6.
I used Aeroclub’s canopy, which fit perfectly, added a few fins, whip
antennas, and navigation lights from scratch, and painted it using mixtures of
Revell paints available in toy stores here in Dubai. The colors of Dark
Earth, Mid Stone, and Azure Blue were mixed by trial and error to match with
what I imagine a new one would have looked like, lightened for scale effect.
I then finished with ADS markings from their Hawker Hunter Part 2 set.
I found lots of references and
pictures of various Hunters on the Internet, a few even of Abu Dhabi Hunters,
but my primary source of history and details were from the Warpaint Series No. 8
“Hawker Hunter” by Alan W. Hall and the Mark I Guide “Hawker Hunter F
Mk.6/6A” from the Czech Republic.
I greatly benefited from reading
articles and studying the photos of numerous Hunters in the ARC Gallery.
Many who had built this kit had documented various challenges and
solutions to getting it to go together easily. This saved me
a lot of grief and provided a pleasant and straightforward build. It
was a little challenging for me to get everything together. I am still new
to resin sets, but I was fairly pleased with the results until I looked at the
pictures taken with my new Sony digital camera. This gave me
a different perspective and I noticed numerous glitches that could be easily
fixed. I will take pictures during construction of all my
future models just to help find the flaws in this way.
Corbett Legg
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