1/48 Academy Hawker Hunter FGA.76

Gallery Article by Corbett Legg on Dec 2 2009

United Arab Emirates National Day

 

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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Photos and text © by Corbett Legg