1/48 HobbyCraft Sea Harrier

 "SHAR Tales" 

by Pablo Calcaterra

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2007 Anniversary of first engagement of
  Argentine Airforce in Malvinas / Falklands War 

The original version of this article has a war story relating to the Falklands/Malvinas War in 1982.  The history is told from the Argentinean perspective and may contain facts which do not match the British version of these events.  I read the story and found it interesting, but I understand some people might find this sort of story upsetting due to various reasons....so I have removed the story.  

If you would like to read the whole article in it's uncensored form.....Click here

ARC Webmaster

 

INTRODUCTION

The first time I built a Harrier (aka SHAR, aka Jump Jet) was the Matchbox 1/72nd kit, around 1980.   I loved my SHAR and was really impressed by the characteristics of this (at the time) brand new plane.  Later on, close to 1982, I traded this kit with a friend at school, who gave me a (badly built) Me-110 night fighter (minus all the antennas which were lost or broken).  My first Harrier had a very bad ending when my friend in 1982, whose cousin was fighting in the islands as a private, decided to smashed it to the floor and stepped on it…

I have always built Argentinean planes from the conflict, as it is important for me to tell our side of the story and not the history that the entire world knows thru the British (an old saying goes something like: That who wins the war, writes History).

Some months ago I saw a HobbyCraft’s Sea Harrier on sale on my local hobby shop and decided that buy it and write an article about our side of the losses of SHARs during the conflict.

This plane ias ZX450.  This plane had lots of “firsts”: first operational Sea Harrier ever, first presented to the public, the first that took off from the ski jump jet ramp, and a plane that had been used in tests for the Eagle air-sea missile.  

 

BUILDING MY JUMP JET

 

Fuselage:

After I bought the kit, I check the references on the Internet and they could not have been worse…Anyway, I went ahead.

The engine is good and has a device that, in theory, allows all 4 nozzles to be moved at the same time (Matchbox style).    

 

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As the cockpit is quite sparse (only a decal for the instrument panel) I had to go with the kit-supplied pilot.  This, by no means, pretends to be a representation of Taylor.  I followed the instructions from HC and painted the helmet in white…I had to correct it later when the kit was almost finished as I found out that they were actually gray.

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The only picture I have of ZX450 during the war shows the top half of the little doors on the air intakes open. So I decided to cut them open, which was quite a challenge. You can also see that the fit of the 2 halves of each one of the 4 nozzles is poor.

As there are no walls for the nose gear area, I had to scratch build them using an old card.

Now I found the second challenge with this kit: either you make the 4 nozzles of the engine fit into the holes of the fuselage, or you have a good fit of the air intake to the engine.  I went with the first option, which left a huge gap in the intake.  I had to fill it with curved pieces of plasticard and I then used putty to cover the holes.

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Wings and landing gear:

The fit of the wings is not good and acrylic paste and putty helped me to overcome the problem.

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The landing gear is tricky, to say the least. The nose stands too tall, same as the central gear. The ones on the wings are too short unless the wing angle is too steep…so I decided to trim the main gear and a little bit of the nose one.

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Fuselage part II:

A piece that is missing all together in the kit is the tail radome.  I had to scratch build it using scale plans, plasticard and lots of putty.  The radar warning on the tail is not present in the kit, so I had to build it myself too.

 

I added the Aden gun bays.  The fit left lots to be desired and I used acrylic base again to cover the gaps.  I checked for flaws in the unions using paint.  And the areas of difficult access during painting (inside the air intakes as an example) were painted before hand using the final gray.  The nose (radar radome) was painted in black.

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As the little doors on the air intakes lead to the engine area, I painted the cut out parts in black. Then I glued them in place (terrible fit) and used putty, pieces of plastic and sandpaper to fix the area.

Painting:

The entire plane, once it was masked where needed, was given a good coat of gray.  The radar warning radomes were painted in a mix of yellow and brown.  The tip of the small legs was painted in yellow and green.  All landing gear was given a coat of aluminum.  Several hands of Future left the kit ready for the decals. 

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Decals:

Good things and bad ones about the Hobbycraft decals: quite thin, very good adhesion, but very poor register.

And to make things worse, I put the main panel lines (red) and crosses upside down.  When I tried to fix them 5 minutes after I had placed them, they were so well adhered that I was forced to sand them out…Two days later, after I calmed down, I masked the area and created my own panel lines and crosses.  A new coat of Future restored the color.  The crosses are a little bit too big, I was not going to redo it again. Besides, it had been a very painful process to create those masks.

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After doing a thorough search for roundels in my spares box, I decided to paint out the white with blue mixed by myself.  To do so, I masked with Maskol the blue area and left the white one exposed.  I mixed blue and black to get an approximate color.  The blue of the decals is too dark and I finished (I believe) with the opposite effect: the center blue should have been darker than the outer circle.

 

An example of the problems with the decals is the arrows in the canopy.  They should be yellow but the kit has them in white, and the white does not match the black borders! I cut out the white area and painted inside the black border using yellow paint and a brush.

“ZX4” came from the kit and I added the “50” for “ZX450” under the tail using spare decals. Same was the situation with the “50” on the air intakes (actually it was “450" but the “4” was painted out with gray like some stencils during the trip to the South).

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Decals for the ejection seat are from Condor decals (the set I have used is the one that has several Argentinean kill for Sea Harriers – very good quality indeed!)

 

Other details:

The windshield wiper is not present in the HC kit.  I had to scratch build it.  This is what it looks like originally and the final look.

I painted the position lights and had to scratch build the one under the fuselage (missing in the kit, I made it using a piece of a clear red disposable knife).

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To make the several openings in the Aden bays, I masked the area and painted them using a brush and black paint.  I added a gun sight using clear plasticard, the windshield, the external fuel tanks (very tight fit - I had to sand the opening under the wings), the landing gear doors, the air brake with its actuator arm, the nozzles (that finally, after all my efforts, don’t move…), the little “antenna” in front of the windshield (again, scratch built), and the pitot on the nose.

I finally painted in chrome silver the tip of the radar radome and that finished the kit.  It took me 3 months to complete it.

 

This kit is dedicated to the Argentine gunners who made the British flyers respect them, and to the 1000 + who died in the war, the 500 + that committed suicide after it, and their loved ones whom they left behind.

 

Sources: 

  • Falklands Air War (Hobson and Noble)

  • Sea Harrier over the Falklands (Sharky Ward)

  • Historia Oficial de la Fuerza Aerea Argentina (Book 6, Vol. I and II)

  • Guerra Aerea en las Malvinas (Andrada)

  • Halcones sobre Malvinas (Carballo)

Acknowledgments:

  • Ricardo Caballero 

  • Piero de Santis

  • Fabian Vera 

Pablo 

Photos and text © by Pablo Calcaterra