well, but don’t have a “flat”
moulded on them. A short filing job
fixed that. The hubs and tyres for
the nose and main undercarriage
are separate, with two tyre halves
trapping a hub for each wheel.
It did occur to me to paint them
separately, but I’d have to repaint
the tyres after cleaning up the
seam anyway, so didn’t bother.
At this point I also decided on my
model’s underwing stores load. The
trainer could carry all the weapons
the single-seat Harrier could, but a
typical fit for an OCU aircraft seems
to have been the smaller drop tanks
on the inner wing pylons, with
empty outer pylons and no gun pod,
so that’s what I decided on. The
small tanks caused no issue, but
the pylons were quite confusing.
Each pylon is made up of two
halves plus two sway braces.
Leaving the latter aside, I
assembled the halves of each pylon,
and went to add a small tape label to
each so I could identify them later.
Here is where the confusion struck.Due to the Harrier’s anhedral,
and the fact that inner and outer
pylons are different shapes, each
is specific to its station. But the
instruction gremlins have struck
again! Stages 22 and 23, which
deal with assembling the pylons
and adding them to the wings
respectively, shows (starboard to
port) 22A, 22B, 22C and 22D, but in
fact it should be 22A, 22C, 22D, 22B.
After working this out, I labelled
the pylons appropriately. Then a
few minutes with a file, a sanding
stick, and a few photographs
corrected the shape of the inner
pylons, as those supplied are only
appropriate for a Sea Harrier.
Eduard’s exterior set provides
a set of plates to fit the underside
of each pylon, and I added these
after reshaping the inner pylons
and fitting the sway braces (kit
Part D21). The Eduard parts add
some detail that is simply not
present in the kit (see photo)
which is particularly useful if
showing one or more emptypylons on the finished model.
There is more in the exterior
set, but with one exception, I
decided to call it a day for this
set, as in my opinion the rest of
the work involved would not add
significantly to the detail in the
kit. In some cases, like inside the
main undercarriage doors, which
are normally closed on the ground,
it wouldn’t even be seen on the
finished model. I know plenty of
modellers do add detail that will
ultimately be invisible. No criticism
of that approach is intended,
it’s simply not my approach.
That one exception is etched
Part 11, which is fitted to each
side of the fuselage behind the
forward nozzles. It is infact a
direct replacement for one of
the etch parts in the kit, but
strangely this is another of those
parts not mentioned anywhere
in the instructions, just shown
in place sometime later.COMING TOGETHER
The fuselage seams needed some
attention with a sanding stick
and filler was needed in a couple
of places, particularly on a small
gap just aft of the nosewheel
bay, and two holes underneath,
clearly intended for a pylon on the
centreline station. The problem
here is that the kit does not include
a centreline store or pylon. The
trainer certainly could carry a drop
tank on the centreline, but a quick
search online revealed only a small
number of photos with such a store.
If you want to add a centreline
load you could doubtless source
a suitable example and a pylon.
The engine nozzles go on
next: the swivel mechanism is
a good idea, except that it’s not
particularly free-moving. It’s
probably a good idea to set the
mechanism to the nozzle angle you
want to depict, then fit the nozzles.
These go on from the outside, and
are a simple “click” fit. You could
probably get away without glue,
but as I’m not bothered about
working items on my models
I used some just to be sure.
And now it was time to fit the
wing. After a quick check to ensure
I’d added everything I should have
up to this point (too late afterwards)
I slotted the wing into place. The
fit is very good, and the joints are
along panel lines, so very little
cleaning up was necessary.
The tailplanes should be left off
at this stage, painted separately,
and installed later; there are a
couple of decals on each side whichWWW.SAMPUBLICATIONS.COM • OCTOBER 2018 • 19
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