good, though some features are
missing and treatment of the
panel lines is a bit variable.
The instructions are Airfix’s
new-style 3D CAD drawings
and are clear enough once one
deciphers the stages relevant to
the configuration being built.
Colour callouts are, as usual, for
Humbrol enamels only, and I
found it rather annoying that not
only was there no cross-reference
colour listing, there wasn’t
even a listing for the Humbrol
colours! I ended up making my
own crib sheet using a Humbrol
colour chart and converting to
the Mr. Hobby Aqueous range,
my current preference.
There’s no sprue map with
parts numbers, which means
some hunting around, especially if
you’re like me and prefer to discard
empty sections of sprue as soon
as possible. Both of the schemes
supplied on the decal sheet are
illustrated in a full-colour A4 sheet.BUILD
Since this was to be essentially
an out-of-the-box build, I stuck
fairly closely to the instructions’
sequence, starting with the
seats and cockpit. The seats were
painted in shades of black, with
khaki cushions, and TamiyaXF-55 Deck Tan belts, while the
interior cockpit parts were sprayed
Mr. Hobby H317 grey. I left the
seats loose at this stage, with an
eye to replacing them later with
something from the aftermarket.
Dry-fitting showed that the fit of
the cockpit into the fuselage halves
was excellent, but before gluing
it together I cut the nose off both
fuselage halves, as detailed in the
instructions for the nose-folded
option. Before joining the fuselage
halves, there are two inserts for the
stabilator mounts which need to be
added. Decision time starts here, as
there are different parts supplied
to produce a horizontal in-flight
tail, or the drooped launch-ready
option, or the parked option.
The intakes build up from
two halves each – I pre-painted
mine white before assembly. The
interior seams aren’t very visible,
but to be sure I smeared on some
white DeLuxe Products Perfect
Plastic filler, wiping the excess
away with a damp cotton bud;
a light squirt of white from my
airbrush made the seams invisible.
Before fitting the intakes tothe fuselage sides, I thinned the
leading edge of the boundary layer
splitter, and to make sure that there
were no subsequently inaccessible
corners, I painted the local area of
the fuselage with Mr. Hobby H333
Extra Dark Sea Grey. The inner
ends of the intake ducts are closed
off with some tidy compressordiscs and the jet pipe tubes fit
positively into the rear fuselage.
The fit of the exterior parts of
the intakes relies on a high degree
of precision in gluing the ducts to
the fuselage; in my case, one side
fitted well but the second left a gap
to the fuselage side, which needed
packing with thin plastic strip.24 • MAY 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL
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