A few times in my modeling career, I have chosen to build closely related topics simultaneously.  In this case, I built a Hasegawa Tornado F.3 and GR.4 together.  I always think it will save time, but it just takes me twice as long to produce a finished model.

The F.3 is the venerable Hasegawa kit.  I used Eduard PE throughout.  Aires provided fantastic wheel well bays.  I also used Pavla's vacuform canopy replacement.  For the canopy detonating cord, I used fine copper wire. 

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I wanted to deepen the intakes and show the engine compressor faces.  I built up the intakes with 0.010" styrene, blending from the box shape to circular with Milliput.  The compressors came from my spares (Academy F-15s).  It took significant sanding and fitting to squeeze in the gear bays, intakes, and wings.

Another focus area was the weapons and stores.  I reworked the under-wing launchers for the dual version now used.  I scavenged the BOZ launcher dispenser from a Hasegawa weapons set intended for the F-14.  The BOZ towed decoy and jammers came from old Heller and Airfix NATO weapons sets.  I modified the BOZ to represent the decoy version based on internet reference photos.  AMRAAMs came from Hasegawa's weapons set, while ASRAAMs are from Heritage Aviation.  I painted the kit with Tamiya acrylics and decaled with Model Alliance markings.

Tom Berres

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