1/48 Monogram AV-8B Harrier II+ (Part 2)

by Craig Sargent

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Painting
Once the whole model had been primed, and checked for flaws, it was rubbed with an old t-shirt to knock of the high spots on the primer. In hindsight, the model should have been rubbed down with something a bit coarser, as the paint is a little rough in spots. The whole aircraft was then preshaded with thinned Gunze flat black.

The lower areas of the kit were painted in Gunze H307 (FS36320), the sides in H317 (FS36231) and the uppers in H305 (FS36118) – the correct colours for the three tone grey Harrier scheme (Hasegawa has it wrong on their instructions). Each area was outlined first though with some black added to the main colour. This created a semblance of the demarcation often seen in photos. Lightened and darkened colours were over sprayed to give some tonal variation, and then areas of touch up replicated using different colours, outlined in black, on some panel lines and panels.

Note that on this scheme, the interior of the LIDS bay and speedbrake bay, and both the LIDS door and speedbrake were painted the colour of the underside.

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The grey on the radome was mixed to match the dark grey on the TwoBobs decals, as the shark mouth was painted in the same colour. This grey was also used to touch up the tail stripe decals and paint the very upper tail stripe, which wraps around the fin leading edge. All decals were applied after a gloss coat. My one gripe with these decals is that the light grey is too light. It should be more of a pale blue grey – there is too much contrast.

Once the decals were applied, the whole model was given another gloss and then a thinned oil paint wash applied, before a matt varnish.

Stores
The drop tanks and LITENING pod come from the Hasegawa kit. The Paveway is from a Hasegawa weapons set, with added detail. I replicated the ablative coating by masking the front and back and then using a stiff brush to stipple Mr Surfacer onto the bomb’s body, repeating until it looked convincing enough. By late in OIF, there was no air-to-air threat, so the AIM-9s were no longer carried. The outboard pylons were left empty.

One of the drop tanks had the glue bottle knocked over on top of it, so had to be sanded and rescribed. The fins on both drop tanks were also sanded to a more airfoil cross section. The Paveway had a scratchbuilt seeker cover added, and after discussion with a more knowledgeable person than I (thanks MickeyFickey), the disposable retaining collar added behind the seeker head.

The laser warning decal on the LITENING came from the Hasegawa LANTIRN decals, and the markings on the Paveway cobbled from the spares box.

Final Construction
The finished stores were added. After the gear bays were painted white, all four sets of landing gear were painted and attached. I glued the nose gear and outrigger gears in place first. That gave me the height needed for the main gear – one shortcoming of the Monogram Harrier is no positive attachment point for the main gear. The previously inserted Aires gear bay helped out here. I shimmed the Monogram gear leg until it was the correct height for the weighted tires to touch the ground.

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The canopy and frame were painted and attached. I ended up using the Hasegawa MDC decal on the canopy as I managed to destroy the very nice TwoBobs one is a masking accident. One point that is often overlooked on the Harrier – when the canopy is open, the pilot’s step is automatically extended. The step port was opened before attaching the intakes, and an extended step from rod and scrap resin built and attached.

The painted nozzles were glued on and then the underside hit with thinned oil paint and then thinned Gunze black, tinted various shades, airbrushed to finish the weathering. Clear and red lights from Cutting Edge were added. The final step was the chaff/flare dispensers. I found a photo on the Navy web site showing a Harrier heading out for a sortie over Iraq, and it had multi-coloured cartridges visible in the dispenser. This layout was replicated in a drawing program and then 6 sets printed on the ALPS (all with different patterns) and applied to the dispensers.

Lastly, a map of downtown Baghdad was printed, folded up and inserted under the windscreen to add something a little different – you can still make out the city name on it too.

In the end, a very satisfying result, but one that took a lot of effort. It will be interesting to compare this to my two Hasegawa kits (another radar-nose AV-8B and a TAV-8B conversion), when I eventually get around to doing them.

References

  • Windrow & Greene Wings 5 - Marine Muscle: Hornet And Harrier (ISBN 1-872004-47-4)
  • ARC Walkarounds
  • Hasegawa kit instructions
  • Various articles by Lance Braman
  • Steve Belanger's MCAS Cherry Point website

Inspiration

  • Cyrus "The Virus" Tan's Monogram AV-8B conversion
  • Piero de Santis' Monogram AV-8B conversion

Craig

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Photos and text © by Craig Sargent