1/32 Trumpeter AV-8B Harrier Night Attack

Gallery Article by Terry Chan on Sept 20 2011

 

The Night Attack variant of the AV-8B is Trumpeter's second release of their Harrier line. It is also my favourite variant so I bought one for myself as a birthday gift. It's already a very nice kit out of the box, but to make my build snazzier, I also added these accessories:

- Aires resin cockpit
- Aires resin wheel bays
- Zactomodels resin AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles

The Aires sets have the high level of details that they are known for. Unlike some of their other products, these sets also fit well into the kit's parts. A bit of resin and plastic trimming was needed to get everything to fit, but overall they were pretty easy to install considering they are resin add-ons. I highly recommend these sets.

Overall, the kit was a straight forward build without too many problems. An engineering mistake Trumpeter made was on the leading edge extensions - when viewed from the bottom, they were complete voids. I had to use plastic card to fill the big hole, then sand it smooth. Two other troublesome areas were the joint between the refueling problem and the fuselage, and all the gaps for the four jet nozzles. Putty, Mr. Surfacer and patience were needed to get those parts looking good.

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For the paint job, I used Gunze acrylics, and Alclad for the jet exhaust pipes. To simulate the varied grey patches on the camouflage, I sprayed random patterns of white and light grey over the base paint job, then blended them in with the diluted base paint.

The exhaust stains were done with spraying a mix of Tamiya smoke and brown. Then flat black was misted over it.

There were no aftermarket decals for this kit at the time, so I used the kit's decals. The tomcat tail art's printing were too pixelated, and the instructions for the stencils were incomplete. Other than these problems, the decals went on without a hitch.

The loadout was a very common 2x drop tanks, 2x AGM-65, and 2x Sidewinders. The Zactomodels Sidewinders were absolutely stunning. I highly recommend them, specially for jets that have them on the outer pylons such the Harrier and the F-16.

The finished model looks pretty good. I know there have been some gumblings about it's outline accuracy by the purists, but to my eyes I think Trumpeter did a good job. I entered this model to the 2011 HeritageCon in Hamilton, Ontario, and it was fortunate enough to place 2nd in the 1/32 jet category.

Terry Chan

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Photos and text © by Terry Chan