I am working on a Sea Harrier FRS1 in honour of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands campaign. I started this as a group build with friends, but they have dropped to the wayside since the challenge started in January. I am almost finished...

This is a lot of firsts: I am returning to aircraft modelling after about 30 years, and I am using an airbrush for the first time.

The Sea Harrier is the new 1/72 scale Airfix kit. I always love all the parts in the box, untouched. It has such wonderful potential - before I break all the bits out and make a dog's breakfast of it!

Sprues:

Step01: Cockpit. The online rumour was the cockpit tub was too broad to allow the two fuselage halves to close properly. I dry fitted mine and it seemed OK. I painted the Martin-Baker Mk9 ejector seat cushion green and the frame gun-metal. The gun-metal paint is a bit grainy - but it is nearly 30 years old, so I guess you can't be too surprised!

The next step will be to paint the interior of the fuselage and cockpit tub light grey and assemble the seat.

A number of sub-assemblies are completed here. The (incorrectly shaped) drop tanks, the (fiddly to assemble) AIM-9L Sidewinder missile and the engine intake area.
The engine fans have been painted gun metal, then dry-brushed flat aluminium to bring out the highlights.
The Humbrol 123 Extra Dark Sea Grey paint on the inside of the intakes is pretty dark, causing me some concern. "Scale effect" makes scale models appear darker that their real counterparts, anyway, and I am concerned this will just end up looking all too dark.
The Sidewinder missiles have two fixed tail fins, with the other two moulded separately and needing to slide through. Of course the hole was too small, so I spent a long time rubbing with sandpaper to enlarge the hole to get a good fit. luckily they supply four Sidewinders in the kit, as I buggered one.

The cockpit tub is all built and the decals for the instruments are on - if a bit crooked! It looks OK through my eyes, but magnification through photography shows up all the flaws!

I have assembled the fuselage - a step I wasn't looking forward too. I was concerned at the fiddly construction of separate intake section, wheel wells and air brake interiors.

As it turned out, they were almost impossible to fit, as you have to glue them all in at the same time you glue the fuselage halves together. This is an almost impossible juggling act, and I had fuselage gaps despite my best effort, and had to remove the rear wheel well and airbrake interiors. The fit of these parts in incredibly tight, and I had to do some savage sanding to get them to fit, and some contortions to get them in place. Hopefully they are securely glued...

There is unfortunately some sanding to do from excess cement as well.

That could have gone better...

I have finished the major assembly of the fuselage section and painted it. I lost my bottle and started hand-painting it, but the overall effect was very blotchy - so I summoned up my courage and fired up the air compressor and spraygun. A much better result!

The airbrush gave a beautiful finish. Unfortunately I tried some weathering to bring out the panel lines and almost ruined it! Just the canopy and decals to do from here.

Very nice progress pics! Many thannks for sharing

I especially like your weapons choice with the Sea Eagle! I have just read the Wikipedia article about it... I didn´t know that the Sea Eagle uses a jet and not a rockt propulsion.

Regards,

Sebastian

Yep. It's an air-breather. Not really standard issue for the Falklands theme, but I just had to use at least one of them.

Time for decals.


And a shot of the game that inspired my build.