My twentieth build since life changed back in March. My pace has dropped off with things opening back up and the home buying process taking up some time lately. SWMBO is having a little surgery on Wednesday (nothing too serious, something she was putting off) so the move process will be slow and I'll have some time at home over the next 10 days looking after her, so I may manage number 21 before moving.
Anyhoo...it's Kinetic's 1/48 Sea Harrier FRS.1. It looks lovely in the box, but honestly it was a bit of a pig to build. Lots of PSR involved, especially around the intakes. In some ways Monogram's ancient GR.1 is a better engineered kit. I have heard the made some improvements for the T2/4, and I hope that is true otherwise mine will be staying in the stash for a good while longer.
One good part of the kit is the inclusion of a massive decal sheet that allows the building of ANY Sea Harrier in any of the various schemes they wore, as well as Indian ones. I went with one with a pretty good combat pedigree...XZ457, as "Black 14", the highest scoring SHAR in the Falklands.
Lt Clive Morrell took down an A-4 with guns in this aircraft on May 21, 82 (it had been damaged by small arms from a ship, and IIRC he had a Sidewinder that failed to launch so he closed in and raked it with 30mm. It continued on, badly damaged, and unable to land it the pilot ejected when he returned to base).
Cdr Andy Auld claimed two more kills on May 25, both Mirages, both with Sidewinders. This model depicts Black 14 after those missions, with three kill markings below the windshield.
It went on to be converted to an F/A.2 but was damaged beyond repair in 1995 when a compressor blade failed at 80 feet during takeoff resulting in a very hard landing, fire, ejection, and runway overrun. Sad end for her.
I'm pretty happy with the end result, but she is definitely a "5 footer" and a look at the underside will reveal some of the issues I just didn't have the patience to fix after struggling with the more visible areas.
