Got started on the Seabhac tonight. (Irish translation of Hawk, pronounced "showuk" with the 'ow' pronounced as if you hurt yourself.)
It doesn't seem a bad little kit, but definitely a step down after a few Tamiyas in a row. Tonight has just been getting the cockpit done and ready to join the fuselage halves.
I feel like there may be a tiny bit of warpage in the forward fuselage. Nothing a bit of Tamiya Extra Thin wont fix thought.
Cockpit is fairly nice, if basic. Panels are suppled as decals. They are VERY thin and almost melt with just a dab of Microsol. They aren't positioned exactly right but from normal viewing distance it looks ok. A few switches are picked out in white, red, and yellow with a toothpick. There is a little length of bent piping that goes on the left side of he black equipment box on the rear deck, but it went flying from my tweezers grasp and I don't know where the hell it landed. It can be added at the end so I'm not going to stress over it. If it turns up great, if not I can easily replace it with a little bit of wire. There is no throttle in the kit so I fashioned one from some scraps of stretched sprue. Not very accurate, but its accuracy is proportionate to its visibility. The seat will go in at the end. I'd planned on a resin seat since I have a nice MK.10, but honestly with a little doctoring up the kit seat will be fine I think.
It's early yet, but leaning towards a loadout as mentioned in the backstory with the ADEN pod on centerline, inboard fuel tanks, outboard AMRAAMS, and wingtip Lima Sidewinders.
That may change to a ground attack load though with CRV-7 pods or Mavericks.
Or maybe one of those Sea Eagles in the Kinetic Sea Harrier box would look nice...hmmm....