More what-if weapons.
This time a pair of 30mm ADEN gun pods from the 1/48th scale Airfix Harrier. The Harrier is now long gone but the gun pods were saved and retained in the parts stash.
As you can see in the attached images, the original ADEN pod was a bit janky right out of the box. The squared off front and rear of the pod never looked right to me and that was one of the reasons I had ignored the things for so long. The gun barrels inserted in the gun pods are from an ancient Monogram FW190 that offered many weapons for several variants. The gun barrels were intended for the 30mm Mk103 gun pods that were mounted under the FW190 wings for one version that performed in the bomber interceptor role.
I consider this to be a "rough draft" as I have several more of the ADEN pods to work with. I am sharing the images of this pair to show what could be done with less than ideal parts from some of these ancient kits that all of us have had to deal with in the past.
Also, I was looking for something that would fit on the 1/48th scale Academy Hawker Hunter F.6/FGA.9 to create an upgraded aircraft. The ADEN pods fit without issue to the Hunter fuselage and that was what compelled me to modify the things to improve the appearance. The clunky Airfix pods certainly need some TLC to make them presentable. With the ADEN pods attached to the Hunter I can remove/cover up the gun ports on the fuselage. This in turn provides more internal space for additional black boxes/electronics which all need space for any SLEP.
