Upcoming : Hasegawa Crusher Joe Fighter 1
It’s about time I say! Back in the 1980s I had the 1/144 Takara release and of course, I wrecked it by painting with Tamiya markers. Since this is from Hasegawa’s Creative Works line, it should be quite nicely detailed. Plus it’s in a nice 1/72 scale to boot.
Can’t wait for the actual finished kit to be shown. More pics at Hobby Search.
WIP : Hasegawa 1/72 VF-25S Messiah Pt. 1 – Construction
Building up a Hasegawa Macross kit is easier than a typical aircraft kit in that they can be built up in subassemblies like a mecha kit. However, some planning is needed to make this work out so I begin by cutting and dryfitting the major parts together. As usual with Hasegawa, the fit is very good though tolerances are tight in some parts.
Since I’m building Ozma’s VF-25S, I went with the single seat cockpit. The ejection seat is nicely detailed although hidden once the Ozma figure is attached.
As with any aircraft kit, the pilot and cockpit needs to be painted and finished first.
With the instrument coamings installed, the cockpit is tight place to be and very little can be seen. The main console itself is a decal.
Hasegawa designs the wings to be movable but I went ahead to cement them in deployed position instead.
The exhausts are very detailed and also movable. I’ll be prepping these separately and only installing in the final stage.
As usual with my Macross kits, I want to build them in-flight whenever possible. The pole is a hollow brass rod secured with a glob of epoxy putty.
The kit came together quickly. Gaps and seamlines are part and parcel of building a kit, but with careful (and multiple) dry-fits, it’s possible to minimize them.
I spray gray color on all all the joint areas to check for gaps and seamlines. The gray color makes any issues easier to see. Luckily for me, there were only a few areas that require fixing.
The canopy was masked and given a coat of Mr. Masking Sol R. The liquid mask will fill any gap I miss with the masking tape and more importantly, it will also hold everything in place. I didn’t use the liquid mask in my previous build and the masking tape lifted and caused some overspray. Lesson learned, I’m not going to skip this step anymore.
Once dry, I’ll attach the canopy to the kit with Gator Glue and then it’s time to proceed to painting.
Build Log
Pt. 1 – Construction | Pt. 2 – Painting | Pt. 3 – Finishing
Completed : Airfix 1/72 BAE Systems Hawk 109 ‘TNI-AU’
Kit Info
Brand: Airfix A03073
Scale: 1/72
Media: Styrene
Markings: Scale Nutz A72019
1/72 TNI-AU Hawk 109/209 ‘Unity Guardian’
The Subject
The British Aerospace Systems Hawk is a British single-engine, twin seat advanced trainer aircraft. It is used in a trainer capacity and as a low-cost combat aircraft. First flown in 1974, over 900 Hawks have been sold to 18 operators around the world. The Hawk was designed to be maneuverable and can reach Mach 0.88 in level flight and the airframe is stressed for +9g. When configured for combat, the Hawk can be armed with a centerline gun pod and armaments on 4 (up to 6) hard points.
The Hawk 100 is an upgrade of the original Hawk T1 with a re-designed nose, re-designed wings with 2 additional hard points, additional avionics, optional forward looking infrared (FLIR) and HOTAS. The TNI-AU export is designated Hawk 109.
The TNI-AU first placed orders for the Hawk starting in 1978 and would operate 3 variants: Hawk Mk 53, 109 and 209. 8 Hawk 109s were delivered and assigned to Skadron Udara 1 “Elang Khatulistiwa” (1st Air Squadron “Equatorial Eagles”) and Skadron Udara 12 “Panther Hitam” (12th Air Squadron “Black Panthers”). It is flown as a primary jet trainer and 7 are still believed to be deployed by TNI-AU in 2018.
My build depicts TT-1203 circa 1997, a Hawk 109 from Skadron Udara 12 flying out of Pekanbaru AFB, Sumatra.
Info from WIkipedia
The Kit
This kit was released in 2009 along with the T.1 variant. The kit is molded in light gray styrene and presented on five parts trees plus a single tree of clear parts. The cockpit is basic with instrument panel and side console details presented as decals. Other options include:
- 2 x seated pilots
- gear up or down
- open or closed ventral speed brake
- centerline gun pod
- 4 x AIM-9L/M missiles
- wingtips can be rounded or with missile rails
- optional refueling probe
- 2 types of external fuel tanks
Parts break down is straightforward and the molding is crisper than Italeri but less so than Tamigawa. The panel lines are on the heavy side but are done well. There were no flash on the parts but there are some visible ejection pin marks.
Decals look well printed with sharp details although the carrier film is somewhat thick. It’s a huge sheet with complete stencils and 3 markings for 2 BAE Systems demonstrators and 1 Indian Air Force operational trainer.
The Build
In the late 2000s, Airfix started releasing modern kits with the latest molding technology and this kit is part of that wave. The plastic is softer than what I’m used to but was easy to trim, handle and sanded very easily. Sprue gates are on the heavy side but it’s nothing that some sanding can’t handle. I find that the instructions are not as user-friendly as what you get from Tamigawa. For instance, there are color call outs via a paint number but I couldn’t find a legend for the numbers anywhere.
I was building a TNI-AU Hawk 109 trainer, and based on reference photos I did the following:
- left off the pilots and added seatbelts on the seats with tape
- installed the wingtip missile rails
- left off the AIM-9Ls from the kit as TNI-AU uses AIM-9Js
- gunpod wasn’t installed
- left off the glass plate separating the front and rear cockpit
- replaced the rear cockpit HUD with a control box made from styrene rod
- inflight refueling probe wasn’t installed
The fit on the wingroots aren’t great with obvious gaps but otherwise, it’s a straightforward and quick build. I decided to prioritize the fit on the top side and leaving the major gaps on the bottom but there’s no real way to prevent the gaps on the wingroots.
An odd omission is the frame in the middle of the canopy. Airfix designed the glass plate separator inside the cockpit to replicate this frame but based on photos it should be outside the canopy, not inside. I decided to simply mask and spray this frame. Making it even stranger is this frame actually appears on the boxart and instructions. Also missing are the lights on the side of the intakes. Another odd thing is the pre-drilled holes for the centerline gunpod but not for the pylons on the wings.
Other that these small issues, it was a trouble-free build.
Colors & Markings
The TNI-AU Hawk 109 was painted in a 3 tone SEA camouflage up top and a light gray on the bottom for much of its operational life. The demarcations are solid so it was a matter of a lot of careful usage of vinyl masking tape and spraying each color.
I’ve had the Scale Nutz (since defunct?) TNI-AU Hawk sheet for a long time now. The decal sheet is marked ‘Made in Singapore’ and the decals are printed well with decently thin carrier film. All 109 and 209 Hawks from either squadrons can be modeled. While there are enough specific markings for 1 Hawk 109 or 1 Hawk 209 from either squadron, you’ll need to source the common stencils elsewhere to do so. The decals reacted well with Mark Softer and are quite easy to use.
Finishing
In real life, TNI-AU maintains their Hawk 109s very well so I went with a simple panel wash for a clean finish. The final assembly of all the small antennas did provide some challenges as their pins were all oversized and had to be trimmed carefully to fit. I also managed to lose the round clear part that sits on top of the fuselage but I managed to replace this with part of the clear tree.
I can now call this done. The paint job isn’t as smooth as I want it but for a get-back-on-the-saddle project, it’ll have to do.
Build Log
> Part 1 : Construction
> Part 2 : Painting
> Part 3 : Finishing
Number 6 of 2018
WIP : Airfix 1/72 Hawk 109 Pt. 3 – Finishing
Time to finish this thing. The markings come from Scale Nutz, a defunct decal company based in Singapore. The sheet comes with full stencils for 1 aircraft but enough unit numbers to build any of the Hawk 109 and 209s in TNI-AU service in either squadron. I went with TT-1203 from Skadron 12 for this one. The decals were easy to use and reacted very well to Mark Softer.
Once cured and another gloss coat over the markings, I gave the kit a panel wash using Mig AMMO Deep Brown Panel Line Wash. The TNI-AU maintains their Hawks quite well so I didn’t do other weathering besides this panel wash. Once that has dried I gave the kit an overall flat coat.
Once the flat has cured, it was time to do final assembly. First up are the landing gear, gear doors, external fuel tanks and antennas. The pins on the antennas were all oversized so some trimming were required. The main gear struts were just about 2mm too short so the fit isn’t perfect there.
I was missing the blade antenna on top so I shaped one using 0.5mm plastic card. The clear part that goes into the recess on the spine was also oversized and I pinged it into my room when trying to trim it down. In the end I cut out a small circle from the clear part tree and used that instead.
Last off was the canopy masking and turns out there was some overspray inside the canopy. I popped this off, cleaned the inside, then re-attached.
This one’s definitely not my best finish with all the minor problems popping up. But at least it’s done.
Build Log
Pt. 1 – Construction | Pt. 2 – Painting | Pt. 3 – Finishing
WIP : Airfix 1/72 Hawk 109 Pt. 2 – Painting
I used a gray color on the parts to check for gaps and thankfully, they weren’t too bad.
Painting begins with Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black.
First on was freehanded AK Interactive Dark Tan.
Based on photos, the camouflage demarcations are solid so I used Tamiya Tape for Curves for these. To prevent overspray, I backfilled the parts I want to remain the previous color.
The second color is AK Interactive Medium Green.
After more masking, I sprayed AK Interactive Dark Green.
The bottom was then masked off and colored AK Interactive Camouflage Grey.
Some slight overspray which will need to be addressed but that went quite well.
Build Log
Pt. 1 – Construction | Pt. 2 – Painting | Pt. 3 – Finishing