Time for a Desert Storm build and what better subject than a sand colored RAF SEPECAT Jaguar? This build will combine the generally well regarded Hasegawa kit with weapons and decals from the Italeri offering. On a sidenote, I should refer to this as an Operation Granby build instead since that’s the name of the British effort during the 1st Gulf War.
The kit is designed for the different variants by mixing and matching fuselage and nose parts.
This method of designing a kit can lead to fiddly fit but a quick dryfit shows that the general fit looks sound.
The cockpit is very simple with a very basic ejection seat.
I added belts using masking tape and an in-between the legs ejection ring with copper wire. Note a strange hole on the back of the headrest that I filled with styrene rod (in white). It doesn’t look any special painted up but the cockpit is small enough that just lookiing slightly busier will help.
The cockpit instrument details are all decals.
No noseweight was called for but I added some just in case.
Clamps were used to hold the parts together as they cure. The Jaguar is a deceptively long aircraft.
The nose gear door is made up of two parts but the Hasegawa instructions are vague in how the smaller piece should be placed.
I went with fitting it into the gearbay but reminded myself to research it further.
Each intake is made up of two parts. There are injection pin marks (marked in orange) that require cleaning up.
A very distinct feature of the Jaguar is the ability to carry missiles over its wing. Hasegawa provides the missiles rails for them but requires some surgery to have them in place. They also only butt join into place so some careful dry fitting was needed before commiting the cement.
A big miss by Hasegawa is the weapons included in the kit are all non-RAF ones so I had to get them from the Italeri release instead. I also added a pair of CBU-87 cluster bombs from Eduard to round up the loadout, which was typical during Granby. Italeri even includes the ALE-40 chaff dispensers that were retrofitted to the bottom of the Jaguar for this operation.
The instrument coaming is plain with a very simplified slope to replicate the HUD.
I trimmed it off and replaced it with a plate (for the HUD projector) and triangular cutouts for the holders.
The HUD itself is a piece of clear acetate with Aurora sticker which looks prismatic in some angles.
All in all the intakes fit alright on the sides although the joins look to require some work.
I then attached the ejection seat and the canopy, which thankfully fit well.
After some careful placement and alignment I committed the cement to the overwing pylons.
The biggest problem in this kit was the intake to fuselage join. I spent the most time getting this area to look right. Once I was satisfied I rescribed the panel lines.
The area behind the nose gear also required some re-scribing work.
The exhaust area and tailhook on the tail were painted at this point and masked off. As usual, I went with Vallejo Metal Pale Burnt Metal.
I noted that there shouldn’t be a join line where the nose probe attaches to the nose so I attached it at this point and got rid of the seamline. The British Jaguar has a Laser Ranger and Marked Target Seeker (LRMTS) installed that gives the nose a distinct ‘chiseled’ look. A pair of clear windows are on the nose to allow for the laser and other sensors to operate effectively but Hasegawa only replicates these windows as diamond shaped panel lines. I decided to paint them in Model Air Metallic Gungrey and these were then masked off.
As they are all the same color, I attached all the pylons and ALE-40 dispensers at this point.
The panel lines were very fine. I decided to make them deeper so I ran a scriber lightly on all the panel lines. With this done I can now start painting.
Build Log
Pt.1 – Construction | Pt.2 – Painting & Finishing
