British Aerospace Seafang FA.1

[CammNut]

By the early 1980s, the Royal Navy was in need of a new strike fighter to replace the Phantom FG.1s and Buccaneer S.2s operating from its CVA-01-class aircraft carriers Queen Elizabeth and Duke of Edinburgh, which had entered service in the mid-1970s. The Feet Air Arm could not afford two aircraft types, so was looking for a single type that could perform both the fleet air defense and strike missions from these carriers and their expected replacements, which were planned for the mid-1990s.

The Panavia Tornado was not suitable for operation from an aircraft carrier without extensive and expensive modification. Instead, the Royal Navy wanted a single-seat strike fighter. At the time, British Aerospace was trying to get the Agile Combat Aircraft program off the ground with its Panavia partners MBB and Aeritalia, and planned to build a prototype under the UK's Experimental Aircraft Programme (EAP).

Unwilling to wait for a European fighter program to get under way, and doubting that a carrier-based variant would get high priority in any collaborative development program, the Royal Navy awarded BAe a contract to develop a navalised version of the EAP. The aircraft was powered by uprated versions of the Tornado's RB199 engines and equipped with a development of Ferranti's Blue Falcon multimode pulse-Doppler radar. Armament included AMRAAM and ASRAAM air-to-air, Sea Eagle anti-ship, ALARM anti-radar and Maverick air-to-surface missiles.

The aircraft entered service in 1991 and a total of just 60 were built to equip the two carriers. Reaching back into their joint naval aviation history, the Royal Navy and British Aerospace christened the new strike fighter the Seafang FA.1. But after the on-again, off-again European collaboration talks finally resulted in the Eurofighter consortium and the Typhoon for the Royal Air Force, the Seafang quickly gained the nickname "Seaphoon".





This is the Silver Cloud 1/72 resin EAP kit from Freightdog models. It is nicely moulded with a good surface finish, nice detail and no air holes. I finished this a few months ago, but for some reason could not get good photographs (the grey defeating autofocus on my iPhone?), but finally tried again. The fuselage is in three main pieces: wing with lower fuselage, upper fuselage and forward fuselage. Care must be taken to line them up correctly. Same with the clear resin canopy, which also comes in three pieces. Both took a lot of dry fitted before I committed myself.



Gear is white metal. I broke one leg straightening a wonky main wheel and boy was it hard fix!! Also, leave the foreplanes off till the end - those air data probes on the tips are begging to be broken off. I fitted them last and still broke one handling the completed kit.



Modifications are limited to adding a dual-wheel nosegear, bigger arrestor hook, RWR fairing on the fin, fuselage and wing pylons, and the weapons and drop tanks (I like my aeroplanes well loaded). The markings come from a Model Alliance Sea Harrier FA.2 deal sheet.

[dwomby]

Really looks the part and a plausible back story.  I like the 'SeaPhoon' bit.

David.   

[PR19_Kit]

Oh yes, that's a real cracker! 

[Captain Canada]

Nice little story and very well done model ! Love the look of that one and the weapons fit is excellent !

[DogfighterZen]

I like that too, nice work!

[comrade harps]

Neat 

Oddly it gives me a bizarre idea for a Hawk 200 (delta) mod. 

[zenrat]

Cool.

[dwomby]

Neat 

Oddly it gives me a bizarre idea for a Hawk 200 (delta) mod. 

THANK YOU!  I knew that nose reminded me of something but I couldn't remember what.

David

[Thorvic]

Nice build from the EAP  , Only thing I would have suggested a 48th scale 899 winged fist for the fin as the SHAR versions look a little lost on larger fins.

[Weaver]

That's nice and logical, well done.

I've got one of the old versions of that kit in the stash but I'm told that it's a horror to build.

[leptiprince]

I like, good idea! One can imagine that the seafang replaces the sea-Jaguar

[PR19_Kit]

Nice build from the EAP  , Only thing I would have suggested a 48th scale 899 winged fist for the fin as the SHAR versions look a little lost on larger fins.

Even a 1/48 version might look lost on THAT fin!  

[Tophe]

wow!

[silverwindblade]

Great work!

[CammNut]

Thanks, folks. I was never a real fan of the EAP, but it buffed up nice. And a relatively painless resin build.