The Hawker Beechcraft Dragon MRA1, the Nimrod's replacement- Resurrected!

[rickshaw]

An interesting and tiresome build, Kit.  Looks good so far, what is the intended colour scheme?

[PR19_Kit]

It'll be Hemp over Light Aircraft Grey, like the mid-term Nimrods were, but it'll have a bright blue flash running down the fin and along to the nose, commemorating 110 yrs of defending Britain's shores from marauding vessels.

110 because 201 Sqdn started off as No. 1 Sqdn. RNAS back in 1914. 

[PR19_Kit]

Having masked off the lower Light Aircraft Grey of my Martin Master B1 this afternoon I figured that while I'd got all the masking stuff out, tape, scalpel, tweezers etc. I might as well mask up the Dragon as well. It already had its undersurface coat of Light Aircraft Grey anyway.

So I did, and was that ever a crazy idea!

As with the Master, masking off the engine nacelles was a real pain, and as they're similar systems, albeit with the engines at opposite ends of the airframe, I'm coming to the conclusion that it'd be easier to paint such engines while they're off the airframe, and glue them on later in the assembly. They may need a bit of a touch up then, but at least the masking wouldn't be so difficult to sort out.

Not only that, the sensible demarcation line for the Hemp upper camo isn't a straight line along the fuselage, it's got a curved panel demarcation almost all the way to the nose, so getting that symmetrical took a while.

Anyway, it's masked up and Klear sealed now, but I haven't got any Hemp paint with me! Duh! 

Luckily ModelsforSale is only about 5 miles away as I'm at my 'country home', and I have some on order to collect tomorrow.

[PR19_Kit]

The Dragon's got its main paint colours on now, and most of the detail stuff too,

As befits a Nimrod replacement it's Hemp over Light Aircraft Grey, but this one will be in a special commemorative scheme, or it will when I've drawn up the decals anyway.



The radomes and other ECM aerials are done with what Humbrol call 'Radome Cream' or similar, but it looks far too yellow and bright for me, and I may repaint those areas later on.

[Spino]

Do my eyes deceive me or are some of the windows missing?

[PR19_Kit]

They were never there in the first place. And the ones on the other side aren't either.

I plan to Glue'nGlaze them when it's all done, as I did with the Super Sealand.

[Spino]

They were never there in the first place. And the ones on the other side aren't either.

I plan to Glue'nGlaze them when it's all done, as I did with the Super Sealand.

Ah, that makes more sense.  I thought they were the kind that needed to be installed from the inside, before you assemble the fuselage, and that perhaps in all the trials that this model has endured, they had come loose!  Good to hear that's not the case 

[PR19_Kit]

I did Glue'nGlaze most of windows of the Dragon, but the largest one, the port observation window just aft of the door, is too big for the Glue to 'grab' properly, so I'll have to come up with another solution. I'm thinking of bits of cut down trifle bowls, Glue'nGlaze and masking tape...............

On a more positive front, my new, finger type trackball arrived this afternoon and it works a TREAT. I've got most of the anniversary graphics drawn up now and hope to print the decals off later today.   

[PR19_Kit]

Starting on all the fiddly bits of the Dragon now, the landing gear, aerials etc.

Sword provide a small PE fret that's about 2" x 1.5" with some nicely etched parts included on it. What they don't say is that many of the parts are already moulded in
styrene in the kit!



The blue ringed bits are the torque links for the main gear legs, and Sword would have me chop off the plastic torque links that are already on the legs and superglue these PE ones in their place. NO chance! The styrene ones will do me fine thanks.

Worse yet, the model has a number of different aerials scattered all over it, four of them being made from four PE rings, ringed in red above, and four blades, ringed in green bottom left. I'm meant to glue these together at right angles to each other without gluing them onto my workbench or my  fingers no doubt!

As they're about 1.5 mm long and a 1 mm high they know what they can do with THAT idea! 

Sometimes I think this super detailing goes much too far, and as this is a Whiff anyway it'll still be perfectly accurate! 

[Rick Lowe]

Sometimes I think this super detailing goes much too far, and as this is a Whiff anyway it'll still be perfectly accurate! 

Agree with both points - detail for detail's sake is annoying at best, and a disincentive to even buy the kit, let alone build it...

And of course it's accurate - as long as it matches up with what you saw as the finished item, no-one can say you're wrong. 

[PR19_Kit]

I really must stop buying Sword kits. They make such fascinating subjects but the kits could be a lot better.

The landing lights on the Dragon are miles too big to fit the recesses in the wings, and as they're tapered in both planes they're impossible to hold to file them down to size. So I have to 'adjust' the recesses in the wings LE. That in itself is darn nigh impossible too as it's a curved shape that needs top match the light lens.

There are 5-6 clear items on the sprue that aren't mentioned in the instructions and don't even appear on the sprue diagram, but they're there.

The main gear doors have no location on the wing at all, you're just to glue them where they fit, and then they fall off of course, as they're underneath!

The business I mentioned before about the stupidly small aerial bases etc etc.

I could go on, but life's too short.     

[PR19_Kit]

I'm wasting my time on this one, it's JUNK!   

The styrene just WON'T stay glued, and loads of small parts just fall off, one main gear door has just vanished, and it's such a complex shape that I'll not be able to scratch a new one. The IR sensor dome fell off too, and the IFR probe came off for the FOURTH time.

This model has been doomed since the disaster with the pebble dash primer ages ago, and I just can't be bothered any more, so that's it! It's SCRAPPED!

I may redo it with another basic kit later, the idea's too good to lose and the decal scheme looks really good, or it would do if I'd ever got them on the model, but this is as far as it goes.

End of!     

[chrisonord]

Bugger...
That is a crying shame Kit, after all the hard work you have put into it. 

[PR19_Kit]

Like all good dragons, it will arise from the dead, but NOT build by Sword!

[Weaver]

Sorry to hear it Kit.