Sea Harriers in 1:72

[steelpillow]

Have ended up with the Hasegawa and Italeri Sea Harriers in my stash. Does anybody know which is the better kit, or is there mileage in a bit of cherry-picking?

[Gondor]

Both can end up looking like the subject aircraft. I believe the Italeri kit, formerly the ESCI kit, to be the better of the two. I prefer the breakdown of that kit to the Hasegawa one.

[Charlie_c67]

Can recommend this site for a lot of builds 

https://designer.home.xs4all.nl/models/seaharrier/seaharrier.htm

[sandiego89]

The Hasegawa FRS mk1 is quite good and crisply molded.

I have found the different Harrier kit manufacturers often had different ways of molding the wing/fuselage joint, and air intakes making kit bashing a bit more challenging. 

The Hasegawa has a separate forward fuselage which allowed them to roll out different first generation Harriers and Sea Harriers 

[steelpillow]

Thanks all. Will probably go by the decal sheet & sell t'other.*

* Don't you DARE seduce me with a convincing Whiff!

[Pellson]

The Royal Air Force of Man. (That island is too small for a proper fighter airfield anyway  )

[Gondor]

The Royal Air Force of Man. (That island is too small for a proper fighter airfield anyway  )

I beg to differ. There is an airport on the island, which was an airfield during the Second World War; there may have been at least one more. There was, in the nineteen-eighties, at least, an RAF base there. I did try to get posted there for a time, and failed miserably.

[PR19_Kit]

Ex-RAF Jurby, in the north of the IoM, still has a runway almost a mile long, except it's a motor race circuit these days and the airport at Ronaldsway has one that's 1.25 miles long.

[Rheged]

Isle of Man had three airfields in WW2      RAF Andreas (three asphalt runways)   RAFJurby ( two concrete runways) and Ronaldsway, which was initially a municipal airfield, but taken over initially by RAF and later Fleet Air Arm ; RNAS Urley  (Manx for Eagle)

[zenrat]

I have a couple of Hasegawa Sea Harriers but haven't built them.  IIRC they do have a fairly good weapons selection (Sea Eagles?).  The Hasegawa FRS1 does have one piece nozzles which you will appreciate if you have ever had to clean up the seams on two part nozzles.

I have whiffed their 1969 mould Harrier GR1/AV8-A.  My notes say "Harrier kit is very dated.  Intakes are separate from fuselage and fit it horrible.  Wing fit is also bad.  IMO this kit is only fit for parts and robbing the SNEBs from."

[steelpillow]

Think Man would have to have the F-35B: three thrusting legs on the flag, three thrust nozzles on the jet. But to be a proper cool cat, it also has to be a tailless variant (eat your heart out Handley Page).

BTW, going with Italeri. Slightly crisper mouldings, better selection of decals. Downside is fewer things under wings, but I don't major on those anyway, I like to see the lines of the machine itself.

[Weaver]

Think Man would have to have the F-35B: three thrusting legs on the flag, three thrust nozzles on the jet. But to be a proper cool cat, it also has to be a tailless variant (eat your heart out Handley Page).

BTW, going with Italeri. Slightly crisper mouldings, better selection of decals. Downside is fewer things under wings, but I don't major on those anyway, I like to see the lines of the machine itself.

How do you get three nozzles on the F-35B? As far as I can see, it's two if you count the engine nozzle and the lift fan, or four if you count the two roll-control posts in the wings...

For a domestic Manx fighter, the ideal would be to take any Grumman fighter product and make it tailless (Mirage III wings on an F-9F Tiger strikes me as the simplest option), so it's a "tailless cat".

[steelpillow]

Think Man would have to have the F-35B: three thrusting legs on the flag, three thrust nozzles on the jet. But to be a proper cool cat, it also has to be a tailless variant (eat your heart out Handley Page).

How do you get three nozzles on the F-35B? As far as I can see, it's two if you count the engine nozzle and the lift fan, or four if you count the two roll-control posts in the wings...

D'oh! My subconscious must have been thinking of the B.Ae Kingston (aka Hawker) P.1216, which got the chop in favour of the EAP/Eurofighter. For Manx tailless, it ought really be the predecessor, the P.1212 "notched delta".
Alternatively, that was just a typo for the F-35M: fan exhausts through retractable side-mounted nozzles, to make room for a centreline hardpoint or something.
Three-legged roundels would look the biz on it, either way.

[Weaver]

Think Man would have to have the F-35B: three thrusting legs on the flag, three thrust nozzles on the jet. But to be a proper cool cat, it also has to be a tailless variant (eat your heart out Handley Page).

How do you get three nozzles on the F-35B? As far as I can see, it's two if you count the engine nozzle and the lift fan, or four if you count the two roll-control posts in the wings...

D'oh! My subconscious must have been thinking of the B.Ae Kingston (aka Hawker) P.1216, which got the chop in favour of the EAP/Eurofighter. For Manx tailless, it ought really be the predecessor, the P.1212 "notched delta".
Alternatively, that was just a typo for the F-35M: fan exhausts through retractable side-mounted nozzles, to make room for a centreline hardpoint or something.
Three-legged roundels would look the biz on it, either way.

Oh I agree about three-legged roundels...

[sandiego89]

The Yak-141 had an attractive three nozzle layout with two lift jets and the massive swiveling main engine efflux.  Would also look sporting as a tailless design