Chinese Nationalist Mustang: Part II

In my last posting about this Mustang I had gotten it ready for painting.

The Chinese Nationalist Air Force kept their Mustangs in its original natural metal finish and if it wasn’t for their national markings the Mustangs would look pretty identical to USAF aircraft.

Until this project I’d never applied a metal finish to an aircraft and I was apprehensive about doing so because I’ve read, in many places, that metal finishes show up every little flaw and scratch. I was also unsure how a metal finish would apply by hand but it turns out that it is actually rather easy.

I don’t have a lot of in progress pictures to be honest but here is the Mustang painted with a gloss coat applied. I’ll start with some of the building details first though. Between the grey shell of a Mustang from the last update to this Mustang I’ll added all three, the propeller and the exhausts.

The exhausts are probably the worst feature of this kit, they’ve got really awkward seam lines that are almost impossible to remove. I did try but I pulled off a pipe in the process and just left them as is. The exhausts are painted in Vallejo Gunmetal Grey and washed with Citadel Badab Black to darken them up. The six .50 calibre machine guns are painted the same way.  

 
The propellers and nosecone were all painted separately, you’ll notice from the last update that a section of the nosecone was already fitted to the fuselage. I painted both that section and the cone section with Revell Aluminium and painted over it with Vallejo Flat Red. The reason I did this is because I’ve assumed this is how it was done on the real aircraft and it gives a slight metallic look to the red.

The propeller blades were painted with Revell Tar Black and then the propeller assembly was closed up. The fit of the cone wasn’t perfect to be honest and I painted in some thinned PVA glue to try close up the gaps. With that done I took out a pot of Revell Yellow and free-handed the yellow tips on very carefully. They turned out quite well to be honest.

 
The canopy came together perfectly. I started with the windshield painting it first in Revell Aluminium and then painting on Vallejo Black Grey which is the same colour as the nose stripe. The nose stripe took a bit of work to get right as I wanted to get lines straight. I followed a panel line to do and although I had to touch it up several times it came together pretty well.

The rear canopy received several coats of Aluminium and was fitted onto the fuselage once the gloss coat went down. Originally I wanted to pose the canopy open but it was too wide the further I took it back so I left it closed.

The wheels caused me no problems whatsoever although I wonder if the tail wheel is sitting to low as the tail is a incredibly close to the ground. I painted the strut with a mixture of Aluminium and Gunmetal Grey to give a bit of colour variation although it isn’t much of a variation looking at it now. The centre of the wheels was painted with the same mixture. The tyres were given a couple of coats of Revell Anthracite which is a nice shade of off-black good for tyres and such.

The entire Mustang was painted with Revell Aluminium over Halfords Grey. The trick to painting a metal coat by hand is to do at least two coats. The first coat should be painted in the direction of nose to tail and will look streaky at first. The second coat should be painted in the opposite direction, tail to nose, this should eliminate the streaks but if it doesn’t you can always apply more coats repeating the directions.

Using a wide flat brush is also advisable as it’ll help spread the paint better and avoid lines forming in the wet paint. I found that Revell Aluminium is pretty thin from the pot but always best to test out your paint first, especially when hand painting.

With the painting finished and the gloss coat applied I moved onto the decaling and then the weathering. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures between the clean decaled Mustang and the weathered finish so I’ll just continue on with the pictures and talk about both.

The decals are from a Taiwanese company called PMA and they’re very nice but a little thick. The roundels were especially thick and unfortunately out of register, each one had a slight white rim at the bottom. The decals are available from here from Luckymodel by the way.

Here are some of those decals at work. Now I made a big mistake with ‘069’ because when I was applying another decal my finger landed right on this one, pulled it off and crumpled it. I spent ten panicked minutes fixing it and fitting it back in place and a lot longer trying to get it to smooth out and not look so damaged. It came out alright in the end but I was kicking myself for the mistake.

I’ve no idea what the two decals under the cockpit say but I really like them. They went on without any problems and bring the aircraft to life. I just had to make sure I was placing them the right side up as it isn’t easy to tell and I didn’t want someone coming up to me someday and telling me they were all messed up.

This Mustang also marks the first time I’ve used aftermarket weathering sets. After all of the decals had been applied and glossed I broke out a bottle of Flory Models (previously known as Promodellers) wash, in this case ‘Dark Dirt’ and gave the entire aircraft a wash in it. I let it set for twenty minutes and then I took out a tissue, licked it, and in a circular motion I began gently rubbing some of the wash away so that it would be pulled into the panel lines. Finally I rubbed the tissue in the direction of airflow to get some streaks going. I reckon the intense nature of the Chinese Civil War and rapid loss of territory for the Nationalists would have lead to a dirty aircraft.

The dirty exhausts were achieved with two Tamiya Weathering Kits; B which includes Snow, Soot and Rust and D which includes Burnt Red, Burnt Blue and Oil Stain. In order to achieve a good stain with colour variation around the exhaust I first applied a mixture of Rust and Burnt Red, followed by Oil Stain and then Soot. I’m really happy with how it turned out and the Tamiya Weathering Kits are really easy to work with as is the Flory Models Wash, I’d recommend both to anyone wishing to improve their weathering.

The streaks of gun smoke were achieved with Soot and applied both above and below the wing. For the ‘069’ and for all of the roundels I had to apply multiple coats of Vallejo’s decal softener in order to get them to bed down into the panel lines. It worked with the ‘069’ but the roundels were very resistant. Whilst all this was going on I was working on the external fuel tanks separately. PMA provide decals for both the 75 gallon and the 100 gallon fuel tanks that Mustangs can carry which is a nice touch.

The decal set also provides several different number codes for the nose with matching codes for the tail. The painting guide that comes with the decal set shows the tail with blue and white stripes along its ribbed self. I tried about three times to paint in the stripes using the ribbing on the tail as a guide but it involved too many straight lines and white is never easy to work with. Instead I just did a split colour tail with Revell White and Vallejo Blue.

I mentioned the thick roundels were out of register with a white rim on the bottom of each. Delicately I painted over the the rim with Aluminium with a flat brush to try and hide them and it has worked for the most part. The picture above is also a good indication of how effective a Flory Models was is at highlighting panel lines and rivets.

The wing roundels caused me a bit of trouble because, following the decal and painting guide of the decal set, their placement overlapped two protrusions from the wing. I wish I could tell you what do protrusion are for but I’m clueless. In order to get the decals to fit over them I brushed on several coats of Vallejo decal softener and then, very carefully, with a pair of tweezers and a craft knife I cut a notch of decal out around the protrusion. It worked but one of the roundels slipped in the process which is why they’re not even on both sides of the wing. As long as the aircraft was operational I don’t think the Nationalists would’ve minded though.

I should say that all of the decals, including those black and red circles, came from the aftermarket decal set. I didn’t use the kit decals at all.

Academy provide you the option of positioning the flaps and I wanted to position them down. I added them after the weathering had been finished so they were painted and weathered separately to the rest of the Mustang. Little bit of a wrestle getting them into place but the finished model wouldn’t have look as good without them.

So there it is, one P-51D Mustang of the Chinese Nationalist Air Force and the best model I’ve finished to date. I’m very happy with the metal finish and exceptionally happy with the weathering.

I’m hopefully going to enter this into a few competitions next year and see how it does. In the meantime I’ve started a metal coat MiG-15 of the North Korean Air Force but posts on that will have to wait until after Christmas I think.

 

Chinese Nationalist Mustang: Part I

As I am writing this I am currently working on a P-51D Mustang. Rather than finish it in the usual RAF or USAF markings I have markings for the Chinese Nationalist Air Force (CNAF) which is the precursor to the modern air force of Taiwan.

Before Japan invaded China the country was rife with civil war as the Nationalists and Communists battled for control of the country. In fact even during the war with Japan the Nationalists and Communists continued to attack one another so bitter was their rivalry. Before the Japanese invasion the Nationalists were at the clear advantage with superior equipment and better trained infantry but the war with Japan proved costly as the Nationalists gave it their all trying to repel the invasion.

The Communists, on the other hand, preferred fighting in smaller units harassing the Japanese behind their own lines. In the truth it would seem the Communists were holding back and reserving their strength for after the war with Japan. When Japan was defeated the Communists came out of the war very strong and acquired a huge inventory of Japanese equipment.

As soon as Japan surrendered its forces in China the civil war kicked off again in earnest. The Communists quickly found the Soviet Union willing to supply ‘advisors’ and equipment covertly to help in the war effort. The Nationalists had been receiving assistance during the war with Japan from the United States and this assistance continued for a time afterwards. Some of the aircraft supplied to the Nationalists included the P-51 Mustang, the P-47 Thunderbolt and B-25 Mitchell bombers.

 Although the Nationalists put up a staunch resistance they ultimately could not hold back the Communists forces and were eventually pushed back to the larger island of Taiwan and some of the smaller islands surrounding it. Mainland China was declared the People’s Republic of China by the Communists who were now firmly in control while the Nationalists formed the Republic of China on Taiwan. The civil war in China has never officially ended and the two sides remain tense to this day with the threat of all-out war always on the horizon.

I picked up this kit second hand at the IPMS Ireland Nationals during October. From the look of the box I was expecting the kit to be old and, honestly, a bit of a dog; how wrong I was! The kit has finely engraved panel lines and rivet detail, it includes a nicely detailed cockpit and also includes two different types of external fuel tank as well as two different canopy styles.

I started work on the cockpit as usual and immediately ran into a question, what colour is the cockpit of a Mustang? I know that can be a controversial subject at times, although perhaps more-so with other aircraft like Irish Hurricanes (*cough*), so I looked up an article on IPMS Stockholm and found a distinct lack on consistency with the Mustang and its interior colour. It would appear that the U.S government wasn’t to concerned with the exact shade of a particular paint and most paints were sourced as close to the manufacturing plant as possible resulting in various shades of paint being used, even those with the same name.

Possible paint shades for the Mustang include Chromate Green, Interior Green and Bronze Green. Towards the end of WWII and during the Korean War another option was Flat Black. Although the kit instructions advised Flat Black I thought Chromate Green would make for a more interesting look. I used Citadel Camo Green to represent the Chromate Green and I think it works well, it may be bit light in the picture above but after a gloss and matt coat it should darken down.

The cockpit in this kit is pretty well detailed; the front console is busy with raised detail as are the side consoles, the cockpit seat features defined seatbelts with buckles and behind the seat is what I presume to be a radio rack.

From what I’ve read the floor of the cockpit was made with plywood and may, or may not, have been painted black. I decided against painting it black in order to add a splash of colour variation to the cockpit although, in truth, with the canopy fitted it probably wouldn’t be visible. Anyway, the cockpit floor was painted with Revell Africa Brown which provides a light wooden look to the floor. The rest of the cockpit was painted in Camo Green except for the consoles which were painted black and picked out with two metallic paints, one light and one dark. The detail on the front console was picked out in various reds, yellows, whites and greens.
 

The radio rack is a tricky piece of work because it is both stepped, as intended, but also has a nasty seam running the entire way around its body. Intensive sanding would cause a fair bit of detail to be lost so I only cleaned it up a little and painted it black hoping to hide the seam.

After I had finished the cockpit I gave it two washes of Citadel Badab Black and one of Flory Models Dark Dirt to give it a heavily used appearance. These Mustangs would’ve been involved in heavy fighting and opportunities for maintenance would’ve been sparse.

If you look at the last few pictures above you’ll notice the front console might be sitting a bit to far forward. I think it is to far forward because when I closed the fuselage halves the cockpit leaned off to one side. The lean was nothing dramatic but something like that is the sort of thing that causes perspective issues when sighting down the length of the fuselage to ensure everything is aligned properly.

As it turns out that little lean would be the least of my problems when it came to perspective and alignment.

I don’t know if it was a problem with the production run of this kit or just this particular kit but the join of the fuselage didn’t go very well because from the large intake, under the Mustang, back to the tail the alignment of the kit halves was terribly off. Furthermore sighting down the length of the fuselage several times made apparent that the tail was twisted off to one side.

There wasn’t much I could do about a twisted tail so I focused on sanding down the seam lines left over from the fuselage joining. I had five to deal with including one above and below the nose, behind the cockpit, behind the belly intake and behind the tail wheel well. I wanted to be careful sanding these down as this kit had intricate rivet and panel line detail on both sides of the nose so I went out and purchased a packet of Emery boards. I used the fine side of the boards throughout the build which doesn’t leave lines and grooves in the plastic and in order to protect the detail further I wrapped key areas in masking tape. The boards will wear the tape down over time but better the tape wearing down than the detail in the kit. While working on the seams I occasionally painted on some thinned down grey in order to highlight them, the paint will seep into the seam and make it more defined giving you a better view of it.

I spent quite a while working on the seams in order to get them perfect and I can happily state that I succeeded with four out of the fives seams; one seam leading from the mouth of the intake to the front of the tail wheel well follows a curve but also crosses two large protrusions and so was difficult to remove. 

Next I joined the wing halves, without issues, and dry fitted the wings to the fuselage; this involved slotting the wings under the fuselage and above the belly intake where it meets with a buttress wall. Now because of the warping of the fuselage rear that buttress wall had formed a bad step in it which would’ve left a gap on one side of the wing to fuselage join. In order to fix it I cut out a small piece of plasticard and slotted it in into the step to form a straight wall. A bit of filler and a little filing later and it was perfect.

The join between the wings and fuselage, however, was not at all perfect. On one side of the wing, the one in the picture above, there was just the usual wing root to fill but on the other side the wing root was wider and the towards the rear of the wing there was a step that couldn’t really be filled. Working on some advice I took a round file and gently filed down the step and filled the rest of the wing roots.

Again, I can’t say if it is a problem with this particular kit but the tail wings didn’t line up properly either. I followed the locating tabs but it’s obvious on the kit, from the detail around the locating tabs, that each side is out of alignment with on another.

I didn’t bother trying to fix this issue. It might seem by now that this kit isn’t worth the trouble what with warping and alignment issues but I can assure you that this kit is beautifully detailed and will turn out a great finish with some work. If I found this kit again I’d definitely pick it up.

With all the main components added to the fuselage I primed it in Halfords Grey which goes on really fine and comes out in a great shade of grey. I believe there are two types of Halfords primer, one which states it is for plastic and one that doesn’t. Well this is the one that doesn’t and it doesn’t damage the plastic at all.

I did have an accident where the spray went on to thickly on one wing, my mistake not the primers, and I had to sand down some clumps of built up stuff while it was soft and then ‘rescribe’ the panel lines which was less like rescribing and more like clearing gunk gently with a knife.

All in all I would definitely recommend Halfords to anyone, it makes for a fine primer and is much better than the Humbrol spray I was using before. It also leaves you a good surface for applying a metalcoat which will be coming up in Part II.

Gunship Training at Fort Rucker

There are quite a few ‘72nd scale AH-1 Cobra kits available on the market including two from Hobby Boss.

For a helicopter themed campaign on Aeroscale, called Aerial Screw, I picked up the AH-1F kit by Hobby Boss. The first thing to note about this particular kit is that it isn’t an AH-1F at all but actually an AH-1E. You can check out my previous post to get an overview on the differences between Cobra variants but, sufficient to say, the exhaust scoop and the nose cannon are good giveaways.

Despite Hobby Boss mixing up their AH-1 kit boxes the kit is very well detailed with finely engraved panel lines, a nicely detailed cockpit and a few armament choices including two different style or rocket pod, 7-shot and 19-shot, as well as two 4-tube TOW missile launchers.

It’s a little difficult to see the detail in the cockpit from this picture due to it being overwhelmingly white but it is is there in both the front and side consoles. The panel behind the rear seat is textured with a pipe running along it, the seats feature cushion detail with seatbelts as well.

I painted the cockpit in Vallejo Basalt Grey to give it a darker look than usual, details were then picked out in various greens, yellows, reds, whites from the Revell and Vallejo range. The control stick handles were painted with Revell Tar Black.

When I was working on the cockpit I glued the front seat before painting it because there was plenty of room to work with. There is not a lot of space when the rear seat is fitted however so I decided to paint it separately; before painting the seat fit easily enough but after applying the paint to both the seat and the tub the fit became very awkward. I ended up having to force the seat in and damaged the paint in the process but it was easily repaired.

Hobby Boss do not include any pilots with the kit and as I wanted to add two I borrowed them from an Airfix kit; they’re the usual guy you get in most Airfix kits. I painted their uniforms in Revell paints; Light Olive for the uniform, Tar Black for what I suppose is the webbing on the torso and Gloss Black and White Black for the helmets. Vallejo Basic Skintone was used for the flesh and then the pilots, and the cockpit, was given a wash with Citadel Badab Black.

Now, after fitting the cockpit to one side of the fuselage there are a few other things that need to be fitted before you close up the fuselage halves. First you need to assemble the 30mm nose cannon; Hobby Boss have designed it so that the cannon with swivel from side to side but will also elevate which is a nice feature. On the downside the cannon barrels are not bored out but solid although anyone with experience could probably do it themselves.

The second installation is the nose sensor which is also designed to swivel from side to side and is nicely detailed with two lenses. The landing skids can pose a bit of a problem that may be fixed early on; they can be attached at any time during the build process as they slot into holes in the fuselage but they’re not very strong. I broke off one skid about three times during the entire build. It may be advisable to fit the skids before joining the fuselage halves and then add internal reinforcement to ensure they don’t break later on.

The fit of the fuselage halves leaves a lot to be desired as well, at least in my case. I was left with seams in the front of the cockpit on the nose and right along the underside; these were not too difficult to work with, just regular sanding. Worse still there was a seam along the very top of the helicopter where the rotor mast was to be installed, this area features a few ‘lumps & bumps’ that are probably aerials and it can be awkward sanding in between them. The worst seam of all though, and the worst I’ve experienced in a kit to date, was inside the exhaust scoop. It wasn’t so much a seam as it was a trench and incredibly awkward to deal with; in the end I applied several layers of filler to lessen the severity of it but it seemed that no matter how much I applied the problem never fully went away. If I was to implore Hobby Boss to fix anything about the kit this would be it, they could reprint the box while they’re at it.

I should also mention that some weight will be needed to prevent this from sitting on its tail. There isn’t a whole lot of room in the nose but on the underside of the helicopter, just behind the cockpit, is a panel that can be added anytime during the build. You can easily fit a couple of weights in this area and the weight will sit just over the landing skids; another good reason for reinforcing them.
 

This was the scheme I was trying to replicate throughout the build. The picture above shows an AH-1 based at the U.S Army Aviation Centre in Fort Rucker, Alabama. This is where the U.S Army trains all of their helicopter pilots as far as I know. The bright red panels mark the helicopter as a training unit. On the helicopters tail is a 4-digit code, on the fuselage behind the wing stub is the last two digits of that code plus a letter. By the way, I think the above helicopter is an AH-1S without the ‘sugar scoop’ exhaust fitted.

To recreate the Cobra from the reference picture I began by painstakingly painting in the red panels. Thankfully the panel lines on the kit appear to correspond to the panel lines on the actual helicopter and I was able to follow them. Still, keeping to a perfectly straight line with a brush can be a torturous affair sometimes especially when the overall colour was applied to the Cobra. I used Vallejo Flat Red for the panels and, I must say, it covers incredibly well.

The overall colour of the Cobra, as gathered from the reference picture, is olive drab and, apparently, plenty of dirt. I used a bottle of Vallejo Olive Drab for the overall colour and although it may appear very light in the picture above it is actually a lot darker. In fact after a clear and subsequent flat coat the olive drab came out a little to dark I think. In future for olive drab I’m going to try out Vallejo Brown Violet to get a lighter coat.

Flat Red was also used for several lights located on the front and back of the gunship while Vallejo Gunmetal Grey was used for the cannon and Gunmetal Blue for the sensor lenses. I painted both rotor blades separately before adding them to the Cobra; the blades were painted with Revell Tar Black and the metallic areas with Gunmetal Grey. Finally I used Vallejo Gloss Varnish to give the entire helicopter a clear coat.

When it came to applying the decals I was a little stuck. Most of the decals that I have are black or grey and I needed white. I needed two four-digit codes for the tail, one on each side, which proved difficult enough. Thankfully a friend was able to donate some white decals left over a great Corsair build and I was able to settle for two three-digit codes instead; I chose the number 530 as you can see.

With the small decals sorted I was still left needing some large ones; I required two numbers, the last two from the tail code, and a letter. On a bit of luck I hunted around the back of a closet and found the remains of a disastrous armour project with a decal sheet for the PLA complete with several large numbers and letters in bright white; perfect.

Hobby Boss provide some markings for both the U.S Army and the Israeli Army but no stencils are provided. I studied the few references pictures I have on the training unit and there are very little in the way of stencils so I didn’t bother borrowing any from my decal bank.

I followed the decals with another gloss coat and moved onto weathering. The reference photo shows that the Cobra appears pretty dirty and I wanted to replicate the same level of grime. I used the same concoction that I had used to weather my Indonesian Hawk, a mix of oil pastels, water and washing up liquid. I applied it over the entire model and after it had dried a while I took a damp cloth and began to wipe most it away hoping to leave it in the panel lines.

Honestly I think the effect has been overdone and I don’t like it terribly much. I’ll be replacing it with a Flory Models Wash and Tamiya Weathering Powders in future. With the weathering complete I only needed to add few more bits and pieces to finish the build starting with armaments.

As I mentioned before Hobby Boss provide four rocket pods, two 7-shot pods & two 19-unit pods, as well as two 4-tube TOW missile launchers. I wanted to mount the 7-shot pods and the TOW launchers on the wing stubs but early on in the build I fully assembled the TOW launchers and subsequently found them impossible to build.

I thought about mounting all four rocket pods but research indicated that the 19-shot pods would only be fitted with 12 to 14 rockets at most if fitted to the outer pylon. I’d already fitted the smaller rocket pods to the inside pylon and, not wanting to bore out several warheads, I decided to leave the larger ones off.

I would also like to mention that the fit of the rocket pods could be much better, some sanding and filling with be required with them. I painted the rocket tube with Revell Nato Olive and the warheads black; I don’t know if this is entirely accurate but I had a difficult time finding good pictures of the pods online.

The next step was to add the canopy and, as usual, it turned bad. When I had joined the fuselage earlier in the build I dry fitted the canopy and found no issue with it but I when I dry fitted after painting it wouldn’t fit at all. It turned into a struggle just to get it in place and lined up along both sides of the fuselage. When all was said and done I had to dilute some PVA glue to fill in the gaps, repair some of the paint and I was still left with dirty glass. You can see it is rather dirty in the glass above; terrible.

Finally I need to add the main rotor blade and the tail rotor. The main rotor on this kit is very fragile when glued into place and could also really do with reinforcement. I used some small drops of super glue to help strengthen the bond but it isn’t enough. The tail rotor is very solid though and nothing extra is needed to secure it.

There is the finished product, an AH-1E Cobra gunship finished as a training unit at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Hobby Boss produce a nice kit despite some deficiencies and some mislabelling. I’m fairly happy with the finish of the kit although if I was to build it again I would take the build much slower; I ended up rushing this kit to finish it in time for a competition and also so I could focus more on the Hawk from my previous postings.

Still, it is not bad for my first helicopter and my first Cobra Gunship. 

AH-1 HueyCobra: The First Dedicated Gunship

The AH-1 HueyCobra came into existence due to a United States Army need for a dedicated helicopter gunship for use during the Vietnam War. Throughout the war Army aviation had been using the UH-1 Iroquois, popularly known as the Huey, as a platform for conversion to gunship.

The Huey had proven itself as an effective platform for a gunship; the combination of two heavily armed door gunners alongside rocket pods and miniguns on stub racks made for a deadly battlefield support unit. At its heart; however, the Huey was always a transport chopper and the fleet suffered increased fatigue and weight issues, especially the earlier models.

To give an example a UH-1B gunship, fully loaded, would often have issues taking off vertically. The increased weight coupled with the muggy air common to the wetter regions of Vietnam necessitated a running take-off; the Huey would literally have to fly down the runway at speed, its skids skimming the concrete below, in order to gain enough lift to get airborne.

Bell, the manufacturer of the Huey, had made an early attempt at a dedicated helicopter gunship and was awarded a ‘proof of concept’ contract in 1962. The helicopter, the Model 207, was called the Sioux Scout and impressed the U.S Army but was ultimately disregarded being far too underpowered and fragile for intense combat. The failure of the Scout lead to the U.S Army launching a competition for a new gunship in which Bell was not invited to participate. Instead Bell launched a new in-house development of the Model 209 which married parts from the UH-1C with elements of the Sioux Scout.

By 1965 the Vietnam War was intensifying and the need for a new gunship was becoming all the more apparent. The U.S Army competition was set to end in ‘65 but had failed to produce a result. Subsequently the Army reached out to several contractors hoping for a quick solution and within 8 months Bell had produced a fully working prototype of the Model 209. In ‘66 Bell won a production contract and, hoping to capitalise on the popularity of the Huey, named the Model 209 the HueyCobra. The U.S Army gave the gunship a new designation, AH-1 with the ‘A’ standing for Attack, the ‘U’ in UH-1 stands for Utility by the way.

Because of the parts commonality between the UH-1 Huey and the AH-1 HueyCobra the Army considered the new Cobra gunships an evolution of the Huey line. Thus the first production model of the Cobra was designated in full the AH-1G following after the UH-1F. The Cobra was quite impressive; it was fast, agile and very narrow making it harder to hit head on, tandem seating in a large glass canopy gave excellent views for both the pilot and the gunner.

The cornerstone of the AH-1 was, of course, its armament. Mounted in a nose turret the Cobra held a 7.62mm (0.3”) Gatling gun that was capable of chewing through enemy fortifications and devastating troops; the Gatling gun was soon joined by a 40mm grenade launcher mounted alongside it in the nose. The Cobra also featured wing stubs for carrying a variety of rocket pods and warheads for even more firepower. After trails and upgrading the AH-1Q Cobra would also begin carrying TOW missile launchers for anti-armour roles.

During the Vietnam War over 1,000 Cobras were produced and served across Vietnam fulfilling a variety of mission roles including ground support and escorting of other helicopters. The U.S Marine Corps became very interested in the AH-1 and in 1968 placed an order for a twin-engine variant which would become the Super Cobra; today the modern equivalent of the Super Cobra is still in service with the USMC.

The AH-1 Cobra gunship would become the mainstay gunship of U.S Army aviation for the next 3 decades. The helicopter would see service during the 1983 invasion of Grenada, Operation Urgent Fury, and the 1989 invasion of Panama, Operation Just Cause. But the Cobra fleet began to wind down operations during the 1990’s as it was phased out in favour of the AH-64 Apache.

During Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield (1990-1991) the U.S Army AH-1 fleet was used primarily in a scouting role as the Apache was given the bulk of offensive missions. Still, the AH-1 fleet, both Army and USMC, destroyed hundreds of Iraqi vehicles as they roved the desert skies. The Cobra fleet was called on again during 1993 in Operation Restore Hope, Somalia and again during the 1994 invasion of Haiti. In 1999 the U.S Army placed their AH-1 fleet into reserve and fully retired them in 2001. Many were offered to NATO partners, Israel while some were stripped off weaponry and converted for use by the USDA Forestry Service.

The AH-1 also found itself a successful export market; the single engine variant was exported to Bahrain, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, South Korea, Spain, Thailand and Turkey. Of all of those only Spain has retired their AH-1 fleet.

Now, I think it is worth going into a little detail about the various upgrades the Cobra has undergone during its lifespan. The U.S Army were anything but consistent with their designations as you’ll see and once I get around to posting my Cobra build you’ll also see why this is necessary.

• AH-1G (Early): The first Cobra model featured a single 7.62mm Gatling gun in the turret and a tail rotor on the port side of the tail.
• AH-1G (Late): The late ‘Golf’ model had an upgraded armament in the form of a 40mm grenade launcher mounted alongside the Gatling gun in the turret. The tail rotor was switched to the starboard side and the exhaust nozzle was replaced with a scoop, sometimes referred to as a sugar-scoop or toilet bowel.
• AH-1Q: The ‘Quebec’ model featured various upgrades allowing it to use TOW missile launchers, part of the upgrade package included a new stabilised sight fitted to the nose.
• AH-1S: The ‘Quebec’ model proved to be underpowered and thus required further upgrades resulting in the ‘Sierra’ model. The ‘Sierra’ was fitted with a new powerful engine, a tail mounted RWR and extra scoops over the intakes.
• AH-1P: The ‘Papa’ model resulted in some dynamic changes to the Cobra, most importantly a new canopy; the new flat-plate canopy was designed to reduce the shine and glint from the helicopter. The avionics and flight systems were upgraded and over half of the ‘Papa’ models were fitted with new rotor blades.
• AH-1E: The ‘Echo’ designation was applied to the AH-1S\AH-1P’s that underwent the ‘Enhanced Cobra Armament System’ (ECAS) upgrade package. The upgrade package resulted in the nose turret armament being replaced with a three barrel 20mm cannon. Wire cutters were also fitted above and below the cockpit.
• AH-1F: The ‘Foxtrot’ model is the definitive single engine Cobra gunship. The AH-1F was fitted with a new HUD, a redesigned cylindrical exhaust with a better IR suppressor, a new IR Jammer, a laser warner system and an air data sensor. The ‘Foxtrot’ model was also the most widely exported.

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As an aside; I’m wondering what people think about the non-build, informative posts? Are they helpful, informative or interesting? Let me know through the comments section and thank you.

BAe Hawk Mk. 109: TNI-AU

For the 2011 Scale Model Word show at Telford, UK, my club, IPMS Ireland, decided to do a themed display of BAe Hawks in various scales. I picked up the 1/72nd scale Italeri Mk. 100 series Hawk.

The Italeri Hawk builds up into a pretty decent representation of a Hawk but it does comes with several problems. A Mk. 100 Hawk should have four wings pylons in total plus a wingtip launch rail on each wing. Italeri only gives you two pylons in total and while they do give you the wingtip launch rails they require you to slice off the wingtips yourself; not a big deal from some modellers but for others it is not a comforting prospect. The AIM-9 Sidewinders that come with the kit are also badly formed; the fins around the head are clearly misshapen and of different sizes. It would be best to replace them if possible.

One of the nicest features of the Italeri Hawk lies with the cockpit; the cockpit features well detailed consoles for the front, the back as well as with the side consoles. The seats are also nice with some seatbelt detail.

The cockpit was painted with Revell Medium Grey and then detail was added to all of the consoles with White, Yellow, Flat Red, Reflective Green and Olive Green; the first two are from Revell and the last three are Vallejo Model Color paints. The seats were painted with the same grey and fabric with Revell NATO Olive. When the cockpit was finally painted I have it a wash with Citadel Badab Black to make it appear more used and busy.

This cockpit shouldn’t be considered a factual representation of a proper BAe Hawk of course. I prefer to paint up cockpits in a more interesting and colourful way although I will try and get the base colour right if I can; I won’t paint a cockpit lime green if it is supposed to be a light grey for example.

For all the good of the cockpit one of the downsides to the Italeri Hawk is the fit of the engine intakes. As you can see from the picture the fit is pretty bad and it required a lot of sanding to force it back in line. What you can’t see from the picture is that the fit of the intake halves required a gap to be filled on the upper and lower surface, not a great fit indeed.

The join of the fuselage halves did not go entirely smoothly either; there were seam lines to sand along the nose and underneath the Hawk as well. The seams underneath can be tricky to deal with because of several aerials bunched together underneath the cockpit and underneath the tail; unfortunately I don’t have any pictures. The Hawk might be light enough to not require any added weight but I wasn’t taking any chances. As the nosecone was too small for fishing weights I added two just behind the cockpit which places the weight over the wings and, as I had hoped, prevents the tail from tipping the aircraft backwards although, as I said, I’m not sure it would’ve tipped anyway.

As I mentioned at the start of this posting Italeri would like you to slice the wingtips off to attach the wingtip launch rails. I was less than enthusiastic about doing so and elected to leave the wings as they were. I’m not entirely sure if that is accurate for a Mk. 100 series Hawk, the rails probably can’t be removed in reality but at this stage of the build I was feeling totally uninspired by the Hawk that I didn’t care.

That’s the problem with committing to ‘single type’ group builds, if you don’t like the aircraft terribly much then you’ll quickly loose steam even if you’re supporting your club by doing the build.

I primed the Hawk in Humbrol Matt White from a rattle can; it’s probably the last time I’ll do so. There’s nothing wrong with the spray as such, it covers quite well actually but I feel paying €6 for a 150ml can is just to expensive and not value for money. I used masking tape around the cockpit to prevent any overspray but as you can see from the picture it produced mixed results.

On the one hand it did prevent the cockpit from turning white but on the other hand some of the spray worked itself under the tape and left some lumpy paint in the area. More than likely that happened as a result of spraying to close to model when I was priming the underside but in my defence the rattle can was on its last legs by then and I was struggling to get anything out of it.

The pitot tube on the front of the Hawk caused me no end of problems mainly due to me accidentally dropping the aircraft about three times in total which snapped the tube at least twice. I never found the missing sections, a quick meal for the carpet monster I guess, and it resulted in my Hawk having a much shorter pitot tube than most. A few of the kits in my small stash have quite prominent pitot tubes jutting out from the nose so I might buy aluminium aftermarket replacements.

The wing strakes on the Mk. 100 series Hawk present a bit of a mystery; apparently the Mk. 100 in RAF and RN service (Mk. 128) only have a single strake per wing as seen above in the picture, the Mk. 100 in international service apparently has four strakes per wing. The instructions for the Italeri Hawk provide for four strakes but the instructions for the Airfix Mk. 100 series, which I also have, only provides for one. I have seen pictures of international Hawks with one strake per wing and others with four strakes per wing so I don’t know which is correct really. As you can see I only put on one strake per wing and left it at that.

Sanding the intakes took quite a bit of work; I’m still trying to refine my sanding skills and not score the plastic to much. It’s probably down the coarseness of the grit used so at the moment I’m experimenting with Emery boards which have a coarse side and a fine side. One thing I have learned in regards to sanding and; indeed, to a build in general is to take things slowly. I rushed this Hawk to get it ready for my clubs display table at our national competition which resulted in some mistakes creeping in.

One of the other little problems with the Italeri Hawk is that there is absolutely no detail in the wheel wells nor are the rear wells boxed in. The fins at the back of the Hawk have no locating pins either, you’re left to a rough guess with placing those.

As I have decals for the Indonesian Air Force (Tentara Nasional Indonesia Angkatan Undara, TNI-AU) I decided to finish the Hawk in a variation of the scheme used by the TNI-AU’s Jupiter Blue Aerobatic Team.

I was only able to find the scheme on a Mk. 53 Hawk so I made my own interpretation for this one. Mk. 53 is the designation given to Hawk T.Mk. 1’s exported to Indonesia and the Mk. 100 exported to Indonesia is known as the Mk. 109.

This Mk. 109 was painted in an overall Revell Light Grey which has a slight blue-ish tint to it. Vallejo Blue Grey Pale followed for the camouflage on the wingtips, front and back, the tail and along the spine; the Jupiter Blue scheme has the camouflage only on the upper surfaces of the Hawk. The nose and the section behind the canopy were painted in Revell Tar Black. Gloss red was used to paint a small light under the Hawk near the tail and a little Vallejo Gunmetal Grey was used to detail the flare dispenser. 

I believe the Mk. 100 series Hawk has a light in the front of each wing but no detail was provided for either in the Italeri Hawk so I left them out.

The Indonesian markings came from a decal set called Vivacious Vipers #2 by a company called Zotz, I believe I mentioned them in my posting about the A-37B Dragonfly I built. The markings are for F-16’s but work just as well here. I applied the decals with the help of Vallejo Decal Set and Decal Fix which are two products I can recommend as well as Vallejo Gloss Varnish onto which the decals were placed.

The Zotz decals went on very well although I did notice some discolouring on a few; it wasn’t quite silvering but a slight dirty tinge. It may have been because the decals were intended for a tactical grey F-16 or it might be yellowing; I’m not sure.

The red decals on the tail had to be very gently sliced as I couldn’t get them to bed down into the deep gaps around the rudder but I think they’ve turned out great in the end.

The Hawk specific stencils were provided from an Airfix kit called BAe Systems Hawk which is basically their offering of the Mk. 100. The Airfix stencils are much better than the paltry offerings on the Italeri sheet and really bring the aircraft alive. Despite the bad reputation of Airfix decals these went down perfectly and with little trouble. Airfix are definitely improving in that regard.

As usual the canopy caused a great deal of consternation; when I went to dry fit the canopy to the cockpit I couldn’t find the front windshield. I have no idea where it went despite searching my workspace and surrounding area from top to bottom but as the Airfix kit had already provided so much already I turned to it again; I dry fitted the Airfix windshield to the Italeri canopy and the fit worked surprisingly well with only a little surgery required for the windshield.

I carefully sliced off the front piece of the windshield and then glued it and the canopy to the cockpit using Revell Contacta Clear which dries clear, believe it or not, making it perfect for canopies. There were a few small gaps between the fuselage and the canopy, as well as the fuselage and the windshield, so I diluted down some PVA glue and worked it into the gaps with a brush. The PVA also dries clear but also thick and is handy for working around canopies avoiding the need for putty and sanding. There was also an awkward gap between the windshield and the canopy so I built up the amount of PVA glue in that area to fill the gap. After the PVA had dried I very carefully painted the frames around the canopy and added two decals.

With all of the main painting finished I began working on the undercarriage which was just the usual gloss white. Over the white primer I painted on Vallejo White Grey to build up a solid white and then added two or three coats of Revell Gloss White; the wheels are painted in Revell Tar Black. I’d usually use an ‘off-black’ for tires such as Revell Anthracite Grey but my pot of that particular colour has gone off in a sense.

From the picture above you’ll notice the incredibly shortened pitot tube  and you’ll also notice I have the nose-wheel turned slightly which I thought would make for an interesting little feature. As someone pointed out to me; though, at a certain point the wheel turning causes the tail rudder to turn as well; I hadn’t thought of that.

The final stage of the build involved weathering which isn’t something I’ve quite got a handle on yet. I have a small container of a homemade concoction, a mix of black and brown oil pastels, water and a few drops of washing up liquid which supposedly breaks up the surface tension. I’ve since learned that this recipe, which I read online somewhere, calls non-oil pastels but it seems to work anyway although it is very dirty.

So I basically gave the Hawk a dirty wash with the stuff and left it fairly dirty as well. It might not be very realistic for an aircraft serving on an aerobatic team but Indonesia does have a problem with air pollution especially during a certain time of the year. During that part of the year farmers and landowners will clear away the previous years crops by setting fire to them as the resulting ash acts as a soil fertilizer. All of these fires throw up great plumes of thick smoke into the air and in the year 1997 and in 2005 things got so bad that a massive hazy cloud enveloped Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and even affected air quality as far away as South Korea.

Yes, I am using that information as a, possibly poor, defence for a heavy weathering job but whatever, it’s my model, my hobby and I like it. That’s all that really matters in the end, isn’t it?