The kit used for this build was the 1/72 Revell Germany Harrier GR.7. Essentially it is the Hasegawa Gr.5 kit with an additional sprue containing the nose cone ( one piece ) particular to the Gr.7 model. I won't bother going into the accuracy of the kit, such as LERX sizes, but I would like to mention that two things that are noticeably missing are the radar warning antenna and the rear missile warning antenna, both of which are located on the trailing edge of the lower ventral fin. You would think that if the sprue for the different nose was included they could have gotten this right too. Apparently not though.

It is a state of the art kit with fine recessed panel lines. Wing stores include underwing tanks, missiles, and all pylon positions. Fuselage stores include centerline pylon, gun pods, or strakes, which are actually Lift Improvement Devices ( LIDS ).

I started off by gluing the lower left and right wing halves to the one piece upper wing. I then attached all four pylons on each side to the lower wings and applied Mr.Surfacer as necessary to fill any minor gaps and sanded down when dry. The attachment points on the innermost pylons for the underwing tanks didn't look very robust to me, and as I wanted to hang the tanks, I used my pin vise to drill holes in the pylons and also on the tank mounting lugs. I later inserted small gauge steel wire into the tank lugs. This would give me the strength needed to ensure that the tanks wouldn't later fall off should I decide to take my model down off the shelf and fly it around the house ( making "airplane sounds" ) some night when I don't have a hot date, which is pretty much every night. I digress.

The fuselage was next. I painted the intake interior and compressor fan. Cockpit tub and side walls were painted Med Sea Grey, gloss coated, and then decals applied. I inserted the cockpit tub and glued the fuselage halves together. I attached the nose cone. Dry fitting the intakes revealed a little bit of sanding was necessary to insure as sound a fit as possible. Before gluing these on, though, I had to mask the previously painted interior surface or else it would have been covered with overspray when I later painted the exterior. I attached the gun pods to the lower fuselage and did any necessary seam work there. I put on the refueling probe which was a nasty fitting little piece of plastic. It required filler to blend it into the left intake and fuselage. Using scrap bits of plastic I scratch built the missing RWA and RMWA which I mentioned at the beginning of this article as items not included in the kit. I blended these into the lower ventral strake with filler as necessary and sanded to shape.

Onto the wings. The LERX was a separate one piece part. Dry fitting revealed a tight fit between the rear of the LERX and the front of the wing. This needed to be sanded just a little so that it wasn't forced together. Once these items were glued on there were some seams which had to be filled that weren't normal panel lines, consequently there was also a little rescribing to be done as a result. There were also gaps between the underside of the LERX/wings and fuselage. In retrospect I should have dry fitted using a piece of sprue to seeing if spreading the fuselage slightly would get rid of these gaps. Something to watch out for if any of you decide to build one. I should also mention an annoying problem I had. The rear wing to fuselage joint kept coming unglued which, not surprisingly, led to my ungluing. If I were to build this kit again I would reinforce that joint with sheet plastic and probably use CA to bond it. It remains unglued even now because that last time it came unstuck the model was already painted.

Finally ready to paint. I won't get into the proper British Standard colours which aren't based on the Federal Standard system. I got conflicting information when trying to decide on what two greys to use, so I settled on FS36173 Air Command Grey for the underside and FS 36118 Gunship Grey for the top. These purportedly were close. I think Xtracolour have the proper BSC paint shades. I painted the lower lighter grey first and all other associated parts needing this shade, masked as necessary and painted the upper darker grey next. I painted the wheel wells white. Any touch ups were done and then the whole thing was gloss coated with MM clear lacquer.

Markings were for a 1 Sqd RAF Cottesmore machine. Decals were a combination of Model Alliance and kit. After all the decals were on and nicely dried they were sealed under a gloss coat. As I wanted to weather my model with pastel chalks I applied a flat coat first. I used a couple of different shades of grey. On the lower rear fuselage I used a slightly damp paper towel to draw the pastel back to simulate streaking due to air flow. Harriers can be absolutely filthy underneath. There can also be considerable exhaust staining too. When I was satisfied with the weathering I sealed it under another flat coat.

Final items were pitot heads, Airwaves resin MB Mk.12 seat, canopy and windscreen, various antenna, nav light painting, attachment of undercarriage parts, underwing tanks, and Obscureco resin aftermarket nozzles. A couple of last minute notes on the Obscureco nozzles and undercarriage. The front nozzles ( cold ) are blanked off deep inside and not truly hollowed out, but I think are still deep enough to be convincing. The rear ( hot ) are nicely louvered and look really sharp. The kit hot nozzles are completely blanked off and look like a closed shutter. I had to lightly sand the rear main wheels to get the model to sit on the outriggers properly which has also been reported by others who have built it.