AIRFIX 1:72 ARMSTRONG WHITWORTH SEA HAWK FGA.6

 

Reviewer: Paulo Ivo Teixeira  (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted:  8 December 2007

Kit Details:

Airfix Armstrong Whitworth Sea Hawk FGA.6 1/72 scale, kit # 02097.

Aircraft History:

Aesthetically one of the most appealing of Sydney Camm's early jet fighters, the prototype Sea Hawk first flew on 2 September 1947. It was derived from the Hawker Sea Fury design, with the canopy moved as far forward as possible and the engine in the middle of the aircraft. Although powered by a single engine, the Sea Hawk featured a split exhaust with each outlet in the wing root. This reduced the amount of ducting necessary and minimise the loss of thrust that comes with a long exhaust pipe - a crucial consideration in the early days of jet flight when engines were chronically underpowered. It also enabled fuel to be carried both in the front and rear fuselage, thus preserving the plane's centre of gravity as fuel was consumed.

Its original customer the RAF having lost all interest, the Sea Hawk had been refined as a carrier-based aircraft, with the Royal Navy eventually ordering 151 examples. Hawker subsequently built 35 Sea Hawk F.Mk 1 fighters before transferring all future development and production to Armstrong Whitworth. A further 60 Sea Hawk F.Mk 1 and F.Mk 2 were produced by that company, which then introduced the Sea Hawk FB.Mk 3 fighter-bomber with a stronger wing able to carry external stores. 116 were produced, followed by 97 examples of the Sea Hawk FGA.Mk 4 fighter/ground attack development.  The earlier marks were all powered by the Rolls-Royce Nene Mk 101 engine; conversion of some FB.Mk 3 with the Nene Mk 103 engine gave the Sea Hawk FB.Mk 5 and production for the Royal Navy ended with the FGA.Mk 6, similar to the Mk 4 but with the Mk 103 engine. The resulting increase of thrust was too modest to noticeably increase the aircraft's top speed, but did provide an additional margin of safety for flight-deck operations. The Nene's centrifugal-flow technology, however, was a dead end, having been overtaken by axial flow.

The Sea Hawk served with the Royal Navy between 1953 and 1960, taking part in the Anglo-French Suez operation in November, 1957, in which they attacked Egyptian airfields, railways and anti-aircraft sites. 22 export Sea Hawks FGA.Mk 50 were operated by the Royal Netherlands Navy until the end of 1964, there being basically FGA.Mk 6 aircraft fitted with a Philips UHF radio; they were later modified to carry a pair of Phico Sidewinder IA AAMs. The other major export versions were the Sea Hawk Mk 100 and the all-weather Mk 101, ordered by the German Navy; these were similar to the FGA.Mk 6 except for a taller fin and, on the Mk 101, a search radar in a wing pod. The last operator was India until the late 1980s; its Sea Hawks played a substantial role in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, bombinf Pakistani ports and airfields.

The Kit:

Sturdy end-opening box, modern update of original 1970s design: date on instruction leaflet says 1996, however item appears, in a different boxing, in the 1978 Airfix catalogue. From a model shop in Lisbon, Portugal, for 6 euros in October 2007.

33 light grey injection-moulded parts plus one-part canopy, all floating freely in box. Soft raised panel lines, recessed control surfaces. Main fuselage split vertically. Cockpit comprises a rather plain seat shape and a pilot only. Nicely done undercarriage legs, no wheel well detail whatsoever. Nose wheel moulded as part of nose wheel leg. Lots of ejector pin marks, some easy-to-remove flash. Fit is quite good in the sense that it leaves few gaps, but some steps will need filing/sanding/puttying.

Instructions:

One 29.5 cm x 62.5 cm (11.6 in x 24.6 in) sheet folded in three, then folded again to fit box, printed in landscape orientation, featuring: short history of aircraft in English, French, German, Spanish and Swedish (!); general instructions and explanation of symbols in twelve languages. Six easy-to-follow construction steps, including detail painting instructions. Painting and decalling guide showing 4-views of aircraft: no colour names, and references are (surprise!) to the Humbrol paint range only.

Options:

Wheels up or down, Royal Navy (FGA.6) or German Navy (Mk 101) tailfins.

Colour & Decal Options:

Three aircraft:

Satin finish in all cases.

Construction:

Construction started with cutting parts from sprues with a wire cutter, scraping off what little flash there was and sanding or filling a number of ejector pin marks, which adorned most parts of any size. The following were painted while still on sprues: arrestor hook, undercarriage legs, bay doors and wheel hubs duck egg blue (Hu 23), as an approximation to sky (usually interpreted to mean Hu 90 beige green, but I had none of it and couldn't be bothered to get some and duck egg blue looked close enough anyway), flat black (Hu 33) tyres and cockpit. Most parts to be painted duck egg blue first took a coat of flat white to help cover the grey plastic - a very old flat white which is seriously off-colour but is excellent for this purpose.

Each wingroot is in two halves, upper and lower, with the wheel wells cut out in the lower halves. These parts also include the jet intakes and exhausts, and since there are no blanking plates whatsovever, if nothing is done you'll be able to see right through the jet pipes. I built two blanking plates for each wingroot, one for the intake and one for the exhaust (remember the Sea Hawk, although a single-engine plane, has a split exhaust), from UHU Patafix: this is soft and will stick to the plastic, so you don't need to worry about cutting it exactly the right size or glueing it. The central part of the inside of the wing roots was then painted duck egg blue, the inside of the intakes and exhausts flat black. Once dry, the wing root halves were glued together.

The arrestor hook was clicked into place (not glued, as it is supposed to be moveable) and the two fuselage halves cemented together, though not before some weight (lead chippings embedded in Patafix) had been put in the nose and also painted flat black to render it invisible. Overall fit was good but there were steps aft of the cockpit, and aft of the nose wheel bay; these took some filing, sanding and puttying. Some surface detail in the form of panel lines was lost; but it doesn't really matter, as most of it would have disappeared under a couple of coats of paint anyway.

The wingroots were joined to the fuselage, and as were the tailplanes and the tailfin. Some filler was required to plug a gap between the last two. The wings were then cemented to the wingroots; again fit was good, with only minor sanding necessary.


© Paulo Ivo Teixeira 2007

In the meantime the underwing tanks and bombs had been assembled and painted; the former duck egg blue, the latter olive drab FS34087 (Hu 66) with trainer yellow (Hu 24) rings round the nose. The rings are not called for in the painting instructions, but my experience from looking at ordnance in museums is that most bombs have them, for some reason - and they look quite nice too! 

Time to do some serious painting. The undersides were painted duck egg blue (Hu 23, my interpretation of sky), and the top extra dark sea grey BS640 (Hu 123). Demarcation lines were done with masking tape. There is conflicting information concerning how far the top colour wraps around the wing and tailplane leading edges, so after some thought I decided that on my model it wouldn't wrap at all - which some photos and artwork, both in books and on the web, appear to show. The lips of the exhaust pipes were painted silver (Hu 11), and the blast shields gunmetal (Hu 53); the kit's instructions suggest dull aluminium (Hu 56) for the latter, but I decided it should be darker.

At this point the arrestor hook looked like it was going to be a rather bland afair, the same colour as the bottom fuselage. Internet to the rescue: bright red (Hu 19) tip, and a satin white (Hu 130) middle section with black stripes, drawn with a marker pen. (Actually this is easier said than done: it took me two attempts, interspersed with one other attempt at masking and painting, which ended in disaster.)

Turned to the cockpit next. The seat was painted flat black with khaki (Hu 26) cushions and headrest; I also added shoulder straps and belts made from masking tape and painted middle blue (Hu 89) with silver (Hu 11) buckles, to match photos found on the internet. The canopy framing is extremely hard to see, even with the help of a big magnifying glass.

Time to put the landing gear together, glue on the canopy and then on to decals - before attaching any underwing stores, as they get in the way. Bit of white glue required around the canopy.


© Paulo Ivo Teixeira 2007

Decals:

I went for the second option, described as "Royal Navy Historic Flight, RNAS Yeovilton, 1977-1995". However it carries exactly the same squadron insignia/numbers as the first option, No. 806 Naval Air Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, RNAS Brawdy, so I felt justified in backdating it to an actual service aircraft, carrying bombs and drop tanks.

Decals are ok, with just a little too much carrier film. Surprisingly for Airfix, they include a fair amount of stencilling, almost all of it legible! I have only two gripes. First, the underwing lettering is too big, getting it to fit where it should was a bit of a struggle - a problem I'd had with the Airfix Canberra, see my review on SMAKR. Second, although commendably the wing/fuselage roundels come with a separate red central dot, the white isn't dense enough. Now this isn't a problem when applying the roundels over a uniform background, be it dark (top colour) or light (bottom colour), but it certainly is a problem when appying them over a demarcation line, as is the case here with the fuselage roundels: said line mercilessly shows through! Shock, horror, what to do? As luck would have it I had in my spares box two roundels from an Airfix F.3 Lightning which were exactly the same size, so I just overlaid them. Problem solved!


© Paulo Ivo Teixeira 2007

Accuracy:

Overall shape ok, many details such as antennas missing. Cannon muzzles provided as decals! Main undercarriage legs not accurate.

Conclusion:

This kit is marketed as skill level 1, which nicely sums it up: it is VERY easy and presents no difficulty whatsoever. The more advanced modeller will want to fill a few hairline gaps and even out a few steps, but it looks good even if you don't, so even an absolute beginner can put it together and be happy with the result. Recommended to all - I actually bought it on an impulse, looking as I was for an easy build to offset the disappointment of repeatedly failing to win a Matchbox Buccaneer on eBay (which I subsequently won, and hope to review on SMAKR sometime).

References:


© Paulo Ivo Teixeira 2007

 

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