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HASEGAWA 1:72 BAE SEA HARRIER FRS.1 |
Reviewer:
Kevin Ronayne (kevin.ronayne@nuigalway.ie)
Kit Review submitted:
26 April 2003
One might be forgiven for thinking that the Harrier was regarded as an obvious candidate for carrier deployment even at the development stage. When compared with the use of 'conventional' carrier-based aircraft, it must surely have been obvious that the VSTOL and STOVL designs opened up a whole new range of options in terms of carrier design and aircraft operations. As usual, nothing is quite that simple - it rarely is when one is dealing with that unholy mix: the UK government, UK Aerospace Industry, the RAF and the Royal Navy - and NATO (particularly the French) thrown in for good measure!
Brushing aside much detail, the place to start is 1961. As Hawker was developing the P.1127 (the forerunner of the Harrier), the company was also proposing a more powerful stretched version, which was finalised as the supersonic P.1154. This was in answer to a NATO requirement (NBMR-3) for a supersonic VTOL aircraft. In April 1962, the P.1154 was declared the winner, but in a fudge, the competing French design (based on the Mirage-III) was declared to be 'of equal merit'. Naturally, the French would only accept the Mirage design, and the NATO requirement process unravelled. The P.1154 was still in development for both the RAF and Royal Navy, but the latter were not helpful in that they kept insisting on more and more design differences. In 1964, the RN pulled out of the programme, and bought the conventional Phantom instead. The P.1154 was cancelled by the government in 1965, and the RAF also had to buy Phantoms. The UK Phantom experience is, of course, another story in itself!
The next development was the infamous 1966 UK government decision to cancel the proposed CVA-01 carrier design and run down the UK's fixed-wing carrier component. Following on from this, in 1968 the development of the 'through-deck cruiser' was approved. It has been suggested (or supposed) that this description was an attempt to hide the fact that these ships could operate fixed-wing Harriers! However, the truth of the matter is that the ships were genuinely designed from the outset only to operate helicopters. Years of sporadic trials had proven that there was no problem in operating Harriers from aircraft carriers, but there was to be a long wait between potential and reality. In 1971, approval was sought and given for the development of a maritime Harrier variant; in theory, this would be close to the projected Harrier GR.3 standard, with minimal difference. At the same time, the ship design naturally had to change to accommodate the Naval Harrier. Because of funding, political and general economic problems, it was not until May 1975 that the Royal Navy ordered 24 Sea Harriers.
Compared to the 'regular' Harrier design, the main change in the Sea Harrier FRS.1 (classified as a new aircraft) was the forward section. This featured a raised and redesigned cockpit, and an all-new nose with a multi-mode 'Blue Fox' radar. The FRS designation stood for Fighter/Reconnaissance/Strike, which explained the need for such a radar. To avoid corrosion from seawater, there was a change of alloys used in construction, and there were naturally a number of other differences in detail. The first production Harrier flew in 1978, with the order book now increased to 34, including 3 development/trials aircraft. Sea Harriers were to deploy on the three new carriers (in order of commission: Invincible, Illustrious and Ark Royal. However, for training purposes, the old carrier Hermes was fitted with a ski-jump in late 1979.
As everyone now knows, the modification of Hermes was to have far-reaching consequences. When Argentina invaded the Falklands islands in April 1982, the British were able to send a naval task force centred on Hermes and Invincible, both of which were equipped with Sea Harriers. Despite being on paper only a Mach-1 aircraft, the Sea Harrier was to become much feared by the Argentinians, who nicknamed it the La Muerta Negra - the Black Death. Tallies of aerial kills range from 20 to 26, most of which were achieved with the new AIM-9L 'all aspect' Sidewinder. Sea Harriers also carried out attack missions until the arrival of RAF Harrier GR.3's. Two FRS.1's were lost to ground defences, and four more in operational accidents - two almost certainly collided on a CAP (combat air patrol) mission. None were lost in aerial combat. In total, 28 Sea Harriers were used during the conflict, flying about 1,200 combat missions, most of which were CAP.
The FRS.1 eventually gave way to the FA.2 standard, which involved both new-build aircraft and FRS.1 conversions. The FA.2 features a brand new radar (Blue Vixen) in a brand new nose cone, redesigned forward wings, and AMRAAM capability. FA.2's are currently in service with the Royal Navy, but it is planned to completely replace them with RAF Harrier GR.9's in 2006 - some GR.7's already fly from the carriers. Apart from the obvious interservice politics, the Royal Navy is also presumably aggrieved at the loss of the BVR (Beyond Visual Range) defence capability of the AMRAAM-armed FA.2. The fact that there are only so many RAF Harriers to go around must also be a cause for concern.
The only export customer for the Sea Harrier was India, which operates the FRS.51 (roughly comparable to the FRS.1) and two-seat T.60 trainer versions. Sea Harriers are operated from two ships: Vikrant and Viraat. Viraat is actually the ex-HMS Hermes! Spain, Italy and the US Marines all operate 'normal' Harriers from their aircraft carriers. As a final point, it should be noted that the first of the two 60,000-tonne CVF carriers is due to enter service with the Royal Navy in 2012, and will almost certainly carry the STOVL variant of the F-35 JSF (the F-35B). So it looks as if a supersonic VSTOL/STOVL aircraft will eventually fly from a British carrier, almost 50 years after the P.1154 design was cancelled!
Note: STOVL is Short Take Off, Vertical Landing. Although Harriers can take off vertically, realistic mission loads can normally only be carried if a short take-off is employed, on either land or sea.
This kit has about 60% commonality with the Hasegawa Harrier GR.3 kit. The two kits were built at the same time. The GR.3 review deals with the construction process in detail, so only the most basic facts need be repeated here, as well as the parts that relate specifically to the Sea Harrier kit.
The Sea Harrier kit shares two main sprues with the GR.3 kit, but has a completely new sprue which includes the different front section, and different pylons and stores options. The kit has about 76 parts mostly molded in light grey, and featuring delicate but crisp engraved panel lines - normal for a mid-1980's Hasegawa tooling. The transparency sprue (canopy and windscreen) is unique to this kit. The sprues and decal sheet (which is excellent) are all packaged in a sealed bag. The box is a standard-size two-piece Hasegawa box. The box says 1999, but the instruction leaflet says 1986. As I had never seen this kit before I built it, I am not sure what changes (if any) have occurred since the original release, which was presumably around 1986. It may be that that the decal sheet and painting guide have been updated since then.
Picture from the side of the box. Note the correct shade of overall grey, compared to what is depicted on the cover artwork.
The instruction leaflet is very easy to follow with just a couple of quirks. The painting references are in the standard Hasegawa format of both Gunze Sangyo and Mr. Color, with BS381C codes for a couple of the main colours. I had few problems matching either the Gunze Sangyo codes (or BS codes where supplied) to the appropriate Humbrol colours, with just a couple of the minor colours requiring a bit of guesswork.
There are four subject options represented by this kit. They are:
Apart from the gun pods (and replacement strakes), the stores options supplied with the kit are:
An important issue is the stores configurations that are possible (or appropriate) for the FRS.1 in general, and the kit subjects in particular. I will return to this subject later. Finally, the kit retails for the same price as the GR.3 kit - STG £ 7 from Hannants, or about 12 Euro where I live.
This is going to be short and to the point. Even where the Sea Harrier kit differs from the GR.3 kit (i.e., the forward section), the issues are still the same during construction. To get a full run-down of the construction process, read the GR.3 review. However, some of the main points are:
Apart from the front section, the main difference from the GR.3 kit is in the area of stores and stores configurations. That leads us in to the next part of the review ...
Here's where it gets interesting. First things first: the AIM-9L Sidewinder was not used on the Sea Harrier until the Falklands War. One story is that the missiles were obtained directly from US Navy stocks. Another story is that the British 'dipped in' to a NATO reserve, which was then directly replenished by the US Navy. Whatever the true story, the fact is that pre-war aircraft should almost certainly only carry the AIM-9B version. Spare AIM-9B's shouldn't be too hard to find, I imagine. As for the AIM-9L missiles actually supplied in the kit: I didn't use them. The -9L introduced a new forward control fin with a distinctive kinked planform. I didn't think that the Hasegawa Sidewinders got the profile of this fin right, so I used a pair from the Airfix NATO Weapons Set. These had etched forward and rear fins. The forward fins were very accurate, but the rear fins lacked the small protrusion usually seen at the tip of the rollerons.
The Sea Eagle ASM's supplied with the kit are excellent, but there is another timing problem. As far as I'm aware, they were not operationally used until 1985 or even 1986! That brightly painted missile shown on the cover artwork represents the Sea Eagle in its development/trials colour scheme! Only or two Sea Harriers would have been used for trials with the missile, and they would most likely have been special trials/development aircraft. Even Hasegawa can make blunders ...
The 1,000 pound bombs and 100-gallon fuel tanks are OK. That leads to the next issue, which is the suggested stores options. The diagram from the instructions is self-explanatory:
Apart from the problems with the missiles, there are other stores that could be carried that are absent from this chart. It's not like Hasegawa to omit stores options from a chart just because the item isn't supplied with the kit. For example, the FRS.1 could carry the BL.755 cluster bomb. It could also carry rocket pods, although the 'standard' Matra 18/19 x 68 mm pods might be a no-no, despite being listed in various references. The Royal Navy had a different 2-inch (50.8) mm rocket pod, and it has been suggested that the Matra 68 mm pods were not used by any Harriers during the Falklands War, because there were safety concerns about storing them in the highly magnetic environment which existed on board the carriers. The FRS.1 could also carry the same centreline reconnaissance pod used on the Harrier GR.3, and let's not forget the double Sidewinder installation which was cleared in a hurry during the Falklands War, but not actually used in the conflict.
The stores diagram suggests that only Sidewinders could be carried on the outer pylons. This is nonsense. During Corporate, some early attack missions conducted by the Sea Harriers involved aircraft carrying gun pods, tanks and three bombs (centreline and outer pylons). On one mission, several Sea Harriers carried BL.755's, but at least one carried three 1,000 pound bombs. Of course, Hasegawa have molded the Sidewinder launch rails into the outer pylons, which means that some surgery would be required to represent the aircraft on these missions. A neat trick might be to swap the outer pylons with those from a GR.3 kit, as a Sidewinder-equipped GR.3 would be an interesting subject to build.
This set of mission configurations is also worthy of comment. The Air Defence option is correct. The Reconnaissance option is missing the centreline pod (not supplied with the kit ...). As for the Surface Attack option: surely if you were flying a mission with long-range stand off weapons, guns would be of little use. On the other hand, Sidewinders might be very useful (the same might also be true of the recce mission configuration). A Sea Eagle trials aircraft (XZ438, of which I have several photos) has the actual configuration shown here, but that was just a trials aircraft. If you do decide to completely omit the outer pylons, I would suggest leaving the pylon 'stubs' on the lower wing surfaces in place. One picture of XZ438 shows bumps where the pylons would be, although there is no guarantee that they are the same shape as those in the kit.
My choice was the configuration shown on the cover: gun pods, Sea Eagles and Sidewinders. The Sidewinders were Airfix Hi-Tech replacements, as mentioned earlier. For the Sea Eagles, the kit includes larger specialised launch rails attached to the inner pylons. As I was building the Falklands War aircraft (the Dark Grey XZ457 with 'kill' markings), surely I should have put the fuel tanks on the inner pylons? And didn't I say that the Sea Eagles weren't in service until the mid 1980's? The answer is 'yes' to both questions. However, I had decided to grab the fuel tanks for my Harrier GR.3, and I also wanted to model an FRS.1 with Sea Eagles. I already have a second example of this kit, and I will probably get another, and/or at least one of the ESCI kit being reissued by Italeri. I plan on building enough FRS.1's to represent a variety of subjects, both real and imaginary - I can do what I want with this one! Note: it seems that any aircraft carrying Sea Eagles in service would have featured the light grey finish which seems to have been applied to all Sea Harriers after the Falklands war.
© Kevin Ronayne 2005
The Sea Harrier was easier to paint than the Harrier GR.3 for two reasons. The first is obvious - the subject I was building had an all-over finish, compared to the wraparound camouflage of my GR.3. The second reason was the paint itself - Humbrol 123 Extra Dark Sea Grey is an extraordinary easy paint to apply. The Sea Eagles were painted completely in this colour. The bodies of the Sidewinders were painted Hu 127, which is the correct match for Gunze Sangyo 308. Although the Gunze Sangyo colour was referred to in the painting instructions, it was not included in the paint reference chart. Also missing from the chart was the dark brown colour (GS 7) specified for one of the rings on the body of the Sidewinder. Again, I was able to work out what this was - Humbrol 10. In any event, I used a decal from the Airfix weapons set for the bands. The Hasegawa instructions called for painting the nose section of the Sidewinders black, but I painted them Extra Dark Sea Grey based on the Airfix Weapons set instructions and on photographs from the Falklands War era.
The decal sheet was to the same very high standard as the sheet supplied with the GR.3 kit - excellent register, very little carrier film, and not that thick. There were less decals to apply than for the GR.3, given the 'toned down' markings of the subject I was modelling. As with the GR.3 kit, I had to carefully measure and cut the under wing roundels to fit around the outer pylons. I had the same struggle in applying some of the decals to the pylons - again, this was due to my own lack of foresight in not prepainting and decalling the pylons before attaching them to the wings. However, the ability of the decals to take some abuse and still stick fast to the surface without decal setting solutions or varnish was again evident.
As was the case with the GR.3 kit, the decal sheet is first-class.
In the GR.3 review, I remarked on how the finish of the decals was identical to that of the satin/semi gloss paint. The only real problem I had with the decals related to the main instrument panel decal, which was not quite the correct shape - basically, it was too small.
The kit (naturally) has the same minor inaccuracies as the GR.3 kit, such as the incorrect blister shapes on the gun pods. Although the canopy design is different to that of the GR.3, it still has the two openings as the rear for exhaust ducts. Thus, there is the same question as to whether or not there should be a bulkhead blocking off the rear section of the canopy.
Basic dimensional accuracy appears to be quite good at first - certainly, the wingspan appears to be just right. However, according to the Harrier SIG site (see reference below), the kit is too short by as much as a foot (30 cm) when scaled up. That would be just over 4mm for the kit. Since no comment is made on the site about the GR.3 kit being too short, this implies the problem is down mainly to the forward section of the FRS.1 kit being grossly wrong. The FRS.1 is widely quoted as having a length of 14.5 metres (14.52 according to the instructions). On the side of the box, a figure of 192 mm is given, which would scale up to only 13.8 metres. However, this figure obviously excludes the forward pitot aerial. Once that is included in the overall length - and it must be - it looks as if the kit is indeed short, although not by anything as much as a foot. It may be short by 3 or 4 inches (7.5 to 10 cm). That's my judgement, but what do I know? The important thing in my book is that it looks like the real thing, and the proportions appear to be in order.
© Kevin Ronayne 2005
I think this is a great little kit, so much so that I bought a second one before I'd finished with this one. According to the Harrier Special Interest Group (see reference below), the best FRS.1 kit is the ESCI tooling. This will almost certainly be the kit inside the Italeri Sea Harrier FRS.1 box which will be released later in 2003. If you can't wait until then, then this kit is well worth building. Apart from the excellent level of general engineering and structural detail, the quality of the decal sheet is also a major plus.
Most of my references, be they printed or from the web, were the same as for the GR.3. I am not going to apologise for rehashing most of the references from the GR.3 review. The main web references were:
One of the best sites for Harrier images on the Web is www.paulnann.com. Finding the Harrier pages can be a little tricky. It's worth looking closely at the Aircraft Make Index.
An excellent Internet source for information on the Falklands/Malvinas War is www.naval-history.net, which includes a very detailed section on that conflict.
Finally, where would we be without Urban Fredriksson's Color Reference Charts at IPMS Stockholm. Like all great references, these paint charts can sometimes be confusing and puzzling. Howver, they are still indispensable.
My main printed reference was 'The Great Book of Modern Warplanes', which is a hardback collection of ten 64-page Salamander titles issued in 1987. The section on the Harrier was written by Bill Gunston. Given the date, the Harrier II is only covered to the development stage. In a way this is good, as it means that more space is given over to first-generation Harriers. There are sections on the development process from concept to the P.1127, from there to the GR.1, the GR.3 standard, and the Sea Harrier FRS.1 story. There is also a good section on Operation Corporate. Sir Bill has always been a champion of vectored thrust and VSTOL/STOVL aircraft, and a trenchant critic of UK government policy on defence and the aerospace industry. His writing talents are wasted on 'pocket' reference texts, but his more detailed works such as this are always worth reading.
Apart from other standard references, information also came from some unexpected places. An 1984 issue of 'War Machine' magazine (published by Orbis) included an article on Harrier operations in the Falklands war, and a couple of interesting pictures which unfortunately were not up to being scanned properly. Oh well - go and get your own Harrier photographs!
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