The best of British

Four cockpits, three the same, but the fourth is a Hawk 100, so a glass-cockpit. Unfortunately, the decals are a bit to big for the panels, but you won't see much of it. 

Cockpits and fuselages 

Cockpits and nose-wheel glued in place. When I wanted to glue the part between the front and rear cockpit in place, I found out that I glued the cockpit of the Mk 100 too much to the rear. Fortunately, it was possible to open up the fuselage without damage. 

The fuselages are ready, The ones with the red intakes are of the first Hawk and the Red Arrows, the black ones are the last Hawk, which is now at Boscombe down and a Hawk Mk 100. 

This Hawk is the reason for my little project. We saw this Hawk at Boscombe and my wife liked it very much. So I was very happy to find a kit of this plane in the shop at Boscombe! It was a kit for Airfix members, containing the first and the last of this Hawk. Back home again, I discovered I also had a Hawk Mk 100 and a Red Arrows Hawk, so now I'm building all for of them.
 

Made some progress on the Hawks. They have a detonation cord in the canopy which blows the canopy to pieces when the pilot needs to eject. I wanted to add these and I'm quite pleased with the result. I used a wash for it and removed the excess. It's best to be seen on the white planes 

And then I had a problem, The instructions indicate that the screen between the front and the rear cockpit should be somewhere in front of the rear panel. Of course, this is ridiculous but I discovered it should go right behind the first seat. 

And then the next problem. I had an Eduard masking set, but it turned out to be incorrect. The space between the front and rear part of the cockpit is much too wide and it sits far too far to the rear. Probably because of the mistake Airfix made, So this meant some real handwork, making my own masks 

So as you can see the primer is on and they are ready for the final paint: two easy ones. red and black, the other two a bit more complicated.
 

When I'd painted the black Hawk, I wasn't sure about the strip on the canopy. On all the pictures I have and on the internet it wasn't clear how the glass-shield between the cockpits fitted to the canopy, So I sent an email to the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection. Ron Fulton replied quickly and explained how the shield is fitted. I imitated it with some small strips of Tamiya flextape. 

The finished model 

The beautiful tail 

The canopy with the white sealings and the detonation cord. I made this by putting wash on the inside. Airfix made a shallow engraving on the inside and with a wash this filled nicely. 

The left side, which had a small error. The white telephone should me pointing downwards, so I probably mirrored the decal. But only if you know the real plane, you won't notice it. 

The second model, ready for some airbrushing 

And then, trouble in paradise! The decals are horrible, they fall apart, sometimes when cutting them, sometimes when applying them and sometimes even when they have been applied 

Fortunately there was a fellow modeller from England who sent me free of charge not one, but even two sets.
Alas, the problem was not limited to my kit, but the other two sets were not much better. But with a lot of patience and sometimes using three decals, she's getting properly dressed!  

And the result so far. All the large decals have been applied and some microsol has been used to force them into place. Still a lot of touching up to do and the engine intakes have to be painted, but I have regained faith that the result will turn out alright.
 

And suddenly the project is finished! Not with some difficulties. The decals for the underside should go over the flap-actuators. But how can you make from a flat decal a 3D decal? Using a lot of set? No success. So cutting the decal into pieces, making it fit as good as possible and then paint the actuators. And the result is fine! 

Finished! Oh yes, this was the kit that gave me the most trouble. The decals were hopeless. And if you look closely, you see that the decals are not perfect, but ok, it will do. 

This one didn't give much trouble. I bought Humbrol Red Arrows paint and this suited this kit as well. Is this kit perfect? No, the black on the instrument panel was too short and I discovered this after I'd glued the cockpit in place. So I decided to make the frame a little wider, so you only see the white paint when you look at it from the top. And the red on the starboard side is better than on the port side. But you only see the difference when you compare it. So I'm really pleased with this kit 

And this was the reason for this project. My wife saw this Hawk at the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection and fortune favoured her: the Airfix special edition was for sale in the shop. It didn't give many difficulties, only the frame of the canopy was a bit of a mystery. Airfix made a mistake with the place of the blast window and Eduard copied this error, so the mask was incorrect: too far to the rear. I sent an e-mail to the museum and Ron Fulton was so kind as to explain the function of the various seals. I also added the detonation cord, which blasts the canopy away to make egress possible. Airfix made this engraved in the canopy. I filed it with a wash and removed the excess paint and this gave a nice representation of the cord. So this kit is the best of the series!  

And this was a bonus aircraft. A Matchbox Hawk which I built somewhere in the 80s. It was painted Humbrol clear red and this is clearly different from the Red Arrows red.
But I decided the canopy could do with an upgrade. So I added the cream seal over the canopy. The canopy is made up of two parts and they are connected with a seal. Along the edges of the canopy there are white seals and I added these as well. Unfortunately this canopy had no detonation cord so it looks a bit more simple.