Review and photo build of Airfix’s “First & Last” boxing of the BAe Hawk in 1/72 scale. This is a twin pack boxing of the same aircraft (XX154) in two schemes. The “First” is the red, white and grey scheme when it entered service, the “Last” in a gloss black with golden tail art.
Review and photo build of Airfix’s “First & Last” boxing of the BAe Hawk in 1/72 scale. This is a twin pack boxing of the same aircraft (XX154) in two schemes. The “First” is the red, white and grey scheme when it entered service, the “Last” in a gloss black with golden tail art.
This is a kit that was available to members of the Airfix Modellers Club during 2022. Actually, it’s two kits, the box containing two bags. I believe that the kit itself is that used for the RAF Red Arrows Hawk used in the Airfix Starter Sets – though I haven’t made one of those so it’s just a (logical) assumption on my part! 😉
Each kit is spread over three sprues (plus a sprue for the clear parts), and is moulded in grey styrene. The panel lines are recessed. It’s not the finest moulding I’ve ever seen, but is perfectly adequate and should take a wash well. Hawks are relatively ‘simple’ aircraft, though I did feel that some refinement may have been lacking.
The build process was relatively simple with no real issues. A little bit of sanding here and there to remove join lines down the length of the fuselage, but no major gaps or pieces not fitting.
It does feel as so the cockpit it lacking detail, and the large canopy makes this visible. It should be noted that the canopy can only be posed on the closed position, unless the modeller wants to carefully work with a razor saw to separate it into parts. With only one pilot figure per kit the rear seat does look bare, so I fashioned some harnesses from flattened lead fishing wire.
Wheel wells do have some detail, but I was planning on displaying inflight so closed them up, though I should have taken a little more care to ensure the doors were sat flush before the glue had dried.
As mentioned the kit went together well. Only a little filler was needed in places, and I the intake cowling did require a little sanding to ensure smooth lines. This meant a little res-cribing was need to re-establish some areas where panel lines were fading due to the sanding. But it was no big deal and part of the course of modelling.
I’m not a fan on painting figures, especially in 72nd scale so always seem to rush and not wait for the paint to dry before loading the brush with the next colour. However a coating of Tamiya Dark Brown Panel Line Accent helped highlight the moulded detail and cover the worst of my painting attempts.
The canopies were attached with PVA based glue and left overnight with elastic bands to ensure a tight fit and minimise gaps. Once dry the (masked) canopies had a spray of black, before the models were primed used MRP Primer. I felt as so the finish of the primer was not smooth enough, especially as they would be having gloss finishes, so used a polishing stick to smooth it.
The paints used were all MRP for both models.
The “First” was painted with white on the back, and the inner halves of the wings light grey. These areas were masked for the Signal Red. This was done with multiple coats, but seemed to have an orange tone to it – but once masking was removed and a the model given a coat of varnish this effect disappeared and the Signal Red was more solid.
The “Last” did not require any masking, and received several coats of Super Gloss Black. However, the finish wasn’t as Super Gloss as I had hoped, so both aircraft received a couple of coats of MRP Gloss Varnish.
Decals were applied and went well, though the “First” was a lot simpler than the “Last”. Not because of the larger decal on the tail, but because of the sheer quality of stencils needed for the later aircraft.
Both received a panel line wash. For the red/white/grey I opted for the Tamiya Dark Brown wash again. For the black one I made a grey wash using some black and white oil paints diluted with artist’s white spirit. The deep panel lines and gloss varnish meant the washes worked well and excess was easy to clean away, leaving a ‘clean’ model.
Two pieces of styrene rod were inserted into a wood base, allowing the aircraft to be display in a dynamic fashion.