R.N.Z.A.F HARRIER G3    Speculative adaptation of the Airfix 1/ 72 scale kit.
Harrier gr3 composite.
First step interior Fuselage interior
Interior parts consist mostly of a mechanism interlinking the exhaust nozzles.
There are the intake fan details shown, a pilot and seat, but no instrument panels.
Fuselage assembly Bringing the two halves together requires aligning the internal parts on one side with the other, then getting it all together before the glue dries. .
The two forward nozzles didn't align, which required drilling out the sockets before glueing them...
The internal parts allow all the exhaust nozzles to rotate together, ideal for animating and producing images of both hover and flight.		 First step interior and other half
All together nowLots of putty used to fill gaps around underside doors... Sanded down with wet and dry to avoid dust cloud... The Fuselage was an average fit.
The wheel bay doors are far from a good fit when built with retracted undercarriage... If you like to use lots of filler, then you'll love building this with wheels up...
The top half of one of the wings is far too large and the port tail fin has a lug too large for the hole...
More filler required where the wings join the fuselage...
Back tips of WINGS and Tail fins set at 7/16ths of an inch from table top. Ordnance applied.Ordnance applied - view from above. There are several options for the ordnance carried.
As well as drop tanks for the wings and fuselage.

Like the outboard undercarrage parts, the canopy was not a happy fit.
More filler required around canopy.
Note how starboard wing is broken up more than port wing, to break up any symmetry. Painting... Flying kiwis put out several sets of R.N.Z.A.F decals. I decided on using the Aermacchi trainer set. The decals come with an illustrated, four view wrap around camouflage pattern.

The colours I used were bit of a stab in the dark, based on some old photos of Skyhawks and Strikemasters, which clearly show four colours on top ( three shades of green and one light brown ) and light grey underside...
The colours I settled for were a three colour camouflage, humbrol 86 149 and 91, in the wrap around camouflage.
( The photos also revealed that camouflage continued inside the back canopy )
With canopy, decals and varnish applied. Finishing... The decals went on well. I ended up not using any of the airfix decals, as the printing registration marks revealed an obvious, severe misalignment of the colours.

All the decals used were from the flying kiwis set.
The fuselage insignia included the 14 squadron diamonds either side of the roundel. They were slightly too long for the position I wanted to place them.
So I had to remove the diamonds.
Four 'No step' decals went on top of the fuselage.

Micro flat was brushed on the next day, giving a glossy finish, which in a few weeks should come up looking a bit flatter.
Kiwi insignia.... With canopy, decals and varnish applied.

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