1/48 Premier Hawk converted to BAe Hawk Mk 107

Gallery Article by Raja Jamil Ariffin on Aug 31 2012

Malaysia National Day

 

 

Background
Originally the hawk been designed as a trainer with a weapons training capability that also could be used as a light combat aircraft ,but wasn’t really fitted for demanding combat duties. Malaysia placed an order of ten “ BAe Hawk 108’s” and eighteen “BAe Hawk 208’s” in late 1980’s, which were delivered in 1993 through 1995. 

Kit
The kit is manufactured by Premier, which I bought it couple of years ago. At the time when I built this kit, it was the only kit available in 1/48 scale where I started this model before the release of ‘Hawk 100’ by Airfix. The kit is BAe Hawk Mk 1 version. The cockpit detail is rather scarce where the control panel detail is supplied in decal and so as the undercarriage. In the near future I will build the Airfix’s kit which I bought it recently.

 

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Construction
When I opened up the box, the first thing that I noticed was the groove of the panel lines on the body ares a bit wide. So I decided to rescribe the entire panel lines. First, all the panel lines were filled with super glue, once dried I sanded it down and smoothen until satisfied. Then I rescribed all the panel lines by means of using scriber from squardron and dimo tape as guide. In order to convert this kit to Hawk Mk 208 I had to scratched build the followings:

  • Front nose – the front nose portion been removed and replaced by a plastic sheets sandwiched together to form a solid nose and cut to desire shape.

  • Hard Points – Four hard points under the wings were made from thick plastic cards and cut to shape.

  • Wing Tip Hard Points – Made from square plastic rod and cut to shape.

  • External Fuel Tank – Modified Fuel tank acquired from my spare box .

  • Vortex fins – made from thin plastic card and cut to shape.

  • Antennas – Made from plastic sheet.

Happy Merdeka Day 2012

Raja Jamil Ariffin

      

Photos and text © by Raja Jamil Ariffin