This
is my Airfix 1/48 BAe Hawk Mk.53 in Indonesian Air Force’s early
South East Asia
marking (1980 to mid 1990s). Now all of the Hawk Mk.53 sports 2 tone grey color
and no longer served under training squadron.
The
1/48 scale Hawk was one of the surprises Airfix brought to us modelers. Although
the model features recessed panel lines, raised cockpit panels, optional dropped
flaps, etc, the model itself is not a model I was dreaming of. It has grainy
plastic surfaces, the lines are not sharp, and it has some errors on the
undercarriage doors. I thought Airfix would give us a model at the same quality
as their 1/48 Lightning kit. Pity, simply because Hawk is one of the best
trainer aircraft in the world, and also it is a British aircraft.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
Construction
began at the cockpit as usual, along with nose wheel housing which both was
sandwiched between the fuselage-half. I used supplied ejection-seats and the
only modification I did was adding seat-belts. I cut the flaps from main wings
which left a very thick trailing edge on each wing. I didn’t thin them at all
as I thought it would be well-hidden after the flaps were installed. Later I
discovered that I was wrong!
All
construction went-on; the fitting was, again, not the kind of new tool model I
was expecting. Some filling and sanding here and there required. When finally
the time installing the flaps came, I found that the inner flaps were too long
for Mk.53 and must be cut.
I
modified the Hawk’s drop tanks as well because the ones we use have cropped
back-ends.
For
TNI-AU Hawk Mk.53, I used Tamiya XF-59 Desert Yellow, Model Master FS34102 and
FS34079 for upper surface area and MM FS36622 Light Grey for underside. I mixed
the color for the yellow-orange training identification band on fin top and wing
tips.
Model
Alliance Worldwide Hawk decal was used for training squadron badge and serials.
I had to use Scale Nutz decal for the Indonesian pentagon as the ones MA
supplied have their red color of the pentagon too thin. Stencilings were again
from MA Hawk stencil sheet and “TNI-AU” letters on wings were from Carpena
decal.
Final
construction then was installing tiny navigational lamps, antennae, etc after
sprayed the whole model using Gunze’s Flat Coat.
Now,
after finishing this one, I still have 2 more Hawk 100 waiting.
One will be converted to -200 series and both will be in Indonesian
marking too…
Alex
Jakarta, Indonesia
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
|
|