1/48 Airfix Tornado F-3

by Karl W Branson

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This is my model of the 1/48 Airfix Tornado F-3

I believe that Airfix had originally intended the kit to be a Tornado F-2, but this project was never finished.  Only later, when the upper fuselage part was finally re-tooled did the kit become the Tornado F-3.  This kit has raised panel lines throughout, except for the upper fuselage – and for some reason this part was tooled with engraved panel lines.  Another failing of the kit is that the cockpit is the same as the one in the GR-1 kit and thus it is nothing like the layout required for an F-3.  On the plus side, the kit has a large and comprehensive decal sheet and a number of weapon and fuel tank options.

As it's not the right layout for the F-3, I scratch built nearly the whole tub from styrene sheet, tubing and copper wire.  I replaced the kit ejection seats with some Aeroclub white metal and photo-etch replacements.

Due to the miss-matched panel lines, I decided to re-scribe the wings, tail and vertical fin; these were then assembled.  The horizontally split fuselage didn't want to align properly, so I made up some long tabs to force the fuselage halves into position and, after installing the tub, nose weight and swing wings I used CA and accelerator to fix the fuselage halves together: this filled any gaps and sped up the joining process.  When the fuselage joint had been filled and sanded smooth, I re-scribed the remainder of the fuselage so that both upper and lower parts matched.  The air intakes were also a bit of an issue as they didn't really want to fit; these were encouraged into place with lots of attention from files and sanding sticks.  

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I’d heard from others who had built this kit that the landing gear was a bit on the flimsy side, so I replaced the struts with Aeroclub white metal parts whilst retaining the kit's wheels.

I assembled the fuel tanks, wing pylons and missiles; as I wanted to be able to swing the wings and swivel the pylons, I replaced the plastic pivot points on the pylons with brass rods to make them more durable and to ensure a good solid fit in to the wing.

The Tornado was then primed with Halfords grey primer and lightly rubbed down.  I then airbrushed Humbrol #166 Light Aircraft Grey on to the lower fuselage and wings and after masking, sprayed Humbrol #167 RAF Barley Grey on to the upper surfaces, vertical fin and fuel tanks.  The nose was masked of and sprayed Humbrol #165 Medium Sea Grey.

 

Before applying the decals, I gave the Tornado a coat of Klear (Future) and allowed it to completely dry.  The kit's decal sheet is quite comprehensive and covers three squadron options, I decided to do my Tornado in No. 11 Squadron markings.  I did have some issues with the decals as a number of them broke up during application, but fortunately I had a spare decal sheet for this kit that had been donated to me, this made up for the ones I’d lost.  After the decals had been applied, I gave the Tornado another coat of Klear to seal them in and then I applied a couple of mist coats of Humbrol Matt Cote to give me the finish I needed.

Weathering was done with some dark washes for the landing gear bays and a fine 0.3mm pencil for other areas.

Enjoy.

Karl

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Photos and text © by Karl W Branson