Aircraft history

If I were to write an even half-decent 'potted history' of the Hawk, then I think this review would be twice as long as it actually is. With production likely to continue until at least 2010, the Hawk is one of the great success stories of the UK Aerospace industry. In fact, it may be the last major military aircraft to be designed almost wholly in the UK, such are the industry trends.

The Project

This is one of those projects of which I can say "... it seemed like a good idea at the time". Having only ever built one Hawk kit - the Matchbox single-seater kit over 20 years ago - I decided it was high time to put matters straight in a big way. In addition to the kits actually reviewed here, I also planned to review both the Matchbox Hawk 200 and Italeri Goshawk kits, both of which I had in stock. However, on closer examination I realised that the Matchbox Hawk 200 kit is just too poor, even though it was issued at a time (1987) when Matchbox were releasing some really good kits. The Italeri Goshawk kit also got the thumbs down, as I found out it was too far removed from the final production standard aircraft.

That left two ... or three ... or four kits, depending on your viewpoint. I built the Airfix kit twice, for reasons that I will shortly explain. For review purposes, it really has to count as just one kit. I also built the Revell kit (actually Italeri, as most people will know), and the modified Italeri tooling of the Hawk 100. I built the two Airfix kits mostly in parallel, followed by the Revell kit, and finally the Italeri kit. Even with some overlap, the whole project still took several months to complete, and the review has taken some weeks to complete, partially because I was just too busy building other kits. I did not build any kit as one of the Red Arrows. I may yet do a review of one or more kits in the Red Arrows scheme, but not in the near future.

In this particular review article, I will cover each kit in a self-contained piece, although the two Airfix kits will require some fancy footwork. I will then discuss (comparative) accuracy and other related items for all the kits in a separate section.

Airfix T.1/T.1A 'Red Arrows' Hawk

This kit dates I believe from 1976, and there is a 'H.S. 1182' stamp on the transparency sprue. This suggested to me that the kit is based on the prototype, and some recent research has proven that this is actually the case. If I had taken the time to look closely at the kit last year, I might have come to this conclusion a lot earlier. I might not then have ordered three additional kits to go with the kit I bought in the early 1990's. The current boxing covers three subjects:

• The 'Red Arrows' Hawks, based at RAF Scampton in 1995. Following normal practice, markings for the full team (10 including a reserve) are provided.
  
  
• A Hawk T.1A (XX350) of RAF 74 (Reserve) Sqn. from No.4 Flying Training School, based at Valley in 1995. This aircraft carries the contemporary 'tactical' training scheme of Medium Sea Grey over 'Barley' Grey.
  
  
• A Hawk T.1A (XX288) of RAF 208 (Reserve) Sqn., also from No.4 Flying Training School, and also based at Valley in 1995. This aircraft is painted gloss black overall.

The older boxing that I had included options for the Red Arrows, and for a T.1 (XX198) of 79 Sqn., 1 Tactical Weapons Unit, based at RAF Brawdy in 1979. This subject has the earlier 'tactical' scheme of Dark Green and Dark Sea Grey applied in a 'wraparound' camouflage scheme. There was, of course, at least one other boxing prior to this. The first boxing of the kit would have had no Red Arrows option, but would certainly have included the red/white/grey RAF trainer scheme still used in the 1970's.

The kit has 95 parts, and I suspect that it has never been modified from the first release all those years ago. One thing that has change is that the lurid red plastic used in the 1990 boxing has been (thankfully) replaced by standard issue light grey. The mold is still in very good condition, featuring standard Airfix delicate raised panel lines.

The reason why the kit has so many parts is because of the generous stores options: 5 x 1,000 pound GP bombs, 4 x Matra 68 mm rocket pods, 2 x 100-gallon (UK) tanks, plus of course the centreline 30 mm cannon pod. From this, you would be right to guess that the kit comes with provision for two pylons under each wing. For RAF subjects, this is a no-no. Although the H.S. 1182 was designed with five pylons (including the centreline), the RAF aircraft do not have provision for the outer wing pylons. The fact that the kit includes them is further evidence of it being based on the prototype. Even in the current instructions, you are told that you can use all pylons, and this is just plain wrong.

The current instructions are quite comprehensive in terms of the detailed painting instructions, which are of course given only as Humbrol codes. The current decal sheet is also much more extensive in terms of stencil detail and other coverage, although as we shall see, quality is a separate matter entirely.

I decided to build the first kit with wheels up, armed with under wing rocket pods and the centreline gun, and painted in the old green/grey scheme. The second kit was of the all-black aircraft. It was built with wheels down, and armed with the gun pod and under wing Sidewinders, the latter being taken from the Italeri/Revell tooling along with the launch rails. The Airfix kits would reciprocate by supplying some bombs for the Italeri Hawk 100. The addition of the Sidewinders made the second kit a T.1A, which is what the Airfix instructions say it is - remember that only about half of the RAF T.1's were converted to the T.1A standard.

The Airfix kits were the easiest to build, in that I encountered no major engineering problem worth mentioning at any point. That is not to say that there were no lesser problems, for there were a number of those. There were also issues to do with the kit representing the prototype version. To convert to T.1/T.1A standard, I had to make the following alterations:

• The airbrake/ventral fins area had to be remodelled. In the Airfix kit (and presumably the real prototype) the two rear ventral fins are integrated into the airbrake unit. On production aircraft, the fins are positioned slightly outboard from the airbrake, and are larger than the integral fins. The integral fins were easily removed, and new ones created from plastic card using the Italeri/Revell fins as pattern parts.
  
  
• A leading edge wing fence was added to each wing.
  
  
• Two small leading edge protrusions were also added to each wing. According to reference diagrams, these are airflow spoiler strips.
  
  
• The Airfix kit does include the instructors' transparent windshield which is positioned between the two pilots. However, there is no frame marking on the canopy to correspond to this, so I hand painted the frame myself. The lack of the frame detail is more evidence (as if any more were needed) of the prototype origins of this kit.
  
  
• I added a dorsal fin behind the cockpit, between the ram air intake scoops and the ram air exhaust vents. Not all T.1's have this fin, and perhaps I should not have added it to the older subject, given that it dated back to the late 1970's.
• I also added a number of ventral fins underneath the cockpit.

Among the possible alterations that I did not make was the addition of vortex generators on the outer wings surfaces - these are just far too small in 1/72 scale.

It is worth looking at a few areas of the kit in more detail. The cockpit area has unusual sidewall detail, but it does not in any way resemble actual sidewall or panel instrument detail that one would expect to see in an aircraft such as this. The same sort of detail is found in the nose wheel bay. When I was assembling the cockpits, I suspected that the rear seat was too far forward. This was later confirmed when the time came to cement the pilots to the seats. I had to butcher the back seat pilot, taking off his legs well above the knees. The front seat pilot does have his legs cut off below the knee in true Airfix fashion, but even this would not have been enough for the back seat pilot. Instrument panel decals are provided in the current boxing, but they were not a good match shape-wise for the actual instrument panels, which is hardly a first. The current instructions call for the cockpit to be painted mainly Humbrol 165, which is RAF Medium Sea Grey. I had misgivings about whether this colour was correct, as I would have expected a plainer shade of grey. However, both the Italeri and Revell instructions seemed to agree, albeit using different paint standards. In the case of the older kit with it's red plastic, it required three coats of Hu 165 to finally cover up the red. A final observation on this part of the kit is that a Red Arrows subject would only have one pilot, not two as suggested by the instructions.

I just need to mention two areas in relation to the airframe assembly. Firstly, it was difficult to get the tail planes in the correct position. I had to resort to using small plastic card inserts to help keep the units firmly in position while the glue was drying. Secondly, I couldn't work out a suitable orientation for the airbrake using the extension jack and attachment points provided, so I just decided to leave it closed on both kits.

I encountered no problems with the undercarriage assembly on the 'wheels down' kit, so I will leave the matter of the level of detail in this area until later, when I will compare the basic kit molds in this and other areas. I should mention at this point that the wheel bays and doors were painted the prescribed Hu 166, this being a match for RAF light grey (BS627).

Each of the stores pylons has two drill-out locating holes in the lower wing, or fuselage for the centreline pylon. You may decide that you want to fit the outer pylons, perhaps if you want to model the five-pylon prototype version, or some export version with the same capability. If you do, then note that the pylons are fitted beneath large under wing fairings. Rather than trying to drill the rear locating holes through here, it would be much easier to simply remove the rear locating pins from the pylons.

For the T.1A aircraft, I used the basic Airfix pylons - it would not helped much if I had used the Italeri/Revell pylons, as neither they nor the Italeri kit instructions offer any help in the positioning of the launch rail relative to the pylon. The same applies to the positioning of the Sidewinders themselves on the launch rails. In both cases, I had to study photographs very closely to divine the correct positioning - praise be to airliners.net! The Sidewinders themselves are quite interesting, but that issue is best left until the Italeri and Revell kits.

The overall gloss black finish required Hu 21, which when painting by hand is best applied slowly and steadily to ensure that only one coat is needed. The thick consistency of the paint means that two coats would obscure the lightly raised detail.

The two decal sheets clearly illustrate how Airfix decals have changed over the past few years. The newer decal sheet has much greater coverage in terms of stencilling and other details. The decals are also thinner, and in this case at least are quite resilient. This latter quality is no trivial matter when you have to apply around 100 decals, many of them tiny and indistinct to the human eye. The new decals definitely fall down in the area of register. In the case of the roundels for the all black T.1A subject, it was not enough to have the red central dots as separate decals. The white surround on the outer blue circle/white centre decals was well out of register, suggesting that Airfix should have done what it subsequently did with the Dominie kit, which is to use three decals for each roundel. This is what I effectively had to do here, by taking a second set of roundel decals from one of the other decals sheets. By overlaying one roundel on top of another, I managed to produce roundels that actually looked correct, on top of which I then added the red centre.

© Kevin Ronayne 2005

The last step in the process was to coat the decals in gloss varnish for a uniform finish. That was not the end of this decal sheet however, as it would surface again with the Hawk 100.

For the old tactical camouflage scheme, Airfix suggest Hu 117 (dark green) and Hu 27 (medium grey) which implies a matt finish. The 'standard' paints for this RAF scheme would be Hu 163 (BS641) and Hu 164 (BS638) for a satin finish, and although Airfix have suggested this in other kits, this is one of several deviations from this standard by the company. I stayed on the straight and narrow and used Hu 163 and Hu 164, but I did apply an overall coat of XtraColor matt varnish once the decals had been applied.

The old decal sheet for the 1979 aircraft was much simpler, although there was an issue with the under wing serials (XX198). The orientation is presumably the norm for RAF aircraft - starboard serial facing forward and port facing to the rear. However, the painting and decal placement guide does not show these markings at all, so the exact positioning is a matter of conjecture. Of course, with the under wing pylons and flap hinges already in place (D'oh!), some surgery is required.

© Kevin Ronayne 2005

One point worth mentioning here is that I painted the canopy framing gloss white on both kits, but the Revell instructions (and some other resources) suggest a very light cream/beige colour might have been better.

Revell 'Red Arrows' Hawk/Hawk 66

I do not know if this is a genuine Italeri mold, or a cooperative tooling with Revell. It is unquestionably an Italeri mold, but that does not mean that Revell were not involved. At any rate, the Revell boxing - like the Airfix - is currently readily available. So much so that when I decided I wanted to build this kit, I was able to go out and buy it 'off the shelf', which is something of a novelty for me nowadays. The kit is cheaper than the Airfix kit at about STG £4/6 Euro, which is roughly the same as what an Italeri boxing would cost. Molded in a marginally less lurid shade of red than the old Airfix boxing, the kit features crisp recessed panel lines. The detailing is not quite 'state of the art', but is extremely good by Italeri standards. This kit was first issued by Italeri in the early 1990's.

Decals are included for the entire Red Arrows team for the 2000 season, with the special '2000' marking on the fin, as shown in one of these pictures from the box side:

The one thing you do not get in either this kit or the Airfix kit is a proper smoke unit for the Red Arrows aircraft, although the box art for both kits shows this. Instructions are included in this kit on how to produce such a unit, but this simply involves cutting off the visible gun barrel from the gun pod. This is complete nonsense! I will leave it at that, as this is not a 'Red Arrows' review. The other subject - which is what I was building - is a Swiss Hawk 66, painted in the 'old' red/white/grey RAF scheme. External stores for the Swiss aircraft are a centreline gun pod and a choice of Sidewinders and 100-gallon tanks for the under wing pylons. Like the RAF T.1's, the Swiss Hawks only have one pylon per wing.

The construction guide includes very detailed painting instructions, including specific variations for the two subjects. Of course, since the colours are given as Revell paints only, some translation is required to get to RAF-standard colours.

Surprisingly - given that this is a much newer kit - this was a more onerous build than the Airfix kit. Although the parts fit is generally quite good, there are some annoying shortcomings. In the cockpit area, there were a number of fit problems, the last and worst of which was when I tried to fit the bird strike windshield. This was an absolutely horrendous fit, which could only be rectified by wielding the knife in various areas in an attempt to adjust the angle at which the windshield would be positioned. Despite all of this, the cockpit area looks generally superior to that of the Airfix kit, with realistic-looking side panels, control sticks and ejection seats. No instrument panel decals are supplied. The cockpit interior was again painted Hu 165, and again it took several coats to cover up the red plastic.

Other slight fit problems with the kit included the fuselage halves, the wing/fuselage join, the intake units/wing root join, and the nose undercarriage doors. These all helped to drive the 'filler index' up quite a bit, as did the need to fill in the pre-drilled wing and centreline pylon locating holes, and the holes on the main undercarriage doors. These are locating points for the main undercarriage units, but they have to be filled in for a wheels-up model. Initially, I was going to build a 'wheels down' model, but I changed my mind. This is no reflection on the kit. I just decided halfway through that I wanted to build one completely 'clean' Hawk. For the same reason, I did not fit any stores.

In common with other Italeri toolings, the main undercarriage doors are supplied as single parts. These are applied 'as is' when building a 'wheels up' model, but have to be cut up into their component parts if the undercarriage is going to be down. For anyone who wants to deploy the undercarriage, note that there is no detail in the main wheel bays, and that you will have to sand down three-digit numbers that have are stamped (in reverse) on the underside of each upper wing.

The kit includes parts for the two airflow spoiler strips on each wing leading edge, as well as a wing fence for each wing. There is a question as to whether there should be three additional small fences on each wing inboard of the main fence, ala the 'combat' wing. No such parts are provided in the kit, and I will return to the whole issue of wing fence configurations later. Unlike the Airfix kit, the vortex generator 'teeth' are included on the upper wing surface. The kit not include a separate part for the rear ventral airbrake, and the panel line detail which depicts it is not very convincing in my opinion.

© Kevin Ronayne 2005

Without no external stores or undercarriage to deal with, I was able to move quickly on the painting. For the light grey inner wing sections, I used Hu 166, - RAF light grey. The red areas were painted with Hu 174, which is RAF 'Signal Red' (BS537). This is a markedly different colour from the Revell 330 'Fiery Red' suggested in the instructions for both subjects. However, it is the colour suggested for the Red Arrows in the current Airfix kit - the older instructions suggested the 'generic' gloss red Hu 19. After going carefully over all my colour resources, I am happy that Hu 174 is correct, or as near correct as makes no difference. Incidentally, my choice of colours meant that I ended up with three different finishes - gloss (Hu 22 white), satin (Hu 166) and matt (Hu 174). Actually, Hu 174 does have something of a satin sheen, at least in the way I applied it. The Revell paint guide is quite clear in stating that all three colours should be satin (what Revell calls silky-matt, and what others would call semi-gloss). I could have applied an all-over satin finish after applying the decals, but I didn't ... although I still could if I chose to.

Surprisingly, the decals do not offer as much coverage as those in the current Airfix kit. Other than that, they are excellent, well up to the standard of contemporary Revell decals.

© Kevin Ronayne 2005

Some additional details about the 'basic' kit will be covered in the Hawk 100 section, which is the next part of the review.

Italeri Hawk 100

This kit is based on the 'basic' T.1 mold, and therein lie a lot of problems. Some of these have been mentioned in other reviews, including here on SMAKR, but I am still going to list the most important ones before I even start to talk about building the kit:

• The cockpit is not appropriate for a Hawk 100 series, certainly not for the subjects included - a BAe demonstrator and a (probably speculative) RAAF example.
  
  
• The fuel tanks are the 'standard' 100-gallon (UK/Imperial) tanks, not the larger 130-gallon tanks. I had a pair of the 130-gallon these from the Matchbox Hawk 200 kit, but I decided not to use them for this kit. I have a strong suspicion that it is the 130-gallon tanks that are actually depicted on the cover artwork for this kit - the extra length forward of the pylon is a giveaway.
  
  
• The wing fence arrangement is correct for the 'combat' wing in a superficial sense only. On each wing, there are three fences mounted close together and a fourth much further outboard. However, Italeri have gotten the sizes all wrong. All the fences are the same size, but in fact the outer fences are not long enough, and the inner sets of fences are much too big - they are just auxiliary fences. Also, the instructions have these auxiliary fences located much too close together and too far inboard.
  
  
• The kit has all of the minor fit problems of the original mold, but some manifest themselves to a greater degree than before.

And then of course, there are the problems that are peculiar to this kit, such as the wrong paint schemes for both subjects, and the incorrect markings for both subjects. The upshot of all of this was that I decided against building either subject. Instead I built a 'what-if' kit, using the Airfix decals and colour scheme for aircraft from RAF 74 Sqn., XX350. In other words, I am depicting - approximately - what an RAF Hawk 100 series aircraft would have looked like if the RAF had ordered them say, 15 years ago. I don't know what the new RAF Hawk Mk. 128's will look like in service - the first flight only took place on July 27th 2005, and these development aircraft are currently painted in the basic 'Zinc chromate'-like primer. I don't care that I am using the serial number of a real aircraft: had the RAF actually order some 100-series aircraft way back when, then the XX350 serial might have ended up on such an aircraft - unlikely, but possible.

The decal sheet - useless, except as a source of high-quality spares.

Now we can get to the actual building of this kit. Initially, I was going to build this kit with the wheels down, but again I decided not to. Again, the decision was mainly driven by aesthetic considerations. If any aircraft deserves the nickname 'Aardvark', then it the 100-series Hawk, not the F-111. I will probably built another Hawk 100 with the wheels down in the future. Actually, I had ambitious plans to build a series of Hawk 100's in different markings and configurations, but after building this kit I seem to have lost some of my enthusiasm!

The build process proceeded in much the same way as for the Revell Hawk 66, with the same fit problems as before, only more so in some cases, as I have already intimated. The nose wheel bay doors were more of a pain this time around. Incidentally, since the doors are bulged, that suggests that the nose wheel itself should be bigger in this kit, but no such luck. The fit of some of the cockpit parts had also deteriorated compared to the original kit, even though the cockpit parts were unchanged - perhaps there was an unintended change to the fuselage halves caused by the modification of the nose area. As before, the fin/rudder is molded onto the port fuselage half. However, both the rear fuselage and fin/rudder unit had to be modified for this kit, and it shows in a poor fit between fin and starboard fuselage - more filler, please!

The suspect RAAF paint scheme, as illustrated on the back cover.

The paint/decal guide shows the SMURF units located much too far forward, but the back cover artwork, construction guide and locating holes are all much more accurate. On the other hand, the wingtip pylon/launch rail units need to be angled slightly downwards, which the paint paint/decal guide seems to show. However, the parts are designed for a flat orientation, with the units being level with the wings. I had to angle the units down by a few degrees. Actually, this slight downward orientation is quite common for wingtip AAM pylon/launch rail units.

As I was building a subject with the full seven hardpoints, I swiped a pair of spare outer wing pylons from one of the Airfix kits. These are much thicker than the Italeri inner wing pylons, and could do with a bit of thinning down. However, it was the Italeri pylons that were the real problem. Once I fitted the pylons, I realised that the attitude was all wrong - any stores fitted to these pylons would point way up in the air. I had to surgically alter the pylons to correct this. Obviously, this will also be a problem for anybody building the 'basic' Italeri/Revell Hawk kit if they want to use the wing pylons.

There is a further problem with the supplied wing pylons in that there are no locating pins for the drop tanks. There are blocks on the tanks which are presumably supposed to represent attachment points. While these make it easy to orient the tanks to point straight forward, it is hard to decide how far forward or back along the pylons the tanks should be positioned. One for the reference photos. For the outer pylons, I fitted a pair of 1,000-pound GP bombs - the pylons can certainly take that load. There should have been no positioning problems this time, as bomb and pylon both came from the Airfix Hawk. However, I had a brief 'moment' when I found that the locating pins and holes didn't match up. I quickly realised my mistake, which was that I had picked up a spare bomb from the Airfix Jaguar kit, instead of one from the Hawk kits! Actually, I now have so many spare 1,000-pound bombs from Airfix Hawk and Jaguar kits that I could probably arm my (as yet unbuilt) Vulcan with the full load of 21 bombs. Getting back to this kit, I painted the bombs Hu 163 dark green.

© Kevin Ronayne 2005

As I mentioned already, new Sidewinders were introduced in this kit, although the existing ones from the 'standard' Hawk kit are still included - they are just marked as not for use on the sprue diagram for this kit. Compared to the old units (which I used on the Airfix kit), the new Sidewinders are not an unqualified improvement. I preferred the raised body detail on the old units, compared to the recessed detail on the new parts. The new missiles have better detail on the tail fins, but lose the faceted detail on the forward fins - although the old missiles only had that detail on two of the fins anyway, presumably due to mold restrictions. The new missiles and launch rails use the groove/notch arrangement for positioning the missile on the launch rail, but I have never liked this design when it comes to something as narrow as a Sidewinder missile - the effect on the missile body is just too obvious. On both Sidewinder-armed kits, the missiles bodies were painted Hu 127 grey (FS 26375), with all other markings being hand painted.

The completed kit was painted as per the Airfix instructions, which means Hu 165 (BS637 Medium Sea Grey) over Hu 167 (BS 'Barley' Grey), with the fin and rudder painted Hu 85 black. This means an overall satin finish, but it may be that RAF aircraft actually have a matt finish.

As for the decals, it was 'more of the same' from Airfix - lots of coverage and good adhesion. However, there were again problems with register of the fin flashes and roundels, the latter being much, much harder to spot until after the decals were actually applied.

© Kevin Ronayne 2005

One thing that will be clear from these photographs is that I only fitted the 'standard' wing fences, and quite a bit further inboard than is normal. Part of the reason for this was the artistic license afforded by 'what-iffery'. It was also partly prompted by a picture of a Hawk 100 demonstrator (c.1990) with no wing fences at all ... although it did have an awful lot of vortex generators.

Accuracy and Detail

Here is an area where I could go to town, but I think I will confine myself to what I see as the most salient issues about accuracy. Some of these have already been mentioned during the build reviews, so I will avoid talking about those again if I can. The H.S. 1182 prototype origins of the Airfix kit have already been alluded to. One detail I have not mentioned before is that the Airfix engine intakes are too small. Comparing the Airfix and Italeri/Revell kits, it is practically impossible not to see the discrepancy. When I first saw this, I wasn't aware of the prototype origins of the kit, but apparently the prototype did indeed have smaller intakes than the production aircraft. Another problem with the Airfix kit is also easy to see, even without comparison: the wings are too thick. Whether or not one can live with this is a matter of taste.

In terms of general detail, the Italeri/Revell mold is way ahead, having a much greater level of panel detail, and rendered better. There are some areas where the Airfix kit has the edge: the main wheel bay detail is one, and the main wheel bay doors another. The outer main wheel bay doors are quite thick in the Airfix kit, but this is partially because they portray a level of detail that is absent from the Italeri/Revell mold. The two molds are about equal in terms of the undercarriage itself. The Italeri/Revell mold has the better detail on the drop tanks and gun pod - there is practically no detail on these parts in the Airfix kit. Also, the Airfix kit lacks the perforated detail on the gun barrel.

Some points of detail on the Italeri/Revell mold are worth singling out: the detail on the flap and aileron hinges, for example. The canopy miniature detonating cord on the roof of the canopy is other. The seats, control sticks and instrument panels are also superior, although the further the subject moves away from the 'standard' Hawk, the less accurate these areas become. This is, of course, part of the problem with the Hawk 100 kit. The nose-mounted pitot tube in the Airfix kit has a prominent bulge located near the tip, which doesn't seem to exist in any Hawk photo that I have seen.

I suspect that the wingtip lights that I have painted on my kits are too large, but I was lead into this by the fact that the Italeri/Revell lights (i.e., the markings for same) are too big. The markings on the Airfix kit seem to show smaller lights, but the markings are only on the upper wings, are very indistinct, and the instructions do not refer to them. On the Hawk 100, the wingtip pylons would probably have obscured the lights - the Italeri kit has extra lights positioned on the intakes, and it may be that these are designed to supplant the wingtip lights.

A general observation on all the kit instructions is the lack of information provided on the correct angles for the tail planes and ventral strakes. In the past, construction guides seemed to be more forthcoming about these matters than they are now. Just because the parts are better engineered nowadays doesn't mean that the kit will just fall together - some guidance in these areas would not go amiss.

Final Comments

As a result of this project, I now have a much better idea of the 'state of play' in terms of Hawk kits in 1/72 scale - I just wish it could have come at a lower cost in terms of time and effort expended! The Italeri/Revell kit is clearly the better kit when it comes to the 'first generation' Hawk. It would not have been too difficult for Airfix to design an extra sprue with some replacement parts and extra parts to cover some of the main deficiencies in its' kit, and you have to wonder why this was never done in all the years that the kit has been available, Perhaps that tells you something about how Airfix itself rates this kit, although the fact remains that it is still being sold.

I used the term 'better' when referring to the Italeri/Revell mold, as there is another option. This is the Fujimi kit, and although it is reputed to be very good, there seems to be little prospect of it being generally available in the near future.

As for the Italeri Hawk 100 kit, it is another case - like the Airfix kit - of a company 'jumping the gun'. To produce an accurate kit of any variant of the 100 series obviously requires more effort and research than Italeri were prepared to put in. What use is it if a kit is as cheap as this (the same cost as the 'regular' Hawk kit), if it noticeably flawed. At least one aftermarket company is selling an 'upgrade' kit along with the basic Italeri mold, with the goal of allowing the modeller to build an accurate 100 series kit. However, this comes at a high cost - so high that when I saw the price, any thought of investing in this solution died a very quick death.

With judicious mold design and intelligent kit engineering, it would be possible for a kit manufacturer to produce a whole range of Hawk kits covering the early 50/60 series, the 100 series and even the 200 series. The range of subject matter is also there in terms of the numbers of different operators and the variety of markings.

References