Hawker Sea Hawk

by Colin Whitehouse

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Here is the Falcon 1/48 scale Hawker Sea Hawk that I finished last year.

The kit was pretty tough as the fit of parts was not the best, but it does provide the basics to make a neat model and is an essential addition to any 1/48th scale Fleet Air Arm collection.

The hardest part of construction was getting the fuselage front and rear to blend and still retain the characteristic shape of this most attractive of the early jets. Lots of Milliput was required along the top and sides of the fuselage.

Another challenge was the intake/wheel well assemblies which are well made but are too deep, resulting in a 1/4" gap between top and bottom inner wings. I glued the vacform intakes in, then cut away most of the plastic, and took the tops off the wheel wells to make it all fit. None of this was easy but the end result was worth it.

The kit seat was used as well as cockpit tub, although the latter needed more detail.

Jet pipes were added from brass tube after all other construction was finished.

Painting commenced by pre-shading panel lines with Extra Dark Sea Grey, followed by a coat of Dark Sea Grey over Sky used for the camouflage colours. I find using Extra Dark Sea Grey for the upper surface makes a kit too dark. All paints were from the Xtra colour range.

There are no kit decals so I sourced some from Xtradecal and Modeldecal. The unusual large upper roundels are from the 1/48 scale Academy Hunter kit as these are the only ones of this size I could find. Stripes were hand painted.

This was a hard kit to build, but the only choice available in this scale. I achieved a real sense of satisfaction having completed it.

"Is there a place for vacformed kits" you ask?

No early jet collection is complete without a Seahawk but it is not likely to come from mainstream manufacturers in the current climate. So if the only way we get these kits is as vacforms, then the answer is most definitely yes!

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2002 by Colin Whitehouse
Page Created 17 July, 2002
Last Updated 04 June, 2007

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