Trumpeter’s all-new kit marks the first time the AV-8B Harrier II has been available in 1/32 scale. Light gray styrene features finely engraved panel lines, though I did notice what appears to be a slight mold defect on the sides of both fuselage halves near the front and below the vertical stab.
The kit is packed with detail, including a comprehensive Pegasus engine, separate control surfaces on the wings and the vertical stabilizer, poseable canopy, auxiliary inlet doors, speed brake, forward air dam, rear stabilators, and engine nozzles. There also is an extensive list of external stores: AIM-9 Sidewinder and Maverick missiles; two fuel tanks; a fuselage gun pod; Mk.82, Mk.117, and GBU-12 bombs; and MER and TER bomb racks. In addition, the landing gear and wheel wells are finely detailed, too.
The cockpit has raised details for the side consoles, floor, rear bulkhead, and instrument panel, and a photoetched-metal part for the cockpit rear deck.
Included is a two-sided, four-view color diagram for painting and decaling both Marine Harrier schemes, as well as a single-sided schematic for external-stores decals and painting.
Construction started with the ejection seat and cockpit. I used the kit decals for the side consoles and instrument panel; with a little setting solution, the decals conformed to the raised detail. The decal for the center lower instrument panel was not a good match for the engraved detail, but I used it anyway.
The multi-piece ejection seat looks OK, though I don’t think the photoetched-metal seat belts and shoulder harnesses are very convincing.
When it came time to glue the completed cockpit into the front fuselage halves, I noticed a gap on the left side between the cockpit side wall and the fuselage sill. It turns out that the top edge on the left side wall did not have the same angle as the fuselage, leaving a large gap at the front. I was able to correct this with some styrene sheet and strip, building up the side wall to match the right side.
The nose landing gear must be assembled and installed before the nose halves are glued together. I had to shorten Part E12 so the nose strut looked like it was weight-compressed, or the nose gear would have looked way too tall. There is a small blade antenna on the nose that was molded too far forward; it looked funny to me, so I cut off the antenna and moved it back.
Moving on to the engine and rear fuselage, I found the intake duct had four prominent ejector-pin marks that needed filling. After studying the instructions, I realized there was no way to display the completed engine, so I assembled only the basic engine components and left out all the detail parts.
The rear fuselage went together well, and I needed no filler on the seams. I found the four engine nozzles somewhat fiddly; each has two internal air vanes that must be positioned exactly right before the halves can be glued together. The completed cockpit/nose section and fuselage fit together well.
I deviated from the instructions to attach the air intake ducts: Trumpeter would have you either open or close all the auxiliary air doors on the rear of the intakes; according to my references, the top door would be opened and the bottom ones closed if the engine was not running. I posed mine that way.
The wing assembly’s fit to the fuselage was OK. There was a small step on the rear seam, but I left it that way rather than risk sanding away adjoining details. There also are two small scoops with locating pins that go on the main wing assembly, but there is no mention in the instructions to drill their locator holes. I cut off the pins and located them according to the four-view painting diagram.
I added the fuselage strakes in place of the gun pods, which were incorrectly molded with a cannon barrel in each side (actually, one side of the pod has the gun and the other side carries the ammunition). Then I assembled the weapons pylons and attached them to the wing.
I painted my Harrier with Model Master enamels according to the instructions, and I used Alclad II for the rear nozzles and nozzle blast plates. After the paint dried, I gave the model a glossy finish of Pledge Future floor polish followed by a sludge wash.
The decals performed well, settling down without any setting solution. My only trouble was they tended to stick where they landed and were quite thin and easy to tear, so I made sure I had a small puddle of water where I was going to place them and used a cotton swab to push down the decal and absorb excess water.
I used the drop tanks, even though the pylon mounting points were weirdly shaped (almost toylike) and the tanks seated too low from the pylon. I was going to mount the TER bomb racks on the middle pylons, but the molded holes in the bomb racks did not match the sway braces on the pylons (the holes were too far apart). So, I gave up and used only the fuel tanks. Strangely, the kit provides two AIM-9 Sidewinder and Maverick missiles – but there are no launch rails for them!
I saved the outrigger landing gear for last. Ensuring my Harrier sat properly on all four landing points, I ending up trimming at least 1⁄4" off each of the outrigger oleo struts, test-fitting to make sure the model was sitting properly, then gluing them into position.
I spent about 30 hours on my Harrier, a little more than normal due to fixing the cockpit side wall and trimming the outrigger struts. The finished model looks like a Harrier, but the external stores’ shapes and missing launch rails were disappointing for a kit of this caliber.