http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/56.page JForum - http://www.jforum.net
Of course I've decided to complicate matters for myself, because... reasons.

I chose 1/144 because space is a real premium for me at the moment, so 1/72nd or larger for late-20th century jets onwards is just going to take up too much space. The subject of my second foray back into model making is going to be an Operation Granby (Desert Storm to everyone outside the UK) Tornado, probably the iconic British aircraft of that campaign (Although I plan to do a Jaguar and possibly a Buccaneer at some stage). At this stage I've spent far more on the kit, figures and decals than a similar kit in a larger scale would have cost though.....

So to eBay, and I purchase a Revell 04040 1:144 scale Tornado GR-1, the box art depicts a Luftwaffe plane but I know thanks to some checking on Google that decals are in there for an RAF variant too. At this stage I know the RAF decals aren't going to be theatre correct and have already ordered one of the Kitsworld replacement sets, before the kit has arrived I've also ordered a set of pilots from Shapeways. I'm also aware it's an older kit, dating back to the early 90s or late 80s, but it's not that expensive and I'm not that confident in my abilities yet, so it's probably the appropriate level for me (Basically I'm saying it's still a better kit than I can probably paint).

As a preface, I mentioned that this is my second attempt, I've also bought a Tornado kit via eBay and China. It was a genuinely pretty poor kit, there were big gaps which needed filling with glue, but that was only really possible because of the scale and the decals that came with it lacked sufficient roundels and had a noticeable mistake (The nose-art read MiG Adhir rather than MiG Eater), I'm also pretty confident it's an F-3 rather than a GR-1. That said, it still was pretty good value for money IMO because it was a cheap buy and gave me a chance to practice with pretty much no consequence. In any case I built it without external stores so it still looks like it could have been a GR, maybe, sort-of... It's at least recognisable as a Tornado, and I learnt some important lessons.

This however brings me to the first of the problems with the Revell kit. Whilst it comes with a range of external stores, noticeably lacking are the long range tanks and either of the twin Skyshadow ECM pods that were typical of the Granby Tornadoes, and they're damn near impossible to find in this scale. So until my scratch building skills improve, I'm back to the same options as my Chinese kit and leaving the hardpoints blank.

That said, the quality out of the box is so much better, even on a relatively elderly kit. I'm still not a fan of the idea of using heat to connect parts (I can recall doing this on warships in the late 80s too), but it seems like it was popular at Revell at the time, and it's used to link the wings together. At this stage I'm using a mix of the paint instructions that came with the kit (Which were pre-Gulf War RAFG and Luftwaffe schemes, but the decals seem good quality), a much larger scale set that I downloaded (Legally and freely) from Revell and the Kitsworld 3-Views that come with their decals. The cockpits were basically unchanged, so I can go with the more detailed set and work realistically with what I can actually see in the smaller scale set. The cockpit seats whilst reasonably detailed have suffered from a bit of mould slip. It's a tiny fraction of a millimetre, but at this scale it's painfully obvious and the seats leaned obviously to one side. On dry-fitting the fuselage sections there are also a couple of noticeable gaps which will need filling.

Pics to follow. To be honest they're mostly for my benefit/motivation, but feel free to comment with any constructive criticism.

]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/773193/10390286.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/773193/10390286.page GMT