Construction…
Revell`s 1:32 Hunter (FGA.9/Mk.58 and F.6) is a well known kit and has been around for a few years with several re-releases. The latest is the FGA.9/Mk.58 but you can still find the F.6 around for a good price. Talking of good prices, even new, this kit is an absolute bargain coming in at around the £23 mark (Nov 14). General moulding quality is good but the surface detail is a little soft; the decal sheet is of high quality and very comprehensive and it builds up very nicely without any real vices. I would say it`s only weakness is the rather basic cockpit and in particular the ejection seat but this is easily remedied with the resin cockpit/seat replacement from True Details.
I have built the F.6 before as a 4FTS aircraft at RAF Valley and Geoff has done the very nice Fisher T.7 conversion and I always said I would do another but it was finding the time and right subject – unfortunately I found a picture that not only found one subject but three!!
In my `stash` I had an F.6, a FGA.9 , the Cammett `Miss Demeanour` paint/decal set and a Fisher T.7 conversion along with an old Xtradecal set that covered the all black subject and a 12Sqn wrap around camo aircraft. These combined with a re-released FGA.9 from Revell gave me all the `bits` I needed to recreate this picture in miniature so which one to start on – well it had to be `Miss Demeanour` didn’t it !!!!
I opted to initially use the F.6 kit as it was to hand but this turned out to be the wrong choice but that was easily rectified later on. Also for this build I decided to use the True Details cockpit but for the all black F.6 I`ll do it from the box so you can see the difference.
Starting with the resin replacement cockpit this was a massive improvement on the kit version especially where the seat is concerned. What you will notice about the Hunter cockpits are they are all black and trying to get some interest in them takes some work otherwise they will just become a `black hole`. The best way to do this is to spray it black first and then dry-brush dark grey to bring out the shaded areas and then further dry-brush silver in the high wear and tear areas. The switches and knobs can then be picked out with Vallejo paints and the instrument dials and placards are from Airscale decals. Everything is then finished off with a matt vanish and the instrument glass is created with Kystral Klear. The cockpit tube sits nicely in the front cockpit halves but you will have to remove all the resin moulding block from the bottom of the casting to get it in so it doesn’t interfere with the front undercarriage bay.