Tamiya Sea Harrier FRS1 Falklands Deployment 1:48 – build review

Feature Article by Mick Stephen

Introduction

This is not a new kit, coincidentally it was first released in 1982 the year of the Falklands Conflict between UK and Argentina, a brief and bloody dispute that had the Harrier come of age as a combat aircraft. I don’t intend to dwell on this part of the story, nor to enter into any detail or history of the Sea Harrier itself, that is well captured by others and there is plenty of material online should you wish to research the subject.

Instead I will concentrate on the kit and the build itself.

A quick look in the box

The box art work speaks for itself, an early FRS-1 in transition to land on the deck of a carrier, with supporting Frigates or Destroyers behind.

Inside are four main sprues in gray styrene and one sprue of clear parts. This is not a high parts count, in fact quite a simple build. The plastic is of good quality and free of flash in the main and sprue gates are reasonably thin. The surface detail is primarily of the older ‘raised’ method, which we will have to consider removing and re-scribing, or make liberal use of pre-shading.

The kit has a full engine, which lacks any real detail and would be a lot of work to detail up should you choose to display with the engine exposed. The cockpit is basic to say the least and the ejection seat nothing more than an L-shaped piece of plastic. Some weapons are supplied and the external tanks and Sidewinders look ok, but the 1000lb bombs are worthless and the 30mm Aden Gun pods will need some rework to depict a half decent representation. Given the age of the kit none of this is unexpected.

The instructions are the typical exploded view format with colour call outs and stenciling/decal guide included. All are printed in grayscale.

The decal sheet in this example is badly faded over time and I won’t be using it. Instead I have got the ExtraDecal 25th Anniversary Falklands sheet, which also contains far more stencils than the kit.

The XtraDecal set comes with a full colour marking guide for all Harrier FRS1 and GR3 aircraft that were deployed in the Falklands Campaign, which also depicts the pre-deployment schemes and those for the return to UK, so plenty choice of subject available. The multi sheet colour drawings are accompanied by a complete list of all aircraft airframe numbers, pilots and kills attributed, losses are also detailed.

To enhance that bare cockpit we will add the Eduard PE set and replace the Mk10 ejection seat with one from another kit and add some PE detail.

I will now proffer my apologies in advance for the lower quality of photos, my trusty Sony ‘Point n Squirt’ has finally taken its last snap and gone to the camera shop in the clouds. Until I sort out a viable alternative, these simple iPad pictures will have to suffice.

Let the fun begin…………..as they say.

Construction begins…