More plane buildage

My kit-building for display has continued to proceed slowly and I've recently completed another two 1/72nd scale jets.

First up is this British Aerospace Hawk in Red Arrows colours by Revell.

This kit is a bit of pig. As well as the instructions being a bit vague in places, following them as written will lead to you gluing on half a dozen parts that make it impossible to then apply the decals!

At one stage I nearly binned it but in the end I decided to get it sufficiently finished to go into the display cabinet at least until I manage to build a better one. I may go for the Airfix version but not until I've had a chance to recover from this one!

Next we have the Armstrong Whitworth Seahawk from Airfix.

This mould dates back to 1959. I've wanted to build one for years, ever since I obtained an ex-lending-library copy of Airfix Magazine Guide 16 - Modelling Jet Fighters. 

The original plan was to improve the kit as per the guide and build it as an Airwork Services Limited target tug; it would look so cool in all black! In the end, however, I couldn't source the necessary markings so I decided to build it as a West Germany Marine Mk101.

The improvements involved replacing the over-thick undercarriage doors and underwing pylons (the latter requiring moving too), drilling out the cannon ports, adding cartridge ejection chutes, and adding the aerial and radar fairing to the rear fuselage. I also added some scratch-built cockpit detail but you can't see it through the canopy.

The Seahawk was much more enjoyable than the Hawk. If I found another one going cheap I'd certainly buy it with a view to making a Fleet Air Arm example.