Kinetic 1/48 British Aerospace (Hawker Siddeley) Harrier GR.3

with Black Dog resin pylons, Master metal pitot and Xtradecals decals

1(F) Squadron, Royal Air Force, Norway 1979

One of my vivid mental images from growing up in the 1980s, surrounded by models and posters of jets, is of first generation Harriers flying at low level over Norwegian snow in winter camouflage. I’m sure I had an Airfix kit in the white and grey scheme, and whilst I think the Snoopy-nosed GR.3 makes a rather pretty aeroplane an ugly one, when Kinetic released their kit back in 2020 I knew I’d be making it in this scheme.

As soon as I received the kit, I purchased Xtradecals with markings for XV778 in winter camouflage from 1979 and then approached the IPMS Harrier SIG for more information. If you’re making a Harrier, there’s one thing I can’t recommend enough: join the Harrier SIG. I was provided with way more information than I could cope with on the Kinetic kit, Harriers in general, and specifically those that flew in the Arctic over the years. It turned out to be more complicated than I imagined.

In the box, the Kinetic ‘Gold’ kit is impressive, but in the making, less so. You are given an abundance of unused parts, of which many are duplicates from earlier versions of the Harrier which Kinetic then retooled to a slightly higher standard. Aside from the fact that unused parts are never mentioned, the instructions are adequate for guiding you through your choices, and the input of the SIG is clear, but you need your wits about you to make sure the correct pylons, aerials, nose and tail are used. The moulding is less ‘Gold’ and more ‘Bronze’ with some significant mould defects in the rear fuselage (lots of scratches), a pebbly surface in some areas, ‘ghost’ recessed detail clearly inherited from previous iterations of the mould, and incomplete panel lines towards the edges of the major parts.

I prefer to make complete fuselage halves before joining to make seam removal easier. The GR.3 nose fits very nicely when done this way.
The same method was applied to the tail cap.
Towards the edge of major parts, like this fuselage half, the plastic becomes very rough and the recessed detail washed out.

Decisions need to be made early on as to which variant you want to make. Don’t be ignorant, like me, and assume the GR.1/GR.3 distinction was all about the nose and the tail – the change in designation was to do with the engine fitted, and Kinetic provide markings for a nice selection of GR.1s, early GR.3s with the pointy nose, and later GR.3s with the snout, including a Falklands option. Rather than follow the instructions, I started by grafting the nose and tail halves to their respective fuselage sides. The fit was excellent and boded well for the future. More fool me; it was all uphill from here.

Let’s start with the wings, which are probably the weakest area of the kit. After priming the parts in black and sanding the surfaces them back to remove unwelcome surface texture, the wings need modification at the tips so the upper and lower halves close correctly. Under the dog teeth on the leading edge, Kinetic have moulded some recesses which need to be filled and shaped. This is most challenging for the inboard dog tooth since the shape will depend on the join with the fuselage. There are some significant gaps on the underside where the wing meets said fuselage, which some modellers like to solve with a spreader bar, but the tension that puts the lower joint under stresses me out, so I went for plastic shims and oodles of filler instead. It’s compounded by being difficult to access due to the nozzle fairings and high-mounted wing.

A design error means some plastic, marked in brown, needs to be removed from the wing tips before the halves will close.
As is common with many modern kits, the plastic surface is pretty rough in places. I like to prime it in black and then rub down with 1000 grit Infini film. Once the primer has gone I know the surface is smooth.

You also need to relocate the wing pylon locating holes, assuming you care about such things. The outer pylons need to go outboard by around 1.5mm and rearward by about 2mm. The inboard pylons need to be moved back around 1.5mm. I had a Black Dog Harrier Update set lying around, which is reserved for a Kinetic Sea Harrier FA.2 I intend to make, but this included some RAF inner pylons that would be unused. I used them here, but did not modify the shapes of the outer pylons – those in the kit are too short. The Black Dog set has nice details, but the moulding quality is, shall we say, dated?

Kinetic got the pylon locations a little bit wrong. I reamed out new holes in the correct locations with a Godhand spin blade.
In addition to moving the pylon locating holes, I replaced the fuel jettison pipes with some Albion Alloys brass tube.

You also need to relocate the wing pylon locating holes, assuming you care about such things. The outer pylons need to go outboard by around 1.5mm and rearward by about 2mm. The inboard pylons need to be moved back around 1.5mm. I had a Black Dog Harrier Update set lying around, which is reserved for a Kinetic Sea Harrier FA.2 I intend to make, but this included some RAF inner pylons that would be unused. I used them here, but did not modify the shapes of the outer pylons – those in the kit are too short. The Black Dog set has nice details, but the moulding quality is, shall we say, dated?

Another requirement is to thin the trailing edges of the main wing parts, else the ailerons and flaps won’t fit. I find this incredibly tedious and gave up too soon.

We’re not done with the wings yet, as separate control surfaces are provided. I know most modellers love them; I just wish they were moulded neutral since that’s how I prefer my planes (unless they were always deflected when at rest, like on a Hornet). It’s not a problem if they fit well, but here they don’t: the wings are way too thick at the trailing edge compared to the ailerons and flaps. ‘Aha!’ I thought, ‘I don’t really care about that, as long as they are level on the top!’ I did put a little elbow grease into thinning the trailing edge parts until I got bored and then in my haste just glued the wing halves together. And then my error became clear: because of the step from the wing to the aileron lower surface, the actuators don’t fit. At all – and never mind the missing locating holes for the moulded pegs! I resorted to a lot of filler to smooth the actuators in, but next time I’ll just have to do it properly and thin the wings much, much more. Final additions were some brass tubing slipped over the plastic fuel jettison pipes and the wingtip lights, which are a very poor fit and thus could not be left to the end, but were blended in with superglue during construction.

The aileron actuators have pegs, but the wings don’t have holes. Just chop them off!
This is why you need to thin the wing trailing edge way more than I did: there’s a huge step the aileron actuators need to go over.
I had no choice but to use plenty of filler to hide this boo-boo.
Midway through sanding and priming, the aileron actuators look better. Not as good as if I’d thinned the wings properly though!
There are moulding errors under the wings, with recesses on the underside of the dog teeth that need filling. I’ve used filler and plastic card here.

On to happier matters. The cockpit was perfectly fine for me from the box, including the seat which was adorned with PE straps from the kit. The tub is nicely detailed and I airbrushed it a generic mid-grey (in this case Mr Color 306) and masked the panels off so I could spray them black. I did the same with the instrument panel, but used some HIQ die cut circle masks to allow the dials to be individually airbrushed. I really enjoy painting all the raised detail in a light grey colour and used some generic Airscale decals for spurious instrument gauges.

The kit seat painted black and drying brushed in grey and then white oil paint.
The cockpit was painted in Mr Color 306 and the panels masked off with Gunze die-cut masking strips to airbrush them black.
On the instrument panel HIQ die cut masking circles were used so the dials could be individually airbrushed. This is the smallest size they do (1mm).
Airbrushing complete and the seat dry-fitted in place.
The instrument panel from the kit all painted and the dials glossed with clear UV resin. Instrument dial decals are from Airscale and are the smallest on the sheet.
A view of the completed tub. The detail is simple, but the canopy will be closed.

Views of the finished tub and seat. The cushions are painted with very thin glazes of Life Color Olive Drab shades. The seat belts are provided as PE in the kit.
The main section of the rear gear bay would be invisible behind closed doors, but afforded me the opportunity to experiment with some ink-based weathering.

In addition to the cockpit, various modules need to be completed prior to joining the fuselage halves. The rear undercarriage/airbrake bay is nicely detailed, but as I was going to close the doors, it would be invisible. Nevertheless, I used it as an opportunity to practise weathering the white finish with some brown and black ink washes. The doors don’t fit well in the closed position, with nothing to mount to, so I attached each door to its respective fuselage side and backed the very fragile joint with plastic strip.

There’s not much contact area to fit the rear gear bay door shut, so I backed the join with thin strips of plastic.

If you desire moveable nozzles, you can add the mounting system now, but they fit fine from the outside anyway, so I just omitted the mechanism. The nozzles themselves are really nicely produced as single pieces, which require some clean up but I was delighted there are no awkward seams to deal with.

Kinetic mould the nozzles as one-piece items, which saves some difficult seam work. There’s quite a lot of flash, but they clean up well.

Finally, the intakes need to be addressed. This was more complicated than I anticipated. First, pay attention to the instructions and make sure the intake interiors are painted the correct colours (i.e., not white). I elected to add the intake fan part to the cockpit and then put the entire fuselage together. The fit was fairly good, but I had to use a lot of CA with filler powder and shims of plastic card around the rear gear bay doors. I also took the opportunity to remove the seam between the intake interior and the fuselage sides so no join would be visible later through the open blow-in doors.

Remember to paint the intake interiors the correct camouflage colours – they’re not white!

My focus then switched to the front intake parts, made up of the outer shells, inner linings and the separately moulded section with the doors. There were way too many gaps for my liking, so quite a lot of time was spent closing them with filler and plastic card before patiently filing it all down with files.

I wanted to neaten the intake doors and used CA with filler powder and thin plastic card to try and tidy the joints up. The results were mixed.
Contra the instructions, it’s easier to fit the intake linings now and remove the ejection pin marks and seams before adding them to the fuselage.
Checking the seam work around the doors with primer. It’s not perfect, but better than moulded.
With the fuselage together the rear gear bay doors were completely filled to be rescribed later.
The intakes fit pretty well, but still needed CA and filler powder to address some small gaps.

With the fuselage essentially complete, I needed to rescribe the panel lines near all the joints. My goal here, however unattainable it may seem, is to make the rescribed areas indistinguishable from the moulded detail. This is a difficult task which I’ve found easier by adopting the following method. With the joints all addressed, I primed the areas to be rescribed with a grey primer. This really allows me to see what I’m doing as restores the surface to a blank canvas and the rescribed lines will show up very clearly. Next, I needed to brace the model. My friend John Chung, who I consider to be the best ‘scriber’ I know of, advised nestling the model in an old T-shirt. I poo-pooed this for ages, but actually tried it on this model, and I think it’s a game-changer. The shirt allows the model to be stably rested in almost any orientation and frees both of my hands for the actual scribing. It’s critical to use the best guide for the scriber, which depends on the area. My preference is clear scribing tape, made by Madworks or HIQ Parts, which is excellent but doesn’t deform, so it can’t be used for curves or on parts with a taper, so my second choice is Tamiya Tape for Curves. Finally, I tend to use the Madworks DLC 0.1mm and 0.15mm scribers as I find them much easier to use than the multitude of other scribers I own. With all this I could scribe in the rear undercarriage doors and the panel lines around the fuselage that had been obliterated through sanding.

Also a hindrance was the recessed detail not matching up across the main fuselage joint. It was all filled and rescribed.
A game-changer for me was discovering (thanks to John Chung) that resting the model on a T-shirt makes rescribing a lot easier. Here the gear bay doors are rescribed.
At the front the recessed detail is very shallow. These oval panels all needed to be scribed in.
Same for the panel line detail under the nose.
Finally fitted to the fuselage, the intakes need a few spots of filler to sharpen the edges of the doors.
All filled and primed, the intakes await rescribing.
I rescribed the closed doors with a DLC scriber.

Back to the wing – there’s yet still more to battle against. Kinetic have moulded some protrusion to the front of the leading edge of the wing part, which the instructions tell you to remove. I understand that this feature should be retained on the finished model, so the SIG documentation advises you cut a notch in the fuselage section to accept it, rather than remove the part from the wing. I reckoned it easier to cut it off and then rescribe the shape later on.

I also took the opportunity to cut away the moulded grille for the APU intake in the upper wing part and replace it with some generic Eduard etched PE mesh. The nearby APU exhaust is just moulded as a blank rectangle, which will not do, and thus I cut that away also and knocked up a rectangular vent to fill the void. This is ripe for replacement with a 3D printed part (hint hint).

I drilled out the APU exhaust and intakes in the upper fuselage and replaced the detail with a scratch built exhaust from plastic card and intake mesh from a generic Eduard PE sheet.

With that, I could attach the wing. Now, there are plenty of articles out there, including those previously published in this august publication, which offer methods to get the wing to fit well to the fuselage, but for the life of me I couldn’t get them to work. I had steps and gaps galore around both the front and the rear. I’m not a subtle modeller, and inevitably end up blasting on filler and asking questions later, which is exactly what I did here. On the underside, plastic card shims assisted with plugging the sizeable gaps.

The front of the upper wing needs chopping off and then it can be fitted to the fuselage. I could not get it to fit well.
I had gaps and steps everywhere. Others have managed this better than me, so I will take the blame!
It doesn’t look much, but at the rear there’s quite a big step on the starboard side.
Underneath the situation is worse, with bigger steps, gaps and a seam that’s very difficult to access due to the nozzle fairings.
At the rear you can see my plastic shim between the wing and the fuselage. I probably had this slightly too wide, which threw the fit on the upper side out a little.
I lack finesse and simply go for a brute force approach of slathering filler (VMS black CA and filler powder) over all the joints.

Once the filler had set, which with CA isn’t long, I could set to on it with lots of various sanding implements. I knew I’d end up eliminating quite a lot of the recessed detail, but with the method outlined above and VMS Black CA and Filler Powder used as the filler, I was confident I could rescribe it well enough. It took a couple of rounds of filler and sanding to get perfectly smooth transitions across the wing/fuselage joints, but it was easier than I feared.

This makes very quick work of eliminating the joints at the front of the wing.
The step at the back was bigger and so took a couple of applications before it was smooth.
Underneath I could lower my standards a little as the joint would be so difficult to see on the finished model. I still slapped a load of filler on.
And then sanded it all down with a variety of sanding implements. The sponges are cut down pieces of Infini sanding sponge that could be held in the tweezers. The challenge is not to end up with a trough through over-sanding.
Primer still reveals some small imperfections that can easily be addressed with spot applications of filler. I use a brown Sharpie pen to show me where still needs dealing with.
First coat of primer on the underwing joint. More work needed, but it’s a good start.
Missing recessed detail needs to be added behind the cockpit. Carefully mapping out the shape with tiny strips of Tamiya tape and Madworks Scribing Tape helps obtain an accurate finish.

Scribing into the primer really helps me see what I am doing. The fire access doors are moulded open and were filled and rescribed later.

At the back end the primer shows all is good. I was pretty happy with this.
Rescribing underneath is much more difficult due to the restricted access. This is not perfect, but will do given how hard it is to see.
Thanks to the Harrier SIG tip sheets, I understood I needed to fill some of the recessed detail on the outer pylons. I did not correct their length.

When it comes to the tail planes, Kinetic do the modeller no favours at all. They have significant anhedral, but there’s nothing in the kit to help you set it. There is a plate with a locating peg that flops around in an oversized hole in the side of the fuselage. You’re then meant to attach the actual tail plane to this plate and, when it comes to that anhedral, hope for the best.  Although it went against my instincts, I decided I needed to attach the tail planes now, rather than at the end, to ensure the angles were all correct. My method was to glue to the tail plane to the plate, then glue the whole lot to the fuselage before the glue had set. With Tamiya Extra Thin the glue goes off quick enough I could just hold the part in place at the correct angle. When that was set, I could attack the opposite parts to match. It’s inexplicably difficult.

Final areas to deal with prior to paint were the canopy and guns. If you like your canopy open, you will rejoice at the wonderful fit of the parts. If, like me, you insist on canopies closed (aircraft look so much nicer this way!), you’ll curse Kinetic for getting it close, but not close enough. In order to prevent a gap between the main section and the fixed windscreen, I had to move the latter aft slightly, creating a gap at the front of the windscreen. This was filled with repeated applications of Mr Surfacer 500 and then all the joints removed with filler and the canopy shut lines scribed in. The main problem with modelling closed canopies is sealing the interior, and I failed to do so: very fine dust has contaminated the inside surfaces of the clear parts, and there’s nothing I can do about it… I used New Ware masks, which fitted very well.

I glue clear parts with thin plastic cement, and for the first time in years, I applied too much and it wicked in between the windscreen and the coaming. I popped it off pretty quick!
The damage was to the inside of the windscreen. Fortunately it’s not terminal.
The easiest way to sand the imperfection out was with Infini sanding films wrapped around a cotton bud.

Fitted to the fuselage, there are plenty of small gaps around the clear parts. Fitting the main canopy open would allow a much better fit for the windscreen as they don’t need to meet.
The canopy shut lines get lost in all the filling and sanding, so I rescribed them. Seeing what you are doing when scribing into clear plastic is very difficult!
The main canopy is done, but more sanding was required around the windscreen.
At the rear of the sliding section was a pretty big gap. I filled it and rescribed it, using Tamiya Tape for Curves to get the curved shut line.
Prior to priming, the wing tip lights were airbrushed with Tamiya Clear Green and Red.
The fuel dump vent is not quite the right shape – Black Dog corrected is on the right, uncorrected is on the left.

I was modelling an airframe from two photos, kindly supplied by the SIG, which showed the Aden gun pods fitted. Whilst they look very cool, they are also a pain, as they’re very simplified and Kinetic provide absolutely no guidance whatsoever on where they should be fitted, other than a not-terribly-helpful plan line drawing of the underneath. I used the Black Dog parts as a pattern for my own modifications to the kit guns, which mainly involved drilling quite a few holes, adding a few vents here and there, and putting in some brass tubing for gun barrels. What I did not attempt to add were the various bulges Kinetic missed off. With some trial and error, the pods were eventually cemented in place.

The guns aren’t particularly accurate. I copied most of the detail from a Black Dog update set – modified is to the bottom, stock is to the top.
The final addition was the guard in front of the nose intake. I replaced the kit part with stretched sprue. This is still too large, but 0.35mm is as small a hole as I could drill to accept it.

XV778 was photographed in Norway in March 1979 and I had a couple of the pictures, both of the right hand side. Arctic Harriers generally had the green sections of the camouflage overpainted in white, and the way this looked could vary dramatically from deployment to deployment. In this case the photos showed a finish on the neater end of the scale, with stencils and markings painted around rather carefully and the white paint looking rather tidy. Close examination of the photos reveals nice details, like the green canopy sides and nose entirely in Dark Sea Grey. This particular airframe retained the Light Aircraft Grey undersides with pylons, gun pods and the fuel dump all in white. I’m sure I’ve made errors (around the serials, for example, where I could not interpret the photos clearly), and the right hand side is guesswork.

The paint is mainly Mr Color and MRP and the white/grey camouflage demarcation was achieved with thin rolls of Blu-Tack. Some areas were painted in Dark Green and then masked with masks I made from a scan of the decal sheet so that some of the stencils retained a green background. Markings are mainly from the kit sheet which is printed by Cartograf, and I have to say they were fantastic. My only criticism is that the red is a little translucent so some of the underlying camouflage is visible through the tail flash. I think the red and blue for the roundels is a bit bright, but it’s extremely close to that printed by Xtradecals and the advantage of the Kinetic roundels is that they are pre-cut for the open doors. Aside from the red ‘16’ on the tail, you could make this airframe with the decals in the kit. The quality of the Xtradecals was also top notch. Just because I like to do it, the serials under the wings were airbrushed through masks cut on a Silhouette cutter.

With the undersides painted in Light Aircraft Grey I could not resist airbrushing the serials, even though the decals would have been fine.
I cut the masks on a Silhouette Cutter and sprayed the black with Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black. I find Tamiya paints spray better through a vinyl mask than the lacquers I usually use.
Underside Light Aircraft Grey all masked with Tamiya tape in preparation for the Dark Sea Grey and White areas.

Noodling in the grey, white and some Dark Green with different colours as a pre-shade.
Masking the camouflage pattern was done section by section with worms of Blu-Tack and masking tape.

On recent projects I’ve been experimenting with sanding over the decals to reduce the evidence of the decal film. People generally recommend Alclad Aqua Gloss for this, but since that (or the Ammo branded version) are unavailable in the UK, I tried Tamiya X-22 Clear. After airbrushing it liberally over all the decals and allowing 36 hours to cure, I sanded over them with small pads of Infini 1500 grit sanding sponge. I should probably have used the 2500 grit as the scratches were a little difficult to cover later on. This worked okay, but you have to go super slow – I sanded through the paint in a couple of small areas, which needed touching up. I do think it unifies the decals better into the final finish though. But please, can someone bring Aqua Gloss back to England?

A final word on the undercarriage. The challenge with any harrier is to get all five wheels on the ground. The best way to do this is to leave the rear main gear loose so it can move up or down to match the front and the outriggers. I duly did this, cutting away the awkward locating pegs and using a brass wire to allow the leg to move up and down. What I did not account for is that Kinetic did not mould the holes for the rear leg axle centrally, so my wheels sit at slightly different heights on the axle and thus one floats off the ground whilst the other is firmly planted. This is ultra-annoying and next time I shall try using some aftermarket wheels to see if they improve the situation.

My last tip is to check the airbrake fits properly much earlier in the build. I didn’t, and I had to push the arms quite firmly into the slots. This fractured the plastic around the slots, right across the undercarriage doors. A lesson learned for next time, when I make the FA.2, T.2 and AV-8A.

To be frank, the Kinetic Harrier is a bit of a disappointment, and is not what I would expect from a major kit manufacturer five years ago. Lots of modellers seem to have had no trouble building theirs, but my experience was different. Having said that, it’s regarded as quite accurate, has superb decals and can be made into a nice model. I’ve got another three more in the stash, and my desire to make them is undiminished. Particular thanks to Nick Greenall from the Harrier SIG for the encouragement and information; all errors and inaccuracies remain my own.

UPDATE: After I wrote all the above and photographed the model, I did go back and fix the main landing gear. The explanation is in the captions:

If you look closely at the wheel hub rims, you can see the problem. There is a large uneven gap between the rim and the tyre. Kinetic have moulded the hubs to be sandwiched between the tyre halves, and basically it means the hubs don’t sit central. This means the wheels sit on the axle at different heights. The port wheel has had a flat sanded on the bottom so the starboard wheel now touches the ground.

Year bought: 2020 (Lucky Model)

Year built: 2025 (New Addington, Croydon)

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