Dragon

1/144 USMC AV-8B VMAT-203 Hawks and VMA-513 "Flying Nightmares"

Kit Number: 4617

Reviewed by  Scott Hollingshead, IPMS# 34786

MSRP: $9.95 Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Hawker originally developed the Harrier jump jet with some US funding being provided and first flew as the prototype P.1127 in 1960. In 1964 the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel or FGA.1 took flight. Once production started for the Harrier GR.1 in 1966, the United States Marine Corps was soon to add the AV-8A to their stable of fixed wing aircraft in 1970. In an effort to improve the Harrier, in 1985 McDonnell Douglas introduced the AV-8B Harrier II. As part of Boeing, later developed the AV-8B Harrier II+ variant flown today by the USMC, as well as the Italian and Spanish Navies. 824 Harriers entered service starting 1969 until production stopped in 2003. Although the outward appearance is still recognizable, my how things changed in fifty years! The Harrier II+ represented by this kit is forty-six feet, four inches long; has a thirty foot, four inch wingspan; is eleven feet, eight inches tall with an empty weight of nearly fourteen thousand pounds. Maximum weight rating of 20,775 pounds for vertical takeoff or 31,000 pounds for rolling takeoffs. The Rolls Royce F402-RR-R408 vectored-thrust turbofan can move the plane at speeds of up to 662 mph, or a range of 1200 nautical miles (but not both at the same time). There is a single 25-millimeter GAU-12 "Equalizer" gun, and six hard points that can hold up to 13,200 pounds of ordnance. This new release from Dragon is a "1+1" kit containing two complete aircraft representing USMC squadrons VMAT-203 and VMA-513. The "Hawks" of VMAT-203 are a training squadron based at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina updating new pilots and aircraft support personnel on the Harrier. This squadron can trace it's roots back to VMT-1 way back in 1947, and has trained over 130 pilots and 2000 support personnel on the AV-8B alone. The "Flying Nightmares" of VMA-513 are based at MCAS Yuma, Arizona, and the squadron can trace their lineage to VMF-513, which was established in 1944. The markings provided for this plane represent the Commanding Officer of the squadron. The kit contains nine sprues of Dragon’s standard gray plastic, two clear sprues that hold the canopies, and a decal sheet produced by Cartograph. The recommended ordnance loads in the directions include AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, MK-82 Snake Eye general-purpose bombs with tail retarding devices (both individually and on triple ejector racks), a GBU-16 Paveway bomb, and an AN/AQ-14 targeting pod. The Sidewinders are a new mold, and have a nice thin body that is more true-to-scale than earlier releases from Dragon. All of the ordnance is well molded, and there are extra items such as GBU-12 bombs and Hellfire missiles that will go to your spares container. For my loading, I elected to use the GBU-12 bombs and not the GBU-16, as it looked ungainly to me on the small plane, and there were not enough MK-82 bombs to load both planes per the directions, so that led to the addition of two more GBU-12 bombs. Directions for building the two planes are contained on just over half of a single page of the four-page instruction sheet (a single sheet folded in half). The first step has you remove the radome (representative of a British Harrier) and install a different one for each of the planes. In my research, I have not found any changes in the Harrier designation for the radome with the rounded sensor vice the more angular version, but the angular one is the more modern of the two, and I believe is representing the FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared RADAR). The directions have you cut the original radome too far back, and this will cause a visible step from the fuselage to the radome. On the first plane, I reattached the original, measured the new one, and then cut the original in the correct spot. This worked better than I expected, and the lesson learned was quickly employed when building the second plane. Some additional issues in the construction were that parts A-11 and 12 are swapped in the directions, part B-20 (door for the double wheels on the fuselage) is not shown at all, and as mentioned before, there are not enough MK-82 bombs to load the planes per the directions (you are left two short). I had issues with the clear canopies on my sample, as they looked cloudy even though I polished them prior to installation, and I used watch crystal cement to attach them. I managed to pry one of the canopies back off, and attempted to polish it a second time, but this did not seem to help. Finally, some of the colors mentioned in the otherwise nice, full color markings drawings are completely wrong. The dark color on the upper surfaces should be FS 36118 Gunship Gray, not 36495 Light Gray; and the wingtip formation lights should be a light yellow (I painted mine to match the decal formation lights), not the recommended clear orange. There is also no direction for the dark color shown on the rear exhaust nozzles and deflector plates. The hits of this kit are the crisp moldings and excellent detail in the weapons that are provided. These are by far the best that I have seen in this scale. The canopies are reasonably thin for this scale as well, and have the frame delicately molded in. The Cartograph decals are nicely done, and reacted perfectly to Micro Set and Micro Sol. The seated pilot on an ejection seat is a standard of Dragon for this scale, but I still think that it is a nice addition to fill the cockpit. Overall fit is very good (as long as you cut the radome in the right spot), and I only used some Mr. Surfacer 500 in a couple of small spots to cover gaps. The misses for me were the issues with the directions that I mentioned previously as well as the cloudy canopies in my sample. This may sound trivial, but the yellow was a bit out of register for the formation light panels, as this is a green-yellow on real planes, but this may be difficult to capture on a sheet that contains other yellow items. I also previously mentioned the color recommendation issues, which I do not typically find in Dragon kits other than their 1/144 scale releases (I have built several of these kits in the past, and have a few more in my stash). For my builds, I used Model Master Acryl and Enamel paints almost exclusively; the exceptions being that Warbirds acrylic paint was used for the tires, and Humbrol chrome was used on the missile and bomb tips as well as the radome and sensor. I also used Model Master Metalizer Exhaust for the exhausts and the deflectors, which looked close to the real thing. In building this kit, I came across the IPMS Dayton website (http://daytonipms.com/Walks/walkaroundsnew.htm) that provided some great shots of the AV-8B Harrier II, and the site has some other great walk-arounds as well. Overall, I would recommend this kit to folks wanting to add a couple of modern USMC Harriers to their collection. The great advantage to 1/144 scale is the small amount of space required to display the finished aircraft. Dragon does a very nice job of capturing detail in this scale, and the new weapons in this kit are a great example of this. Dragon also does a great job in providing a good selection of modern aircraft for the modeler to choose to add to their collection. I want to express my thanks to the folks at Dragon Models USA for providing this kit for IPMS/USA to review, to the Dayton Area Plastic Modelers IPMS for their great web site reference photos, and to you for taking the time to read this review.