The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

I was browsing an old (1981) issue of Scale Aircraft Modelling the other night and came across an article discussing the build of a 1/72 Sea Harrier FRS.1. This was pre-Falklands War, obviously, and no company had yet been motivated to bring out a full Sea Harrier kit. (Matchbox, as it happens, won that race, with their retool of their existing Harrier kit. Others soon followed, although it's rather interesting to note that Airfix did not release a Sea Harrier kit in 72nd-scale until 2010! Of course the early '80s were not a fun time for Airfix ....)

The article made use of the Hasegawa Harrier GR.1 kit; "the most accurate Harrier kit on the market" -- true enough in those days, but it wasn't saying very much, it was only marginally better than the original Airfix kit. Not awful, merely adequate by the prevailing standards of the day. (The Hasegawa decals were more accurate and detailed than the Airfix decals, so maybe that factored into the calculation.)

More intriguingly, though, was that the conversion made use of a "pre-release" Modeldecal conversion set -- so in a sense the article was an advertisement for this new product which was to be released "imminently". The build was completed using the Sea Harrier decals supplied with that issue of the magazine (pictured in link below).

I had not previously been aware that Modeldecal ever made anything other than decal sheets. Was this conversion set ever actually released? Did they ever do any other similar sets?

SAM Vol.3No.12 Sea Harrier decals

If I remember, I'll ask Richard Ward if he attends our club meeting on Monday night.

As a follow up to my previous post, I managed to chat to Richard Ward at last night's meeting and here's his explanation of what happened regarding Modeldecal's short foray into conversion sets -

"A Sea Harrier FRS.1 conversion set was marketed (CK.1), consisting of a new nose and cockpit canopy, plus a set of decals. Another set was also issued – CK.2 - but barely marketed, for the Lightning T.4 nose conversion, plus cockpit canopy, dorsal spine and decals.

The biggest problem with both of these conversion kits was getting acceptably decent cockpit canopy injection mouldings. These conversions were being made by a small company using a new limited run technique, which was really intended for prototype mouldings and not production runs. We gave it a go but within a short space of time had to admit defeat and give it up. The decals ended up being used as addendums in later Modeldecal sets".


Hope this helps to answer the question,

Interesting.

If you ever get to talk to Richard Ward again, please thank him on my behalf for all his work - I still use his terrifically well researched Modeldecals and some of his books.

Dvaid

I see Richard quite often. The next time I bump in to him will be at Telford - he travels up to the event in the Farnborough IPMS minibus. I'll pass on your comments.

I too find Modeldecal decal sheets and related notes invaluable.

Also a tip of the hat from this side of the pond also. Thanks for the information.

Thanks for the info Eric. I too regard the Modeldecal products highly.

Me, too - I've many of their sheets in stock.

As an aside, my nan lived not too far from the Modeltoys shop, where Richard and Mike Silk ran their business from. I was a regular visitor back in the 80's. A small store front to be sure, but always lots to peruse....

I only ever managed to visit the shop once - back in 1987.

We might have bumped into each other!