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Bae Hawk
is one of the most widely-used jet trainers in the world during the 80’s. First
flight in 1974, the Hawk has trained hundreds or thousands qualified fighter pilots
around the world. Some nations using the Hawk as their primary trainer and ground
attacker to name today are US, UK, Finland, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Malaysia, Canada and Australia, besides Indonesia that uses Hawk Mk. 53, Hawk
109 and Hawk 209.
Indonesia
received 20 Hawk Mk. 53s in 1980, used as advance-trainer, based on Iswahyudi
AFB and Adisucipto AFB. 16 of the early Hawks wore camouflage colour and the
other four wore patriotic red and white scheme. During their service, Indonesian
Hawks have been used for several occasionally aerobatic teams, like in 1985 the red and
white Hawks formed an aerobatic team called “Spirit of 85”, then “Jupiter
Team” and currently “Jupiter Blue”, along with F-5E Tiger II and F-16A/B
Fighting Falcon. Some of the Hawks still flying today, served in Wing 300 At
Iswahyudi AFB.
Italeri’s Hawk Mk. 60/80 in 1/72 scale is a simple and straightforward kit to
build. The model is small, with (rather too large) recessed panel lines and
raised cockpit panel. To build it into a TNI-AU (Indonesian Air Force) Hawk, the
only thing to do is cut antennae from the lower fuselage.
The
construction began (as usual) with the cockpit. I used Gunze Sangyo’s RAF Medium
Sea Grey and black for the details. I added some ribs along the side panels and
seat belts for the ejection seat. The Martin Baker ejection seat provided in the
kit is a later style ones, used by TNI-AU Hawk.
All
construction was done quite well, except some filler used around the
intakes.
As
seen on all parked Hawks, the trailing edge flaps are always in down position,
so I decided to cut the Hawk’s flap. I glued the flap in the position, scratch
built the four- wing panel in the upper wing and a small “flap” tapered
between the wing and the main flap. The advantage of this kit is the small
fences are moulded in the wings. The Fujimi, Airfix and other brands’ Hawk kit
(except RoG Hawk, as it is a reboxed from Italeri) forgot to include them.
The
Italeri Hawk has correct wing fences configuration for TNI-AU Hawk. If you want
to model other Hawk variants, make sure you have your references ready as Hawk
Mk. 50-series has a different wing fences configuration comparing to Mk.
60-series.
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After
all construction was finished, it’s time for painting. I chose a red and white
scheme simply because I used to see the real aircrafts fly across my school at
low level. I used Tamiya Gloss White for the upper fuselage, Gunze’s Red and
Gunze’s Light Aircraft Grey for the wings and bottom fuselage.
OOP-Superscale
72434 “Bae Hawk” was used for the TNI-AU insignia, lettering, squadron badge
and all data stencilling, except for the serial number, that I took from spare
decals.
I
sprayed the model until a semi-gloss effect was achieved, glued the canopy open,
installed the landing gears, and…
I
hope you all enjoyed one of TNI-AU aircrafts’ model.
Alexander
Jakarta,
Indonesia
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