Dragon Models

1/144 AV-8B+ Harriers

Kit Number: 4596

Reviewed by  Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP: $10.95 Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Thanks to Dragon Models USA for providing the review kit. The Aircraft About 25 years ago, the U.S. Marine Corps and the Royal Air Force began to see that the Harrier had a lot of potential for further development. The RAF was at the point of planning for the end of the service life for their Harrier GR.3s, and the Marines were looking for a replacement for their A-4 Skyhawks and AV-8As. There was a definite push in both the US and UK for a supersonic Harrier. McDonnell Douglas had gone as far as designing a supersonic wing for the AV-8, and engine development boffins had figured out something called "plenum chamber burning", which acted like an afterburner for the Pegasus engine. The big problems were cost, the difficulty of pushing an aircraft with the Harrier's cross section to supersonic speeds, and the fact that the Marines wanted a simple, maintainable aircraft. The British pulled out, finding the project to be too costly and advanced for their needs. McDonnell Douglas continued with a scaled back program. Harriers had done serious duty in the Falklands and the Gulf War, and with the addition of air intercept radar, like the Sea Harrier's, a better engine, and a few avionics enhancements, it could remain a really great attack aircraft, with enhanced air-to-air capability. Not only that, but advances in composites and aerodynamics could make a similar looking plane perform better. The result of the McDonnell-Douglas program was the AV-8B Harrier. The RAF bought BAe-built versions as the Harrier GR.5. Spain and Italy have also bought AV-8B aircraft. Just in case you're looking for something really out of the ordinary. But these programs are never quite finished. The AV-8B still didn't have the air-to-air radar. So came the AV-8B+, with the APG-65 air intercept radar. This changed the nose making the radome bigger...

These pictures show the nose differences between the AV-8B and B+

The other big external difference between the basic Harrier and the B or GR5 is that addition of a leading edge extension at the wing root. The Kit You get two sets of everything in this kit. One aircraft is from VMA 223 and the other from VMA 231. Both have colorful tails and are coded 01. As you can see on the parts list, there are multiple sprues coded as "E". Since they're weapons, and most of them aren't for this kit anyway, it's not a problem. Building the Kit The biggest challenge I had on this kit was that the fuselage halves come with the original A nose. You simply cut off this nose and put on the newer B+ nose. Except we're dealing with Braille Scale here, and the instructions don't give you a really good picture about where this cut is supposed to be. Somewhere forward of the canopy on the nose, and it's for you to figure out. I wound up cutting too much off, and added a plug of sheet styrene to get the length I needed.

I also thought the leading edge extensions didn't fit very well. You could tell they were an add-on to a previous kit. When I had the epiphany (where you slap your forehead and say "Was I that stupid?") and found that the LEXs on the AV-8B don't fit neatly against the wing leading edge, but sit slightly below it, the parts fit a lot better. If you can find World Airpower Journal, Volume 12, Spring 1998 (Airtime Publishing, Westport CT, https://airti2.sslcert19.com/home.php) it has an excellent article on the development of the AV-8B and B+. The rest of the assembly went pretty routinely. Everything fit except the nose, and that's a matter of skill and luck, not Dragon's doing. The interior lacks only an instrument panel to be very complete for a 1/144 fighter. I now recognize that when I had the nose cut off, I had the perfect opportunity to put a panel in there with minimal problems. OK, that's why they give you 2 in a box, so you can do the second one like you wish you'd done the first. Paint and Decals I was ready to start painting, but when I checked the color information, the colors just didn't match the colors on the "Painting and Markings" instructions. I found a correct color callout at. http://www.jpsmodell.de/dc/luft_e.htm, which is Don Color. The place where this kit stands above many others is the weapons pylons and bombs/rockets/tanks that go under the wings. There were 2 sets of 2 Sidewinders, one set obviously from the "new" weapons, and one from the original. The new ones are about 1/3 the diameter of the originals. They certainly are fine, and deserve careful handling. The pylons connect cleanly to the underwing, and the Sidewinders, LGBs and tanks all lined up nicely. Spray it with Future and you're ready for markings. The decals are state-of-the-art. Nicely done, easy to put on. Cartograf prints them. Also, for once someone was thinking about that second model. When you cut the markings for VMA 223 off the sheet, the sheet still remains reasonably intact, so when you put the sheet back in the box with the other plane, you're not worried that some parts won't be there next time you get that box out. Overall Assessment Dragon is following the lead of several other major manufacturers, and getting maximum mileage out of their molds. Except for the lack of an instrument panel, which wouldn't have been missed 18 months ago(!), this is a good, buildable kit, which nicely shows the aircraft. The points where I criticize the kit show how far the manufacturers and our expectations have come in 1/144 in a fairly short time. This kit is head and shoulders above the 1/144 kits I was building 5 years ago, and 1/72 kits from 20 years back, yet it now lags the "state of the art". Keep it up, Dragon, you're catching the next wave. Thanks again to Dragon and IPMS/USA for this build opportunity.

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