May 2019
BAe HS125 -
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BAe 125 -
BAe Dunsfold, 1990
Matchbox 1/72 with scratch modifications
The HS-
The HS-
I have had aspirations to try this particular project for quite some time, but I have to admit that I bit off a little more than I could chew this time! On the face of it, it is an easy conversion – block up the windows, add a new nose and off you go. Of course, there is a little more to it than this:
New nose
Block unused cabin windows
Stbd Cockpit modifications (but only those that can be seen!)
Doppler altimeter fairing under fuselage
Wing Pylon
Various underwing strakes and flap operating fairings
Open up and fill landing lights
Open up and fill Nav Lights
Add new antenna
None of this is particularly difficult. My nose was cloned from an Airfix Sea Harrier using Milliput and silicon moulding agent. It is perhaps a little too long, and points a too far up, but I was quite pleased with the blending.
One 600B series aircraft was converted in the early 1990s as an airborne trials aircraft
for the Ferranti Blue Vixen advanced multi-
The Matchbox kit goes together well, albeit that it is a little simple. I replaced the bare cockpit with a few spares box parts (from an Airfix Dominie). Its main problem though is the plastic colour. Always an endearing feature of Matchbox kits, this one is white and red plastic, with the red particularly hard to cover with white paint. I thought that coating the whole thing in grey first might help – it didn’t! After about 6 white coats on the fuselage I was happy and attempted to mask and paint the yellow and black fuselage stripes. These I really wasn’t happy with and eventually sanded them back, revealing of course the previously mentioned grey undercoat and red plastic bits!
So; more coats of white, followed this time by some home-
The Real Thing -
All in all, a rather challenging conversion, mainly because of the colour scheme, but one that adds an important aircraft model to my RN collection!
My other 125 -
Alongside my other 125 -