I finished this a while ago, but never got round to posting any pics. It’s the Airfix 1/48 TSR.2 done OOB with Tamiya Acrylics, Alclad, Future & a pencil.
I found the kit to be a pretty good likeness of the TSR.2, but although there is sufficient detail there is nothing fancy like a detailed opening radome or avionics bay. A bit of work & correction was required on the radome to remove a non existent line on it’s circumference, the front canopy > fuselage meet was a bit ill fitting, & the wing to body joint required a fair bit of material to be removed before everything would sit anywhere near flush. Other than that it all went together very well.
It’s finished to represent shiny clean XR220, which resides at RAF Cosford;
It was a bit of a struggle getting the tinting on the canopy looking right - I started with Tamiya clear yellow, but the colour looked far to much like the headlamps of a French car from the 70’s for my liking, so I tired Tamiya clear orange, which didn’t work either, so I ended up using a mixture of Future, clear orange & brown;
The camera pods just aft of the aux. intake doors shouldn’t really be there, they were done before I had decided which bird I was going to do…
I used the tips from some leftover sidewinders for the spine & fin nav lights;
Very cool build of an awesome plane that should have been put into production. I had the privilage of working with a guy that was picked to be a mechanic on them back in the day before it was decided not to persue them.
Thanks guys, It’s clean because XR220 is very clean - add in the fact that my weathering skills are ZERO & you can figure why I did this bird.
I thought long & hard about primer, I figured that grey would be problematic to cover & that white wouldn’t be that easy either because it would be difficult to see what sort of coverage I was getting. In the end I gave her a good wipe down with alcohol & painted with straight Tamiya acrylic white. There were a few areas where I had used 3M Acryl Green filler, but I gave these a couple of shots before doing the main spray job.
Manga girls - i wish! I usually do 1/72, but missed the boat for the first release so went 1/48th as I just wasn’t prepared to shell out £50 - £70 on Ebay for what isn’t exactly a large or exotic kit. Shortly after finishing this one the Manga bird was released in 1/72 & contained all the bits for a regular TSR.2…
