Hawker Hunter FGA9

The classic Hawker Hunter jet entered service in the 1950s replacing the earlier Gloster Meteor. The aircraft is famous the world over for it's superb lines and 'perfect fighter jet aircraft' appearance.

This article features the Airfix model of this famous jet aircraft. The version modelled is the Hawker Hunter FGA9 variant of the plane.

Opening the kit box the normal Airfix grey blue plastic is evident. A set of decals and a clear moulded canopy also fill the box.
The parts are well moulded with little flash evident. The odd slight sink mark can be found but nothing much.

The nose on the hunter I built was built up with filler and sanded. A time consuming process to get anywhere near to the shape of the big one.

Panel lines are finely moulded and raised on this kit. There's quite a bit of this detailing on the underside of the fuselage just where the halves join which nearly always needs a bit of sanding thus removing raised panel lines.

The first thing I noticed when trial fitting the fuselage halves together from this kit is the nose shape, it just doesn't look like the distinctive Hunter nose. Other inaccuracies include one wing being thicker in section at the tip than the other, and the jet intakes look like they do not extend far enough forward.
You could live with all this, build the kit from the box and still have a good looking model aircraft. I decided to modify this build where I could however. This will be detailed as we progress through the construction.

Starting as per usual with the cockpit interior, the Airfix Hunter includes a nicely moulded seat that fixes onto a flat platform. You also get a joystick and a good pilot figure.
After painting this assembly and painting a few patches of black inside the fuselage the cockpit is sandwiched between the fuselage halves, the duct pieces are glued on in this stage also. I didn't add the nosewheel at this stage as I hadn't decided on a wheels up or wheel down configuration, neither did I glue in the cockpit (left it floating for later glueing).

Next on to the wings of the aircraft. These are moulded with one substantially thicker in cross section than the other towards the tip. The choices here are to put up with the problem or thin the thick wing down somehow. Inspecting the wing I decided it would be useless trying the sand it externally, this would not only remove the panel lines, but more importantly put a hole in the wing. Working on the inner surfaces I removed material and weakened the thicker wing panel with cuts and solvent. I then pressed this against a flat surface to thin the section down. The top and bottom panels were then joined with liquid poly and polystyrene cement where I had modified the wing.
The finished result was a decent wing which matched the other well and still had most of the panel lines intact.

Hawker Hunter model page 1 construction
Hawker Hunter model page 2 construction
Hawker Hunter model finished aircraft