Panavia Tornado
1
April 1, 2024Cockpit crewed and painted.2
April 1, 20243
April 16, 2024Tonka will be posed flying with wings fully swept. The central fuselage was quite out of square where the cockpit section joins. It formed a parallelogram and the top and bottom of the wing roots were about 2mm offset. I used a little brute force to try and square them up and let the joint set overnight before mounting the cockpit section. I also chose to fit the air inlets to the cockpit sides and allow them to set up before bringing the two assemblies together.4
April 16, 2024Colour is dark grey with a drop of PRU blue as I didn't have the 'proper' grey. I let this dry well before masking for the green to minimise the risk that it would be damaged by masking. Getting a good match for any repairs would be tricky.5
April 16, 2024I don't really like masking for overall camouflage schemes, but I really wanted to do the version equipped with HARM missiles.6
April 16, 2024The green got two coats on the bottom. I'm probably a bit heavy-handed with the masking putty and it started to drip.7
April 16, 2024Port wing is missing the inner pylon. The kit fixes each pylon with a tiny plastic 'circlip' to allow them to be rotated to suit wing sweep angle, but one went walkies after the wing halves were bonded.8
April 16, 2024Camouflaged stores and the errant pylon painted.9
April 16, 2024Masking for the top really only begins at the rear of the cockpit, but still needs a lot of putty.10
April 16, 2024I extended the wings to match the painting chart in the instructions.11
April 16, 2024I tried to match the intersection points of the two colours with what I had already done on the underside.12
April 16, 2024The putty slowly flows over time, especially as the model is handled to position other pieces. This does tend to improve curves, but it can lead to distortions. As I start with the lighter colour (grey) and mask it to add the darker colour (green) using an even darker coloured putty, I'm basically forming a negative image of the illustration in the instruction sheet, which can be confusing.13
April 16, 2024The above comments are my excuse for any differences between the intended scheme and what I ended up with. There are now some metallic grey panels to be added and I may 'correct' some of the green at the same time. The starboard side of the massive vertical stabiliser would be a prime candidate for improvement, but I'm reasonably satisfied with the 'overall' effect.14
April 18, 2024I couldn't resist tinkering with some of the green areas by brushing freehand. Metallic panels on the fin and at the gun ports were masked and airbrushed. The exposed tip of the refuelling probe was also brush painted.15
April 18, 2024Black panels on wingtips and fin and in front of cockpit were masked and sprayed. Exhaust was also sprayed and the seals between wings and fuselage were brush painted.16
April 18, 2024Posed like boxart for temporary cover shot.17
May 1, 2024Ready to bring this thing to life18
May 1, 2024Days later and decals nearly finished!19
May 4, 2024Finished now!20
May 4, 2024As soon as I added the pitot tube, it fell on its nose, twice.21
May 4, 2024Boxart pose, well almost.22
May 4, 2024The fins on the fuel tanks are on backwards. I realised this as I was halfway through decalling them. The boxart is wrong too, so I have some excuse. The fins get quite close the horizontal stabilisers when the wings are at maximum sweep, so reversing them might have been a real world fix.23
May 4, 2024The base of the fin is dirtied by the thrust reversers, but my attempts to replicate this actually look better in person than on the 'photos.24
May 4, 202425
May 4, 202426
May 4, 202427
May 4, 2024
Kommentit
27 1 April, 20:06
Project info
27 kuvien
Panavia Tornado GR Mk.1
![GB GB](/s/images/flags7/32/GB.png)
No. 9 Sqn. ZD748/AK
1998 - Brüggen
![DE DE](/s/images/flags7/32/DE.png)
BS381C:638 BS381C:641