Heavy Weather!

Building and detailing the Revell 1/48 Eurofighter Typhoon as a What-If...

EF2000D Advanced Typhoon

Hellenic Air Force 335 Mira ‘Tigris’ (‘Tigers’), Araxos AB, 2021

Some time ago, I recall admiring a stunning F-16D built by Julien Haccoun in the distinctive Hellenic colours (AIR Modeller Issue #10).  Since the background section of the Revell Typhoon instruction sheet identifies Greece as one of the potential customers for the aircraft, I thought I should try to depict what it would look like in that service.

Also, I figured that like the F-16, the Typhoon would be somewhat developed in later production.  I didn’t want to get carried away with too many possible modifications, but tried adapting a spare pair of Strike Eagle FAST packs to make conformal fuel blisters (as shown here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2994953/posts).  They just looked strange on the Typhoon, so I gave up on that idea and settled for a few lumps and bumps around the airframe that may be plausible as late-block updates.  I ‘interpolated’ another idea as well:  vectored thrust engines, to bring newer generation Typhoons into dogfight competition with such as the F-22 and Su-35.  Well, I had to use some imagination!

OK, How Are We Gonna Do This...?

The Revell kit is well-known, so I won’t dwell too long on what’s in the (large) box.  The parts are light grey, softish plastic with some fine engraved details.  However, whether due to high-volume production or not, some of that engraving was getting quite ‘fuzzy’ on my examples.  Indeed, in some areas it had disappeared altogether.  There are some unfortunate sink-marks too.

Whilst I’m having a moan, one of the brace of kits in my stash had a badly mis-moulded radome, requiring much filler and sanding to restore.

There is an unusual amount of moulded detail in some areas, but I always like to enhance these bits myself if I am not using aftermarket components so there is still plenty to do here!

The third-party items I did use consisted of the Eduard photo-etched brass fit-out, TwoMikes intake covers and inboard stores pylons (infamously not supplied by Revell), the AN/AAQ-28 Litening II designator by Wolfpack Designs and some Icarus decals for national insignia and fictitious identification numbers.

The Eduard set was comprehensive enough but disappointing, definitely not one of their best efforts.  It pre-dates the self-adhesive type, and the printing of the coloured items (rather like the panel engraving on the kit) was lacking in resolution as well as the relief depth of their better sets in this scale.

To The Man-Cave, Robin!

As a sort of road map for additional detailing, there is an excellent series of walkaround photos 

here: http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/mario_bertinelli/ef2000/.

 I decided to start work with the landing gear bays.  They are supplied with a lot of very nice (if somewhat thick) and fairly accurate moulded detail, down to the door locking catches in the main gear bays, but no representation of the miles of plumbing...

On the real aircraft, these areas are painted a very light grey.  After using some Tamiya Fine Surface Primer (Grey), I applied Tamiya AS-20 Insignia White from the can, which for some reason always looks like...very light grey!  The slightly darker primer gave some pre-shading effect.

The roof of the nose gear bay was painted Xtracolor X107 Radome Tan, and a wash of heavily-thinned Tamiya X-19 Smoke pulled out the details and grimed everything up nicely.

The aforementioned nose gear bay was moulded as one piece, so much fun was had installing all the ‘spaghetti’!

The various pipes, connectors, conduits and features were added with coloured copper or lead detailing wire, beading wire, plastic rod, card, spare etched brass sheet and micro-tube.

The Nose Gear Bay

Still just enough space for the gear to retract into!

Next up, I should have some WIP pics of the Main Gear Bays -and I'd like to give a really big thank-you to everyone at the Aircraft Resource Centre forums (especially Paolo and Stefan), who helped enormously with reference photos for these areas, as well as identifying prototype aircraft for me...I'll try to do them justice!

Be right back...