Monday, 8 June 2026

1/48 Airfix SEPECAT Jaguar Gr.1 XX962 - 41 Sqn RAF - Operation Granby

 


Depicted as aircraft XX962 Flat Slags / Crusader operated by No. 41 Squadron Royal Airforce from  Muharraq Bahrain during Operation Granby 1991.

This was built for the 2026 NSW Scale Model Show's Airfix Cup Category (which it ended up winning).  Although truth be told I didn't need any excuse to build the Jaguar as it is a lovely looking aircraft.  I'd built the Kittyhawk kit a few year back (see here) so decided this  build would be inflight and a Op Granby machine.

The Fat Slags from Viz always cracked me up so I decided to do XX962. 

The Kit

  • Airfix 1/48 SEPECAT Jaguar GR.1/GR.1A (A11010)

Aftermarket Used

I'll go through some of my reasons for my various aftermarket choices later in this post.

Decals

  • Kitsworld Jaguars Operation Granby (KW148051)

The Build

The kit goes together pretty well overall however there were a couple of areas however where I ran into some minor issues. I suspect these are down to my hamfistedness and lack of patience rather than anything fundamentally wrong the with kit. The others were due to me wanting to build the aircraft inflight when it's really designed to built wheels down.

In Flight Modifications - Gear Bays

Unlike a lot of older Airfix kits you don't get a closed gear door option in this kit. You do get closed doors for those that are closed on the ground but not the full set. 

Closing the main gear bays is pretty simple. The doors fit pretty well although as you'd expect there is a little bit of fettling required to close them up. Nothing that would trouble most modellers though. I chose to the add the gear bay parts to add some support to the model.  

Main Gear Bays - Tabs Galore



As you can see from the following images you do have to cut holes in the parts to allow the Matters of Scale Intakes to fit.

Matters of Scale Intakes Dry Fit 

Matters of Scale Intakes Dry Fit

I tackled the nose gear bay after the fuselage halves were assembled.  This is a little tricker due to the number of small doors that cover the front part of the nose gear bay.  I think if I do this again I may glue the doors in, fill the gaps and and re-scribe the door shape

Nose Door Bay

In Flight Modifications - Wing Control Surfaces

I started to design 3D printed raised flaps but decided it was quicker to simply modify the kit parts.  For the trailing edge surfaces you can simply cut of the forward part of the each piece, where to cut is obvious on the kit part. Some sanding of the mating surfaces should reward you with a good fit.  The join between the wing and flat should be reasonably flush. On side I did end up filling and re-scribing the line as I'd not taken enough of the flap before gluing.

Upper Wing with Flaps and Slats fitted

For the slats I just cut the forward part of the slat off, glued it to wing, filled the gap and them sanded it to shape. On the underside the sat rail slots were filled with Evergreen.

I had started designing a 3D part but going old school was quicker and easier. Sometimes, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Lower Wing with Flaps and Slats

In Flight Modifications - Speedbrakes

For these I did design a 3D printed part. It took a few goes to get the basic shape right than the 1000 more attempts to fine tune. In the end it is still not perfect but it looks good.  That said it would have been quicker just to modify the kit part.  If you want the 3D part the STIL is available on Cults3D (here).

HFM 3D Printed Speedbrake

Build Notes

I deviated from the instructions gluing each forward fuselage half to it's corresponding rear fuselage part, rather than glue the front and rear parts together and mate forward assembly to rear assembly.  Dry fitting revealed the fit here was pretty good either way, and the join is on a panel line.

But I figured I'd do things the traditional way and join the front and rear pieces first. And, as is traditional (for me), I cockpit up one side getting a slight step.  I did try tun ungluing it and sort  of succeeded 

Oops.  This looks worse than it is

Fixed

Once it was back together it was better although I did end up with a slight step was on this same join but on the underside.  This required a bit of filler to build up the front piece and smooth it out. 

Fuselage Halves prior to joining 

The cockpit Airfix supply is excellent. Even the seat is nice . The only down side being decal seat belts. But they are better than none I guess. As I was going mine in flight with a pilot I used the kit cockpit. Nothing of this will be seen on the finished model so I quickly painted the consoles and used the decal for the instrument panel. Bar a resin seat, I'm not sure I'd bother with aftermarket for the cockpit if I was doing one without a pilot fitted and the canopy open.

The Kit Cockpit is Pretty Good

The rest of the assembly was pretty straight forward. Having seen online that some people had a little step on the upper wing to fuselage I dry fitted this and sanded away a bit of plastic. This rewarded me with a perfect fit.

I did end up with a little step along the centreline seam on the underside. There is a bit of detail here so care was needed to resolve this.

Taking a tip from a clubmate I added a lens for the laser rangefinder in the nose. I simply hollowed out a price of Evergreen rod to archive this. Not that it can be seen.

Laser Lens - It's in there

The Evergreen box section for the stand was glued onto the lower rear fuselage part and supported with Magic Sculpt 2 part epoxy.

Stand Receptacle - Evergreen and Magi Sculpt

HFM Speedbrakes and stand receptacle

Aftermarket Choices

I used a fair bit of aftermarket on this build. I'll quickly run through each and and give my thoughts in each.  

PhaseHangar Resin Centreline and Wing Pylons

These have improved detail over the kit, especially as I was posing aircraft banking. II also liked that the each bomb release unit is a separate piece that you could attach direct to the store and add it after painting the model. Sadly my sets (including replacements) were let down by lots of lines and scratches in the finished product so they required a lot of clean up.

PhaseHangar Resin Tandem Beam Rails

I thought the omission of Tandem Beam rails by Airfix from the kit was bit a strange.  PhaseHangar's set is nice although there was still a bit of clean up required.  They interface nicely with their Pylons.  At time of building they were the only game in town for the Tandem beams

PhaseHangar Resin NACA Duct

Simple drop fit replacement for the kit part. Looks way better but most people won't know. No issues with print quality on this bit.


PHR NACA Duct

PhaseHangar Resin Drop Tank

Nicer than the kit part but again it had some print quality issues. These were easier to resolve than the pylons. Near the end of the conflict they Jaguar's often flew with tanks with no fins . I wanted to depict this configuration so I cut my fins off.

Inside the Armour (ITA) 3 Exhausts

Great improvement over the kit parts. I found aligning them to fit into the kit a little tricky. This was probably due to me no dry fitting these earlier in the build. To resolve this I trimmed the largest of the 2 locating rectangles (the ones that are closer to the centreline of the aircraft). After doing this they just click into place.   

To improve the look of the exhausts when fitted I ran my knife around the inside of opening on the kit  fuselage to thin it slightly.

ITA 3 Exhausts

ITA 3 Exhausts, QB Chaff /Flare Dispensers, HFM Speedbrakes


Matters of Scale Intakes 

I bought the STL from John and printed myself. If you are doing the aircraft inflight these are an excellent upgrade. He even does a set with open blow doors (even though this looks ugly ScaleSpot-Models). I did 2 prints, the 2nd print I changed one the dimension for the height of the intake by 0.1mm to get a better fit.  This isn't to say John's dimensions are wrong, it is simply accounting for variation in kits and printing. To me this a great advantage of printing yourself. In the image below you can the first print.

Matters of Scale Intakes Fitted.  These were upsized slightly to improve fit on my model

ResKit AN/ALQ 101 ECM Pod

Excellent improvement over the kit part but it you need to alter the mounting location for RAF Jaguar otherwise it will sit a bit to far forward (IIRC).  I used the kit part as a template.

Quickboost Chaff / Flare Dispensers

Improved detail over the kit parts. Easy to fit.

Quickboost Vent and Scoops Set

Excellent and cheap improvement over the kit parts.

Ouickboost Overwing Pylons and LAU7 Rails

Nicer than the kit parts but I'm unsure of their accuracy.  The rail of the LAU 7 didn't match the references I had for the Jaguar.  A bit fiddly to fit and remove from the casting blocks. I chose these of the PhaseHangar ones as these had marginally  better detail and were handed (i.e. the part for the left wing and right wing were different) whereas the PhaseHangar Resin ones in my sets appeared to all the be same.  The LAU on PhaseHangar resin set matched the reference photos better than the Quickboost.

QB Vents, Scoops and Overwing Rails


Master Model Pitot

Of course it's nicer than the kit part but my example wasn't specifically for the Airfix Jaguar and requires care to integrate.  The main issue is the diameter of hole you need to drill in the kit to accept the probe is quite large. It was basically the same diameter as the part of the kit I wanted to join it to. I put the probe in a rotary tool and used a file to turn down the diameter of the mounting pin on the probe to a more reasonable size.

Steel Oxide Armory Generic modern day jet pilot with MSA Gallet LA100 helmet (via Cults 3D)

The kit includes a pilot but he's rubbish, mask off and hands on his needs like he's posing for a photo.  While the Steel Oxide Armoury pilot isn't correct for a RAF Jaguar he was close as I could fint. And only Safety Equipment nerds will know the difference (We all know they're the worst kind of nerds :-)  ) You can get it here

HFM Closed Speebrakes

If you want them you can get them here.

HFM Upper UHF antennas (available on Cults 3D)

The kit parts are just overscale triangles. I decided I could do better. You can get these here.

ChasChyn British 1000lb low drag bomb (via Cults 3D)

An excellent and cheap British bomb I printed myself. I was planning on using Reskit bombs but I'd used or given away one so only had 3, not the 4 I needed.  The ChasChyn bomb is a single piece print as well. No assembly required. You can get these here

joaquininfantino AIM-9L Sidewinder (via Cults 3D)

I had the Eduard resin Sidewinders but there are nightmare to assemble so I found this item on Cults 3D. After printing I found it was missing one little ring which I added with tape. You can get it here. I've since found another excellent AIM-9L (albeit 1/32) on Cults (here)

HFM Phimat Chaff Pod (available on Cults 3D)

I designed this using the kit part as reference because I didn't want to clean up the centreline seams. You can get it here

HFM Phimat Pad

Stores ready for fitment



Painting

The only manufacturer who seem to offer RAF Desert Pink straight from the bottle is MRP.  These days the only way to MRP down here in Australia is to import it yourself. Fortunately I'd purchased a bottle a long time ago for a build like this.

MRP's desert pink is true to the colour I've seen on restored aircraft and to what the colour looks like in early photos of Op Granby Aircraft, i.e. quite pink.  I was after a less pink , more tan shade so I mixed added Mr Color 313 Yellow  (FS33531) until I got a shade I liked. Is it accurate? Dunno, don't care. I liked the look of it. 

Because I was running out of time to get this finished I didn't do my usual post shading via splatter masks and just slapped on one solid coat.  Oils would have to do the heavy lifting when it came to weathering.

Base Colour - MRP 185 Desert Pink mixed with Mr Color 313

I painted the false canopy that many of the aircraft had been painted with. At first I painted it using a decal from the old Model Alliance sheet as reference. 

 

Canopy pattern from the Model Alliance sheet - Wrong!.

But on closer inspection of my references, including the one of XX962 I realised that what Model Alliance suggested was a fantasy. So I repainted as per the reference.

Revised False Canopy as per reference photo.

The reference image I used is copyrighted but is available on Getty Images here.

The metallic areas were painted with Mr Color Super Titanium 2.and Mr Color iron close to the exhaust.

Hot Areas

Other colours used on the build are as follows:

  • Bombs - Mr Color 16 IJA Green a great match for British Modern bombs
  • Yeloow -  SMS Trainer Yellow
  • Sidewinder -  Body is Mr Colour 308 FS36375. Seaker head - mixture of Mr Color and Alcad metallics
  • Black - Gaianotes German Grey
  • Brown Gun Troughs  -  Tamiya Red Brown.  I wasn't entirely happy with this choice. I'd like a slight redder shade but I was on a timeline so I decided to accept it and move on.
  • AK Gunmetal marker for the pylon BRU's.
  • Tamiya Buff for the tail Radar Warning antennas

Decals

Noting that time was running out, one saving grace of an Op Granby aircraft was that there are few markings.  I reckon there is less than 15 decals on the whole model. 

I chose the Kitsworld Decal sheet for this build. It's roundels are considerably lighter than the equivalent Airfix ones and looked closer to the photos I'd collected of later war RAF Jaguars.  They performed perfectly.  I did have to get a 2nd Rescue marking, Airfix only provide one for the Op Granby aircraft in the kit, I assume that is because it only had one. 

Luckily a workmate was also building the kit, but in a different scheme so I could steal the decal from his sheet.

The Kitsworld decals performed flawlessly. I've used them on several projects and am becoming quite a fan.

I did remove some of the bomb markings I wanted to depict the aircraft before the end of the war.  Did I remove the right ones?  Who knows. 😆

Decals on

Not many decals on this build.


Weathering

As usual I did a wash prior to decaling. ABT 502 Sepia was used.  I pretty use this on every build no matter the paint scheme these days

Once the decals were sealed with SMS Satin ( my mix of SMS Gloss and Flat), oils were used to weather the aircraft. Again Sepia did a lot of the work but Raw and Burnt Umber along with Industrial Earth got a run as well.

I had accumulated a number of Op Granby Jaguar photos from the internet, including a couple of XX962, (one of it in theatre) so I went for a grimy dirty aircraft as that is what the refence images showed. There was some wear in places, particularly around the blow in doors that I wanted to depict, but ended up leaving as I running out of time if I wanted to finish for the show.

I did some minor chipping with a sponge to try and depict where the underlying camouflage colours had been exposed.. I would have like to have done more but again I ran out of time.

Weathering with Oils

These got dirty.

Front Weathering

More Grime

Final Steps

The final coat was a mixture of SMS Flat and Gloss to get a slight stain finish.  Stores were attached with Mig Ammo Ultraglue flat. I like this stuff for attaching bits at this stage as it has plenty of working time, is easy to clean up any excess and dries flat. It just requires a bit of patience to let it set


The Base

The photo on the base is simply of the ground in the scrub where I walk at lunchtimes. I used the Blur tool in Paintshop Pro then got it printed on card at Officeworks. It is simply glued to a piece of pine with the edges painted flat black..  The acrylic rod is a square shape, heated and bent to the right angle.


Conclusion

This is an excellent kit from Airfix but not quite "Tamiya" as some have proclaimed. Bar a couple of places the panel lines well defined and deep enough to hold a wash. There a re couple places on the tail were panel lines wash out over curves. But I think this more a limitation of injection moulding than anything else. 

Fit overall is pretty good, probably better if you don't rush like I can do. Detail from the box is also pretty good. All the aftermarket I sued did improve the kit but not markedly so. I saw number built straight form the box and they all looked great.  

The worst part of the kit IMHO is the pilot.  It seems like the designer the grabbed a pilot from the CAD library and through him in.  That is being picky because as we (and Airfix) know most people don't put pilots in the their models , so why expend time and effort moulding one.  Thankfully there are an increasing number of 3D designers doing pilots and selling then via places like Cults3D.

I will definitely do another when the Gr.3 comes out. I fancy one in the distemper white scheme or perhaps a light grey Bosnian conflict machine. 

It is definitely the best kit of this aircraft in any scale. If you haven't built one you should.

The Photos








































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