Revell 03892 Tornado GR.1 RAF "Gulf War" 1:32 Scale Unbuilt/Unpainted Plastic Model Kit

Product Information

There are two options in the box, and you'd be right if you guessed that they were both painted in desert pink. From the box you can build one of the following: The decals went down easily and, aside from the errors and color match with the stencils, they worked great.

The kit provides a selection of weapons, although some don’t apply to RAF Tornados. Among those that do are laser-targeted GBU-12s, 2,250-liter fuel tanks, AIM-9 missiles, and BOZ-107 countermeasures and Sky Shadow ECM pods. A nice inclusion would have been Brimstone air-to-ground missiles carried by the GR4 on numerous deployments late in its career. Thanks for this Melchie. I've not tried Vallejo yet, but plan to do so mainly for their brushability. I am looking forward to using the Gunze paints as the things I have read suggest they are the best in the business. Hence my interest in Shan's experiences. The ejection seats go together easily and look great, but I had a hard time following the diagrams to install the photo-etched metal (PE) seat belts. This is of course a reboxing of the pre-millennial tooling from Revell with new decals for the Gulf War aircraft, which are probably the most popular options for a Tonka with many folks for their own reasons. The original kit is around 20 years old now, and is a very good product of its day, with engraved panel lines, a decent level of detail, and a wide range of aftermarket now available. Where it does suffer is the intakes, which are hollow, but have no internal trunking, leaving interior and the wing-swing mechanism visible if you don't cover them with FOD guards. The kit arrives in one of Revell's preferred top opening boxes with seven large sprues in light blue-grey styrene (one cut in half), two of clear parts, the instruction booklet and a colourful decal sheet. It's been a while since I've perused the sprues of this kit, and I was pleasantly surprised at how modern it looks, with fine engraved panel lines and raised details, a full set of fuel tanks and weaponry, and some good interior detail that will suffice for many, or act as a jumping-off point for detail hounds. This boxing has the additional parts for the GR.1, which also includes the small clear additional sprue, and while not new it does give the modeller a more accurate finished result.Soon after the Harrier comes this project that's been sitting gathering dust in the loft for many years now: After the debacle that was the cancellation of the TSR.2, the European nations aligned (for once) in the common need for a new Multi-Role fighter, and partnerships began forming an dissolving, resulting in the joining of British Aerospace (now BAe), Aeritalia and MBB of Italy and Germany, who formed the Panavia company with a view to creating a Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA). The basic design was a swing-wing airframe to provide good handling at high and low speeds, but with the usual problem of goal-posts being moved, layering additional requirements upon the project that resulted in a larger airframe. The MRCA first flew in the early 70s, powered by two Rolls Royce RB199 engines, and looking very much like a Tornado, replete with the two seats that were a bone of contention at one point. One of 11(F)'s finest hours - a SEAD EF3 armed with ALARMs and ASRAAMs. The tanks are the 1500L standard type (from the kit), a BOZ pod on the left wing (also from the kit) and a Phimat on the right (sourced from the Revell/Italeri Mirage IIIE). The ASRAAMs come from Eduard Brassin.

The forward fuselage fit neatly along panel lines, and I needed to use just a swipe of filler along the curved join under the nose. The cuts went well and this fits quite nicely. Obviously will need some filler but it's about as snug as you could get. First big scare out of the way! The 11(F) decals are sourced from an Xtradecal GR.1/F3 sheet from years ago, but I'll have to make the serial number somehow, along with the stencils as the kit has no decals 😩 The aircraft is interesting, being the old two-tone Light Aircraft Grey/Camouflage Grey with one Dk Camo Grey tank and one still in grey/green. I intend to pose it inflight at a steep bank angle so it should be an interesting build!

Reviewed by Kevin Williams

The trademark Tornado fin fits like the proverbial glove and even the small vortex generators supplied as tiny PE parts did not annoy me too badly. This is a good time to say, follow the instructions closely throughout the build. This is a complicated kit with many options, and it is easy to glue parts incorrectly, forget to open holes, or flip parts from one side to the other. The Panavia Tornadois a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multirole combat aircraft, which was jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom, and West Germany. There are three primary Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS ( interdictor/ strike) fighter-bomber, the suppression of enemy air defencesTornado ECR ( electronic combat/ reconnaissance) and the Tornado ADV(air defence variant) interceptor aircraft. Before the GR.4 update, the recce-dedicated Tornados in RAF service were the GR.1A variant. This has both cannon removed with the muzzles faired over, small SLIR windows on either side of the lower forward fuselage, and an Infrared Linescan (IRLS) in a streamlined belly fairing (not to be confused with the Italian/German ECR, which has more of a "canoe" shaped fairing). I believe Flightpath/David J. Parkins offers a 1:32 GR.1A conversion/detail set. The Tornado was developed and built by Panavia Aircraft GmbH, a tri-national consortium consisting of British Aerospace(previously British Aircraft Corporation), MBBof West Germany, and Aeritaliaof Italy. It first flew on 14 August 1974 and was introduced into service in 1979–1980. Due to its multirolenature, it was able to replace several different fleets of aircraft in the adopting air forces. The Royal Saudi Air Force(RSAF) became the only export operator of the Tornado in addition to the three original partner nations. A tri-nation training and evaluation unit operating from RAF Cottesmore, the Tri-National Tornado Training Establishment, maintained a level ofinternational co-operation beyond the production stage.