RIAT 22 // Luftwaffe Tornado ECR 46+25

In 2022 I visited the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford for the first time. The original tickets were bought back in 2019, but due to the pandamic the show was canceled in the following years. So in 2022 the RIAT opened its doors again and it was time for me to ship the Channel to visit lovely Gloucestershire. Here I had the chance to talk to the Tornado's Crew and so I decided to build their beautiful Tornado ECR. For my ECR I used the Revell GR. 4-Kit (#04924). The RAF's GR-Tornado is more an IDS and is in some areas different to the ECR. So some changes needed to be done to make an GR. 4 into an ECR-Tonka.  

For the conversion "some" aftermarket stuff was bought.  

Everything is organised. Don't believe it stilll looks like that.  

The Martin Baker Mk.10A ejection seats are from Aires and look really nice. 

The BOZ-EC pod is from Eduard. 

The ECR has no guns. So the guns needed to be filled. 

 

 

The HARMs are from Reskit. 

Drop Tanks and the Cerberus-Pod are oob. 

Everything is ready for primer. 

The 3d-printed cockpit decals are from Eduard. 

Some PE-parts were "okay" in size... 

...others not. This is a lever!  

But it looks nice in the end. 

 

 

Dry fitting. 

 

To be honest, the kit isn't great fitwise. Here and there brute force was necessary to hold the parts together.  

 

And in other places ugly gaps were quite common. 

Note the top part of the air intake. One is crooked, the other one has an ugly step.  

 

 

 

Another example for the poor fit. 

And another one. 

 

 

Ugly seams everywhere. I was very close to bin the whole project.  

 

 

 

One of the major differences between the IDS and the ECR is the missing Kruger Flaps on the ECR. I filled the gaps with super glue and sanded it flush. The flaps were under the wing root and not visible in this picture. 

 

 

I decided to move on and assembled the whole jet.  

FLIR // There's is none for the Luftwaffe Tonka in the Kit and the british Tonkas had different ones). I found something in my spare part box that looked quite similar to the Luftwaffe's FLIR and used it. 

 

The ECR I built is an ASSTA 3.1 upgrade and has some radar warning sensors on the tail and under the fuselage. Unfortunetly the GR.4 didn't have these, so I scratch built these sensors (at least the tail ones). If you don't want to scratch build them, use thr Revell ASSTA 3.1-Kit. This kit has the parts!!! 

 

This part is the other radar warning sensor missing in the GR-Kit. Only the Eduard ECR-Kit and the Revell ASSTA 3.1-Kit (#03849) have it. Luckily my friend AndiX won't use it for his future Tornado-Project and gave it to me. Thank you again, Andreas.  

Primer 

Preshading 

AK Real Color RC237 Medium Grey (FS35237)  

 

Accidents happened!  

 

And now the fun part: painting details 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prost! 

And now decals. I used three different ones: HaHen #48044, the decals from ASSTA 3.1-Tornado (thank you again Andreas) and DIY ones.  

The HaHen-Decals are good in quality, but they have two major disadvantages. 1. The decals are covered with one big layer of carrier film. 2. Some stencils are not correct in size or colour.  

 

 

The red walkway decals are DIY. There are NO SUCH DECALS out there on the market. These red walkways are unique to the ECR-Tornado, but most kits replicate the IDS or GR. There is no kit or decal sheet out there that has these (correct) walkways. The Eduard ECR-Kit has red walkways, but they are not correct in shape.  

 

 

 

 

A lot of decals were applied. 

A LOT!!!! 

 

Here's another flaw of the HaHen-Decals. Note the registration under the German Flag. It says 4035, but has to be 46+25. Yes, you can build any german Tornado with the this decal sheet. The decals for the big numbers of the registration are there and correct, but unfortunetly you cannot replicate your favorite jet registration under the flag.  

 

Right: pinwash applied // Left: no pinwash 

Pinwash on the whole jet. 

Here's the Tonka after a coat of flat clear and some fine weathering with oil paints on the wings and walkways. 

Also some oil paint weathering on some maintenance hatches and at the intakes.  

Unfortunately in a few bad angles some decals have a slight silvering. And guess what: the DIY-decals have no silvering.  

Aires Seats with PE-Harnesses  

I accidently broke the pin for attaching the wheel to the landing gear. Twice! Please, don't ask. I had to replace it with a shortened injection needle. 

On its own wheels for the first time. 

 

Reskit AGM-88 HARM 

Ejection seats after painting. Coat of flat clear isn't applied yet.  

First and only picture of the final aircraft from this years Euro Model Expo. More will follow!