The Aircraft

Harriers are famous for being able to take off and land vertically. Of course, taking off vertically with a full combat load isn’t practical, unless your mission is to drop a teacup of napalm just off the airfield border. Nevertheless, the Harrier has been successful, and it’s because of the ability to adjust the exhaust to vector it through the nozzles to allow downward as well as normal push for vertical and normal flight.

The Kit

The entire kit is two sets of nozzles, one forward, one rear, left and right sides.

I used the Dragon AV-8B kit for this review, and the nozzles fit in the Dragon fuselage with no modification.

Painting

There seems to be some disagreement about the color of these nozzles. Some sources have both front and rear nozzles as metal exhaust, others the front in the same color as the fuselage with the rear one burnt metal. I decided the second option was the one, and painted the nozzles this way.

I did my AV-8 as one from VMA-311, based at MCAS Yuma, Arizona, which is about 150 miles from here.

Finishing Touches

I took pictures of the nozzles as installed, before adding the landing gear and underwing stores, as these tend to block the view.

Overall Evaluation

Recommended. These parts have better detail of the exhaust louvers on the nozzles, and if you’ve got a missing part, it’s a wonderful replacement.

Many thanks to Brengun for this nice detail, and to IPMS/USA for the chance to build it.