Previous kits in this scale by Frog, Matchbox and Airfix were fine for their times, but had been overtaken by technology. Today's modelers really want more detail and fidelity to form than what we wanted in the past. All the previous kits were deficient in some way or another in the fidelity to form part of things and this one seems to have corrected all of those.  The earlier release of the Mk.6 sold very well indeed, so it was not surprising that a year or so later, the FGA.9 was released. After a very long absence, this variant is now back on the market.

 You get pretty much the same kit as the F.6, which was released in 2005, however, there is are additional parts compared to the F.6 and some that were included in the initial boxing of the FGA.9 that are not in this kit. One thing the F.6 kit had that this does not are Sidewinders and their rails. I guess the RAF FGA.9s did not have this system installed. Everything else is about the same.

Some parts have flash, but not as bad as the initial boxing. There are no sink areas and no issues with ejector pin marks. The kit is quite modular with separate exhaust and outer forward wings to handle the FGA.9 bits. The nose and gun area are also modular as if they were thinking of the recon version, though one has not been released. On the outer upper wings are some antennas with questions beside them. I guess you will need to find a photo to see if these were used or not.

Cockpit is fairly well done and decals are supplied for instruments. Canopy can be posed open or closed, same with the speed brake and the flaps. Thanks to this variant's ability to carry larger fuel tanks, the builder will need to cut sections from them for clearance. For things under wings you have 230 gallon tanks inboard and outboard either 100 gallon tanks or rocket pods. Landing gear is well done and you can build this gear up though a stand will need to be obtained from some other source.

Instructions are well done and provide only Revell paint references. One option is as shown on the box art in green and dark grey with light grey undersides. This light grey will need to be mixed if using Revell paints. The plane is from 54 squadron in 1968. The other is from 1963 and 8 Squadron. This has a silver underside as that was standard for years so be sure to check your references regarding underside colors. Decals are typical of Revell and are fairly matte.  Revell also did not bother cutting the underwing serials for the gear down option so that will be a pain to get right. They also supply all the stencils you will need. If you don't like the options, you can use one of the myriad aftermarket sheets to take care of this.

CONSTRUCTION

As I mentioned in the kit description, this one suffers a bit from flash. It also has issues with sink areas around some of the alignment pins/sockets. The flash was worse on the cockpit tub than any other part of the kit. Perversely (for me), I actually started with the cockpit. I initially painted all the cockpit bits with Tamiya tire black along with the inner fuselage. The four piece seat was next with the control column then glued in place. You really need to attach the seat before the control column or you might break the latter during installation. Decals are provided for the instrument panel and side consoles so I used them. They conformed nicely after an application of Mr.Mark Softer.

The interior was glued into one half of the fuselage and the other half attached. Fit is good other than the area forward of the cockpit. Then the haves were closed once the exhaust section was glued in place. My attention then moved to the wings. There are some holes to open up prior to gluing the halves. After cutting the notch in the flaps, these were attached in the up position. Looking at a LOT of period photos of this plane on the ramp, in pretty much all images, the flaps were retracted. The wings were then attached and the fit is really quite good.

I then glued on the tail planes, but later had to remove them  when it came time to apply the camo masks. Fortunately, when one doesn't use a lot of glue, it is easier to remove things like this though they didn't just fall off. I then attached the clear bits and then masked them. Fit on these isn't the greatest.

As I was going to paint the underside silver, I went ahead and glued the main and nose gear in place. This was followed by the main gear doors. Since the kit also has a wheels up option, some of the gear doors needed to be cut apart.

COLORS and MARKINGS

Now it was time for some paint. I went with the scheme that was dark green/dark sea grey upper with silver undersides. For this kit, I used Aeromasks for the hard edge camouflage. This requires the dark green to be painted first. Before that, I primed the kit with Tamiya grey primer then used  Hataka dark green lacquer. Giving it a couple of days to cure, I applied the masks. These stick very well and I had no issues with paint bleeding under the masks. The dark sea grey was next, also from Hataka. Then I removed the masks. These had to be very slowly removed or they left residue. The little residue that was there was easily picked off using standard tape. The masking also pulled up most of the Tamiya tape I used on the clear bits.

With that done, the was some more masking and the underside was painted with Tamiya AS-12 from a rattle can. I find this duplicates silver lacquer better that just about anything else. The airframe was then given a clear gloss and the wing pylons attached. The attachment points for the pylons are quite small and can be easily broken away so care needs to be taken when attaching these items. The nose and fin radomes along with the extreme tail sections had their surrounds masked and those were then painted.

Next were the decals. I had decided on a Royal Rhodesian Air Force plane from Xtradecal sheet 72-063. This sheet has several great Hunter schemes so choosing one was difficult. The sheet offers no stencils so all those had to come from the kit decals. Once those were in place, the airframe was given a semi-matt clear coat and the rest of the small parts (wheels, front gear doors, drop tanks and rocket pods) were added. The canopy was popped off and re-attached in the open position.