The British Aerospace 125 is a twinjet mid-size business jet. Originally developed by de Havilland and initially designated as the DH.125 Jet Dragon, it entered production as the Hawker Siddeley HS.125, which was the designation used until 1977. Later on, more recent variants of the type were marketed as the Hawker 800.

The type proved quite popular outside of the United Kingdom; more than 60% of the total sales for the aircraft were to North American customers. It was also used by the Royal Air Force as a navigation trainer, as the Hawker Siddeley Dominie T1, and was operated by the United States Air Force as a calibration aircraft, under the designation C-29.

C-29 was the United States military designation for a derivative of the BAe 125 800 designed to replace the Lockheed C-140A, used by the Air Force to accomplish the combat flight inspection and navigation mission (C-FIN) at US airbases around the world, participated in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm during the First Gulf War. Six aircraft were bought and all operated with the 1467th FCS at Scott AFB. After about 18 months of operation, the squadron was disbanded and the aircraft handed over to the FAA.

Sword makes fairly good short run kits and this one is an example of how far they have come along over the years. There are two grey sprues and one clear. The kit has been released in a variety of boxings so you'll be needing the filler for windows that were not installed in this boxing. All the cabin windows are on a single piece for each side. The cockpit windows are on a single piece that includes the surrounding fuselage. A set of masks for the windows and wheels is included.

The cockpit consists of a pair of seats, control sticks and an instrument panel with raised detail. This fits on a cockpit floor piece that has raised detail on the consoles. A rear bulkhead leading to nowhere is included. There is no cabin detail. Before installing the cockpit section, a nose gear well goes in place. No nose weight is indicated, but I'd add some just to be sure before joining the fuselage halves.

The wing and complete landing gear are then build up. For me, this is a disaster waiting to happen and I'd wait until after painting to install the landing gear. There are separate fences for the upper wing. On the forward underside is a piece that differs between the US and Japanese variants. Nose gear and smaller items are added at the front before moving to the back.

Here, the engine pods are constructed. There will be a pair of seams that will be difficult to fill on the engine inlet. The single piece horizontal stabilizer is then glued on along with the VOR antennas. Then a mass of upper and lower fuselage antennas are to be added. Some are the same on both options, but not all so pay attention.

Instruction booklet is nicely done with detail drawings to help with alignment. Color information is all generic. The box art plane is the USAF C-29A in Euro I camouflage which is a wrap around scheme so will be fun to paint. This has the leading edges of the wings and tailplanes in unpainted metal. The other is a Japanese plane in overall unpainted metal. This option takes up the lion's share of the fairly large decal sheet. I found it interesting that no wing insignia were included for the USAF option and wonder if this was an oversight or not. The decals are nicely printed and should work just fine.

I'm glad to see this kit released. I've always been interested in kits of planes that I've seen flying overhead from the local AFB and this is one that, though for a brief time, was frequently seen. If you can deal with the issues that often accompany short run kits, then this would make an interesting addition to your shelves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Aerospace_125

December 2021

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