Prepare for an impressive landing from Corgi

Through Michael Clegg’s excellent Diecast Diaries blog on Corgi’s website, development images of the stunning new 1/48 scale tooling of the second generation Hawker Siddeley/British Aerospace Harrier have now been released into the public domain. And what an absolute stunner this is going to be.

Marking a significant development in the history of this magnificent aircraft, the Harrier II may have shared many operational and visual similarities with its famous VSTOL predecessor, however, this was a very different aeroplane altogether and owed much to America's McDonnell Douglas Corporation. Essentially, this new generation of Harrier was a completely different aircraft, a much more capable aeroplane in every respect and a space age development on this now familiar VSTOL theme. The programme was intended to unlock the undoubted potential possessed by the original Harrier, address all of its operational shortcomings and turn it into arguably the most versatile attack aircraft in the world, one which could go anywhere and perform almost any offensive role. From a UK military perspective, the programme would eventually result in the introduction of the much more capable Harrier GR.5 in 1987, with additional successive upgrades over the next couple of decades ensuring the Harrier maintain its position as one of the world's foremost strike/attack aircraft.

With its high metal content, the new Harrier is a stunning addition to Corgi’s growing 1/48th scale post war jets range and a faithful scale representation of this famous fighting aeroplane. The image shown here is the first time that metal, plastic and clear parts have all come together. Packed with detail and features, notably the different engine nozzle positionings for hovering and standard flight modes. In addition to some of the many other components, this impressive new model has within the tooling, the material used to replicate the Harrier's tyres is a new compound, which has some play in it to give the impression of scale weight.

Still at quite an early stage of development, the team will now be poring over the engineering sample, assessing every aspect of its fit, finish, detail representation and shape accuracy, to check if everything has translated from design file to manufactured components as intended and indeed if any improvements or modifications are needed. Clearly, at this stage, the tooling is still in its development phase and as such, may well and usually is subject to future modification. Two other aspects worthy of mention at this stage are the variety of nose sections being tooled up and the most impressive array of weapons and stores options that the tooling includes. Visit the Diecast Diaries pages at uk.corgi.co.uk/community/blog-and-news for more information and imagery.