ESCI – 9051 – AV-8A U.S. “Marines”

Description:

Unassembled plastic model kit in 1/72 scale of a U.S. AV-8A Harrier, a specific develop for the U.S. Marine Corps of the British Hawker Siddeley Harrier.

The Harrier AV-8A completed in 1984 the list of ESCI Harrier kits, and following the path of the previous releases, the kit added a new forward fuselage, canopy and nose, as well as tail, to the base of the kits, making again, a consistent and good early AV-8A kit.

The Italian brand, ESCI, did you two releases that year for the AV-8A, one entitled “Marines” and one entitled “Matador” (The Spanish variant name), with exactly same content just differing in the decal sheet.

The kit shares the pros and cons of the ESCI Harrier line, wrong seat and basic cockpit amongst the worse, good shape and size and pleasant built amongst the better. This kit shares lot of components with the GR.3 version, but still adds some particular part. The payload included here was the basic of the line, consisting of two AIM-9 Sidewinder, fuel tanks and the excellent gun pods. Aftermarket seat, cockpit and payload can drastically improve the overall aspect of the kit, which is still and excellent kit.

For this kit, decal sheet included one single marking for VMA-542 Flying Tigers.

This kit was reissued again in 1988 under ESCI-Ertl, but box cover was very similar, almost just updating the logo from ESCI to ESCI/Ertl. The box cover shown here belongs to the original 1984 release. Kit has been also issued under Italeri brand as Italeri – 1410 – AV-8A HARRIER (2019).