Unmanned: Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk – Skunk Models 1/48

As we round off 2023, I wanted to share at least one of the two most recent builds I have completed this year, as well as just have a quick peek at some projects in process for 2024.

Today I'm sharing a few pictures that, frankly, were difficult to get due to it's unruly size. The model in question is Skunk Model Workshop's RQ-4B Global Hawk. I'll keep this short due to time today...

Aircraft Overview

The RQ-4B Global Hawk is a high-altitude, long-endurance, remotely piloted aircraft that provides global all-weather, day or night intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability for the USAF. The RQ-4B is the second generation of the Global Hawk series, following the RQ-4A, which was retired in 2011. The RQ-4B has a massive wingspan of 130.9 feet (39.9 m), a length of 47.6 feet (14.5 m), and a height of 15.3 feet (4.7 m). It can fly at altitudes up to 60,000 feet (18,300 m) and has a maximum endurance of 34 hours. During that time, the RQ-4B can survey as much as 40,000 square miles (100,000 sq km) of terrain per day, an area the size of many small countries. The USAF originally planned to acquire 63 RQ-4Bs, but due to cost overruns and reliability issues, this number was reduced to 45. As of 2022, the USAF plans to retire its RQ-4Bs in 2027.

Kit and Construction

The presented kit was found secondhand at my LHS, and picked up with the intent for it to be a simple build, being that there is no cockpit, and the paint scheme is fairly basic. Making the build even more streamlined was my intent to build it wheels up. This decision was made easy by current storage constraints, as I have no shelf available for the footprint of this massive wingspan, and displaying it in flight gives me the option to hang it from the ceiling if I ever decide. It currently resides atop one of my display cases, soon to be befuddled by dust.

There's not much to say about the build, as it was pretty straightforward. I will say that, as boxed, the kits wings are intended to droop, which is accurate for being displayed on the ground. In order to depict the wings producing lift, I had to induce some upward flex of the wingtips. I did this by supergluing the lower wing insert into place with the upper wing flexed. Additionally, I had to modify how the wings insert into the fuselage such that there didn't appear to be any droop right at the wing root. In doing this modification, I also removed the mounting studs for the wings, which allow the wings to be removed if needed, which was a must during painting and desktop handling.

For paint and decals, I made some variations to the scheme as depicted in the instructions, just for some variety. Having looked at numerous pictures online, you begin to see the numerous differences between different Blocks of the RQ-4B, and how sensor packages changed over time. I didn't dive deep into getting this correct, but thought that the addition of the black "cheeks" and some variation to the sheen of the radome covers seemed easy enough to do. It was hard to resist doing some heavy weathering of the Gunship grey (complete with fading and maintenance crew smudges), but in the end I decided against even doing panel line weathering highlighting. Parts of the aircraft were finished with satin, and other parts oversprayed with flat varnish.

I'm quite happy with it, even if it was a lower effort build.

A few shots comparing it to an MQ-9, and a P-51B.

Rather then looking back on past headlines, let us looking into 2024:

• First, I'll share my Tamiya Corsair, built in 2023
  

  

Next, some aircraft already on the assembly line:

In likely order of completion...

• Hasegawa AV-8B
• Eduard (Mauve) P-40N
• Halberd SC-1
• Halberd Mustang Turbo III
• Tamiya F-16
• Revell Rafale

Lastly, some 1/700 ships in Drydock!

I do not dedicate enough time to completing these ships, but hopefully a few will find their way to the headlines in 2024.

Cheers, and a Happy New Year to all!