1:48 Hawker Hurricane

The Hurricane that flew almost everywhere

The Hawker Hurricane tends to be seen as a purely British machine, but Britain supplied it to its allies throughout the war, and the sheet shows that on four very different aircraft. One thing alone joins them: none of them flew in the colors of the home Fighter Command.

Four sets of markings

Version Mk. I in tropical form, serial number Z4434, served with the French Bretagne group in North Africa in 1942. The tropical Mk. IIb Z5664 belonged to the Dutch colonial air service and was deployed from the Kalidjati airfield on Java, likewise in 1942. The tropical Mk. IIc with the fuselage number 2-13 flew in 1947 with the Imperial Iranian Air Force from the Doshan Teppeh base. The last, Mk. IIb Z3227, belonged to the 769th Fighter Regiment of the 122nd Division of the Soviet air defense and is captured at the field airfield of Poduzhemye in March 1942.

The character of the goods

These are printed waterslide decals of 1:48 size for completing a finished model. Since the individual variants differ not only in color but also in airframe equipment, the work includes some thought about which kit to choose: tropical machines tend to have a dust filter under the fuselage, while the Soviet Hurricane often has winter modifications.

Procedure

Desert camouflage tends to be rougher, so it pays to underlay the places beneath a decal with a gloss layer. Apply the individual elements one after another, so that the edges do not touch before each has dried.

A note on the subject

Soviet Hurricanes came through the northern convoys and stayed in air defense units even once they were no longer good enough at the front. The Netherlands machines on Java, by contrast, were used up within a few weeks in the winter of 1942. That difference in the length of service shows on the models, because it is reflected in the state of the finish.