1:48 Sea Hurricane Mk I

A fighter launched from a merchant ship

When submarines and long-range Condors were crushing convoys beyond the reach of coastal airfields, the admiralty reached for an idea on the edge of desperation: a catapult was mounted on the bow of a cargo ship and a fighter on it. The Sea Hurricane in this role had nowhere to land; after hitting its opponent the pilot bailed out or set down on the water beside the convoy and hoped somebody would fish him out. The later carrier form was given an arrestor hook and a normal deck on an aircraft carrier. Its origin stayed recognizable, though: it was a land machine adapted to the sea, not the other way round.

A cover that runs backward

The glazing of the Hurricane has three clearly separated parts and each behaves differently. At the front stands a motionless windscreen assembled from flat panes, whose middle field is formed by a thick plate of bulletproof glass bolted on from outside. In the middle the cockpit cover itself, divided by frames into three fields, runs back on rails. At the rear follows a fixed glazed structure with side windows through which the pilot watched the area behind the tail. Three different parts therefore mean three different sets of joints and corners.

What you will find in the box

• one cut of film, intended for the outer surface of the glazed parts
• two sheets of masks for the roundels and further national insignia

Inner masking is not stated here, so a closed cockpit is reckoned with. Anyone who wants to build the machine with the cover slid back has to treat the frame from the inside with means of his own; the shape of the joints is a guide even so to where the edge of the paint should end.