1:48 Hawker Sea Fury FB.11

The last piston fighter of carrier flights

The Sea Fury came aboard at a moment when the world was already turning to jet engines, and yet it left behind a reputation few piston aircraft have. An eighteen cylinder radial gave it a speed at the limit of what a propeller will bear, and a robust airframe stood takeoff and landing on a pitching deck alike. The machine wrote its best known chapter over Korea, where British naval airmen clashed with jet opponents and one such duel ended with a jet fighter shot down by a piston engined aircraft.

Four machines, three flags

Four specific aircraft are offered. One serves with a British naval flight in 1953, the second with the Royal Australian Navy at a base in New South Wales in 1950 and the remaining two with the Royal Canadian Navy at Dartmouth in the fifties. A modeler thus chooses between three countries from one sheet, and anyone building several examples gets differing national insignia on the same type side by side.

Practical advice for the build

• Lay the decals on a glossy surface, otherwise air bubbles hold under them.
• Even the deep blue finish of carrier machines out beforehand; the background showing through is noticeable on large insignia.
• Use a softener on surfaces with rivets and press the film down carefully with a cotton swab.
• Neither a kit nor glue nor paints are part of the package.

The sheet matches 1:48 scale and is used on a kit of the same type from any maker. The folding wing that the carrier version had moreover offers a rewarding option for displaying a model in the hangar position.