1:72 Sea Hawk

A carrier fighter with a split exhaust

The Hawker Sea Hawk came about at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s as the first jet machine of this brand to reach the decks of British aircraft carriers. Its designers solved an unusual problem: the engine with a centrifugal compressor was wide and its gases had to be led around the tanks in the rear. The exhaust was therefore split into two nozzles led out at the sides of the fuselage behind the wing. The straight wing folded so that the aircraft would fit into the hangar below deck. Sea Hawks took part in the operation at Suez in 1956 and served in the Netherlands, in Germany and longest of all with the Indian Navy.

A cockpit above the nose

The cockpit cover is set high and at the front it has a flat windscreen in a fixed frame. Pre-cut masks hold the edge of the finish exactly where the metal ends, and the sliding section stays clear. The modeler can thus give the cover a few minutes instead of an hour and concentrate rather on the folding wing or on the external stores beneath it.

• The dimensions come from the clear part by Special Hobby
• It covers the glazing of the pilot's cover
• The set deals with masking, not with accessory parts
• It withstands acrylic and oil-based finishes
• Peeling is easy even after several days

Models of British carrier aircraft are most often built in a dark naval finish, on which sharply bounded glass gives the model scale credibility. A dark color also shows up mercilessly every hairline of paint that got where it should not have.