1:48 British National Insignias - Hawker Hurricane

Insignia for the workhorse of the Battle of Britain

The Hawker Hurricane tends to stand in the shadow of its more elegant rival, even though it was the Hurricane that shot down most of the German aircraft claimed in the summer and fall of 1940. Its structure of steel tubes covered with fabric was easier to repair and the machine survived hits after which an all-metal airframe would have ended up in the scrapyard. It served from England through Malta and North Africa as far as Burma and the decks of merchant ships.

Each of those deployments had its own form of markings. Home squadrons moved to a more subdued version during the battle, aircraft with a desert filter carried their insignia on a differently stepped area of the wing, and the naval Sea Hurricane launched by catapult from a ship also carried high-contrast elements so that its own fleet could recognize it. Night machines had the underside painted entirely black and no insignia on it.

The sheet covers this range of variants, so the builder can choose the form matching the squadron and the year being modeled. For the desert and naval machines that usually means a combination the kit sheet does not contain.

It is applied in warm water; as soon as the motif releases from the paper, slide it onto a moistened gloss surface and move it into position with a brush. Draw the excess water off with the edge of a paper towel rather than by pressing from above, so that the film does not wrinkle.

Do not throw the leftover motifs from the sheet away. Roundels are so universal on British aircraft that they will serve when repairing a model whose markings were damaged during overspraying, and when building other types from the same period. Store them flat between two sheets of paper, because a wrinkled film settles much more poorly later on.