Introduction

The Hawker Hurricane, often overshadowed by the better known Spitfire, recorded about 60% of the losses substained by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. Designed in the 1930’s with production beginning in 1936, it was in production until 1944, in many variants, with a total of more the 14,000 made. It was flown by many of the Commonwealth countries and allies, including Poland. A newer kit from Arma Hobby is representative of the a Hurricane Mk.I as flown by Polish pilots from 1940-41.

Contents

2 Plastic Sprues
1 Clear Plastic Sprue
1 Fret Photo-etched parts
1 Sheet of Canopy Masks
1 Sheet of Decals
Instruction Booklet

Review

Arma Hobby is relatively new, especially within North America. This is the second kit I have had the pleasure of reviewing, and must say I am impressed with the quality and what is in the kit. The kit is molded in light grey plastic with very nice surface details, including very nicely done engraved panel lines. There was a bit of flash on my review copy, but nothing major that could not be cleaned up easily. There are also so prominent seams on some parts, again easy to clean up with a good file.

This being a ‘Expert Kit’ from Arma Hobby, the kit does include some nice looking photo-etched parts and a masking sheet for the canopy. The photo-etched parts add details to the cockpit and some exterior parts. For the cockpit, there is a very nice looking photo-etched instrument panel, seat belts, side walls, and a few other smaller bits. For the scale and with the photo-etched parts, Arma Hobby has delivered what could be a very nice looking cockpit.

The clear plastic sprue contains two canopies, one for closed and one for open. The will allow you to display an open cockpit without the canopy riding high on the fuselage. The clear plastic parts look great, and with the masks should look even better on the build.

The undercarriage is also very well done, with details on the inside of the upper and side wall with nice looking rib details. The struts look nice, but did find some very slight warping.

The decals look to be very well printed, thin, and all looked to be in register. They have nice color, and for some reason, Arma Hobby has included on the sheet two sets of interior cockpit and stencil decals. The instrument panel decal does look real nice and should add to the photo-etched parts.

All paint schemes are the typical RAF Dark Earth and Green for the time, with markings for:

• P3059, SD-N, 501 Squadron RAF, Sgt. Antoni Glowacki, August 1940
  
• V7234, SD-A, 501 Squadron RAF, Sgt. Antoni Glowacki, August 24, 1940 (Credit with 5 kills this day, in this aircraft)
  
• R4175, RF-R, 303 Squadron PSP/RAF, Sgt. Josef Frantisek, August/October 1940
  284, J, 3 Squadron, SAAF, Lt. Robert Kershaw, Ethiopia, March 1954 (Tropical Variant)

Build

The build started with the landing gear bay, which while decently detailed already, provides a photo-etched piece for the interior roof of the bay. This fit in nicely, as did the addition of the struts and supports.

Next I started work on the cockpit. Everything goes together very well, again the addition of the photo-etched parts makes some nice looking details, including the nicely done seat belts. There are some small parts, so care is needed. For the instrument panel, a little planning is needed as once you shave off the molded details on the front, the decal is applied then the photo-etched part. So I painted all these separately, and glued together. The little extra time and effort pays off, as it is one of the better “out of the box” instrument panels I have seen in 1/72 scale.

I pretty well followed the kit instructions for painting, using Vallejo Metals for the aluminum and cockpit green. Details were picked out again with Vallejo colors, and then a wash.

Putting the fuselage halves together is where I found a little bit of trouble. It seems the photo-etched plate for the instrument panel is a little wider then the interior of the fuselage, thus a little sanding was needed to get everything to fit. This extra width also applied to the photo-etched used as screen for the radiator filters. Almost like the photo-etched was not properly sized.

Another issue I came across during the whole cockpit and fuselage assembly is the alignment pins and holes did not always match when it came to attaching in matter of size. It was more like they were an after thought with the pins being more like a “blob” and the holes more like a “dimple”. In most cases I was able to sand the pin off and still able to line up and attach.

The fuselage and wing attachment fits were generally good, other then I had to sand some of the bottom of the cockpit tubing to get the wing roots for fit properly.

With the included canopy masks from Arma Hobby masking the canopy went rather quick. Just be careful as to what masks you use. The kit contains two canopies, one for closed and one a touch wider for open. Hence there are different mask cut-outs for each.

With the rest of the parts attached, I gave the plane a quick wash with Windex, rinsed, and let dry. I used Stynlrez primer and AK Interactive Real Aircraft colors for painting. With the paint dried, a coat of Future was added prior to decals.

The decal go on nice, as they are thin and a little coaxing from SovlaSet the decal settled very nicely into the contours and engraved panel lines. AK Interactive wash was used for the panel lines, and it was all sealed up with a coat of Model Master Flat.

Summary

Overall this was an enjoyable build of this Hurricane Mk.I from Arma Hobby. In 1/72 scale the details are very well done, including some nice looking photo-etched details. During the build I found the fit was general good with the exception of some of the photo-etched parts. A couple seemed to be a tad bigger then where they were support to fit. That said, with a little effort the kit from Arma Hobby does build into a very nice looking model. I would highly recommend.