Introduction

This is last of a series of three Hurricane kits released between 1998 and 2004 (earlier releases were the Mk.IIb and Sea Hurricane Mk.IIc). Hasegawa's range of Hurricanes were released around the same time, but are now discontinued. Another modern kit of the Mk.IIc is available from Academy.

In the box

The end-opening card box isn't very good at withstanding mail-order shipping- mine arrived in fairly bad shape. However, the target audience for this kit would typically pick it off the shelf. The box is also useless for storing the part-completed model. That said, I like the box art a lot.

There are two large sprues of pale grey polystyrene, and three little ones- 55 pieces in total. There is a small clear sprue, which was not individually wrapped, with four further parts.

The transfers offer markings for only two aircraft, one from 336 Greek Squadron, stationed in Egypt in 1944, and one from 28 Army Cooperation Squadron, India 1944; but do include extensive stencil markings.

The instructions are a short-edge 'bound' set of loose sheets, which makes turning the pages tricky and it doesn't want to stay together.

Detail

The panel lines are very finely engraved, and the shell ejector chutes are sharp-sided and have sufficient depth. The wheel wells are very nice for this scale and price- having rivet lines and inspection panels, as well as a compressed air canister and rams. The exhaust stacks are separate, and are finely moulded- with a fine drill bit and a pointy blade, hollowing them out shouldn't pose a problem for those wanting to add extra realism.

The cloth effect on the fuselage is quite restrained. The ribbed fabric effect on the control surfaces and tail is less convincing consisting of just thin sharp-sided raised lines where the ribs are.

The cockpit seems a little over-scale- the seat and control column are very chunky. The seat has an attempt at shoulder straps moulded into it. Very unusual is the moulding of the tail wheel and radio mast into the port fuselage half. The mast is delicate, and would be easy to damage while handling during construction and painting- I would have preferred it as a separate part. The main wheels are disappointing- the spokes are too small, and the gaps between them too shallow.

The clear parts are very, very thin, and the front part of the canopy is separate from the sliding part, so it should be easier to mount in the open position. However, it looks like the side of the fuselage would need to be sand for it to fit in the open position.

Options

I was surprised to see the glare guards for shielding exhaust flashes from the cockpit are included. These were fitted to night fighters and intruders. There are two styles of exhausts- flared and not. The normal carburettor intake is supplied as well as the tropical filtered version. The underside of the rear fuselage is a separate part (to allow for the Sea Hurricane option, but the hooked part is not supplied in this boxing). The kit comes with 250lb bombs and racks, as well as external fuel tanks. Both the bombs and tanks look a lot cruder than the rest of the kit- the tubular rear parts of tail of the bombs are far too thick. The bombs and racks are also over-scale. The fuel tanks have four overly thick bands around them. The real 44 gal tanks had two raised bands around them, and closer to each end of the tank a panel line.

Markings

Markings are supplied for KZ136, No.336 (Greek) Squadron, Desert Air Force, Mersa Matruh, Egypt, 1944, in desert camouflage; and for KZ353, No.28 (Army Cooperation) Squadron, RAF South East Asia Command, Dalbumghar, North East India, which has very small roundels with light blue centres, and white stripes over the wings and tail. The wing stripes are supplied as transfers. The white does not look very opaque on the backing paper.

The red-centres of the roundels are supplied separately. There is a smear of red ink from one of these, but that can be trimmed off before it is applied. item 36 on the sheet (see photo) appears to have the red out of register.

Revell are to be commended for supplying an extensive selection of very small stencil transfers that will add a level of realism missing from many cheap 1/72 single-engine fighter kits. The instrument panel is supplied as a transfer for those not wishing to paint it- the plastic part has detail for the dials, so they would have to sanded flat to use the transfer.
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