Though the Spitfire will always be my favorite aircraft from WWII, the Hawker Hurricane doesn’t lag far behind. While not as curvy and sleek as the Spitfire, the Hurricane had a brutish, purposeful look to it. And it’s performance, especially early in the war, cemented it’s legend, despite at times being overshadowed by Mr. Mitchell’s design.
I’ve built several Hurricane models- Pegasus Hobbies, Airfix, Hobbycraft and Italeri- but this was my first Hasegawa Hurricane. I’m happy to report that this one is well worth the time to build!
The cockpit is nicely appointed, though for some reason only a one piece canopy is supplied, so the detail is really “lost”. Of course, you could saw it open, but it’s a bit too thick in my opinion to do that and have it look good. There is also the vacform route- but I won’t wrestle with that. Life is too short.
The fuselage and wing assembly presented only a few minor challenges. Because of the Hurricane’s construction, the aft fuselage always present a bit of a challenge in any kit to remove seams and close and gaps. Fortunately, I was able to use an Excel sanding stick’s rounded tip to sand down the glue seams. There was a bit of a gap at the aft wing edge on the underside. I filled this with some Tamiya Basic Putty, sanded it smooth, and used the Excel stick again to restore the lost detail. It wasn’t perfect, but it looked pretty good.
The landing gear do a nice job of capturing the various struts and so forth that made the Hurricane’s “feet” work, but the assembly is a bit fiddly. I found that assembling the main gear parts first, and then placing in the two smaller appendages afterwards worked best.
The rest of the build was drama free- just the way I like it.
The model was painted with Tamiya colors- NATO Black on the undersides, and RAF Dark Green and Ocean Gray on the topsides. Weathering was done with artists oils, and some fading and shading with the airbrush. Decals were Eagle Strike’s “Night Hurricanes Part 1”, and they performed very well.
Overall I was very happy with how this model turned out. I highly recommend the Hasegawa Hurricane. While the Italeri kit is a newer tool, I felt that this kit’s detail- and certainly its fit- was clearly better.
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