Hasegawa Hawker Hurricane Mark Ia in 1/48
by
Mike Hanlon
First flown in 1936 and produced through the end of 1944, the Hawker Hurricane served from the beginning of World War II as a front line fighter and finished the war as a ground attack aircraft. While never acquiring the glamour of the Supermarine Spitfire, Hurricanes shot down more aircraft in the Battle of Britain than the Spitfire. Late service included 40 mm cannon armed tank busting and rocket carrying anti-shipping missions.
Released in 1997 as a Mark IIc, the Hasegawa Hurricane series represents the heights that a manufacturer can reach in stretching the variants of an aircraft that can be produced with one mold. To date, Hasegawa has released the Hurricane Mark Ia, Mark Ia trop with desert air filter, the Mark IIb, Mark IIc, as well as the 40mm tank busting Mark IId, and the Mark IV. Hasegawa has also released two versions of the Sea Hurricane, the Mark Ia and Ib in one box, and the Sea Hurricane Mark IIc in a separate release. These versions include resin parts to include the V cutout for the arrestor hook.
How did Hasegawa accomplish this? Inserts, lots and lots of inserts. The leading edge of the wing has four unique inserts for the Mark I alone. The fuselage is divided into four pieces with forward pieces changing as the later Marks had increased length due to engine changes. There are also molded details which you are directed to remove depending on which version you are doing. The final point to consider is which version and which parts you need to complete any version. I built the Mark Ia from the Battle of Britain and logically started with Hasegawa’s Battle of Britain Mark I. The aircraft I elected to represent had a DeHaviland spinner and propeller that are not included in the Battle of Britain release. It is included in the Mark I Trop release that I also have so I simply borrowed the parts from that kit. The trop kit has both the desert filter and an insert for the non-tropical version so if you wish to build a DeHaviland spinnered Mark I start with this kit.
Assembly of the Hurricane starts with the interior, and here Hasegawa has excelled. The Hurricane did not have a cockpit tub but utilized a tube framework with the seat mounted to an armored plate. The floor was open and had two troughs for the pilot’s feet. The whole effect is rather like a birdcage and Hasegawa has done an admirable job in capturing it. The interior consists of thirteen pieces which fit together very well. I painted the interior with PollyScale British Interior Green. Hasegawa provides a decal for the instrument panel, but I elected to paint it and detail it with Prismacolor pencils. I also painted the control boxes Black and highlighted them with colored pencils. The Sutton harness came from Eduard. A quick note, Eduard has recently released a series of pre-painted photo-etched seat harnesses that unfortunately were not available when I built this kit.
Once the cockpit was assembled, I installed it into the rear fuselage halves, (quarters?) and glued the rear fuselage together. Many of the reviews of the Hurricane state that Hasegawa overstated the fabric detail of the rear fuselage. Some reviewers go so far as to recommend filling and sanding between the ribs. I just gave the fuselage a light sanding and let it go at that. I then added the forward fuselage halves and discovered that they didn’t fit very well. I have never heard of this problem in any of the reviews I have read, so I assume that I had misaligned in the interior pieces. In the future I will make sure I test kit the fuselage parts around the interior before I gluing it in place. A fair amount of sanding and filling solved the problem.
Once I had the fuselage completed, I went on to the wing assembly. As I noted earlier, there are raised panels not present on the Mark I that need to be sanded off. I then added the wheel well inserts and glued the two wing tops to the one piece lower. Next came the two wing gun inserts and the outboard blanking plates, which required a significant amount of filling and sanding to blend in. I then installed the wing lights and the clear covers to the leading edge of each wing, these are boxed off in the kit and Hasegawa provides separate pieces to represent the lights. I painted the boxed area Flat Black and the lights Silver. The covers fit well and were masked off with vinyl masks from E-Z Mask’s Hurricane canopy mask set. When I attached the completed wing to the fuselage, I had some gaping at the wing root that I filled with Mr. Surfacer. The gape was probably the result of the misalignment of the fuselage parts so be warned and test fit early and often. The gap on the underside is pure Hasegawa, unfortunately they rear edge of the wing does not end on a panel line but in the middle of the fabric detail. Filling the resulting gap wiped out some of the fabric detail.
The belly mounted radiator pieces and fuselage insert for the forward fuselage were now added with no problems. I left the landing gear and tail planes off until after painting. I masked the canopy with E-Z masks and attached the canopy to the fuselage with Krystal Klear.
I began painting the model by spraying the landing gear bay, gear struts and wheels with Floquil Old Silver. Once this had set, I masked off the gear bays and pre-shaded the Hurricane’s panel lines with Flat Black. The underside was then painted with PollyScale Sky. The upper surface was painted with PollyScale British Dark Earth and set aside to dry.
Over the past few years, Eduard has released a series of adhesive camouflage masks for a variety of aircraft including both A and B schemes for the Hurricane. Using these masks would, of course, leave you with a very hard-edged camouflage pattern. Hurricanes and Spitfires were painted at the factory with a series of rubber mats laid over the aircraft to serve as painting masks. This resulted in a hard-edged camouflage pattern. Touch-ups and repainting in the field were accomplished without the benefit these masks and so were softer edged. I thought the use of Eduard’s masks would make the camouflage too stark for this scale and so came up with the idea of attaching the masks to paper, cutting these out and taping them to the model. While not as simple using the masks directly on the model, I liked the result I got. I can also reuse the masks when I do another Hurricane and by reversing them, have the A pattern (mirror image of the B pattern.) PollyScale British Dark Green was used for the final camouflage color.
Once the paint was dry, I added the tail planes which fit snuggly and required no filling. I then installed the landing gear which is very complex. By carefully following the instructions, I suffered no major disasters and got everything lined up. The tires are Aeromaster Tire Black with Floquil Old Silver wheels. Before adding the tail wheel a small plate is added to the tail wheel depression. This part should have been added earlier and faired into place before the underside color was applied. Live and learn!
Although I pre-shaded the model with Flat Black prior to painting, I went back after the painting was completed and accented the panel lines with Gunze Sangyo Smoke, followed by several thin coats of Future to provide a gloss coat for the decals.
Once the Future had dried, I applied the decals. I used Aeromaster’s Battle of Britain Special set. The aircraft I chose was flown by Squadron Leader A. McKeller of 605 Squadron based at Croydon in October 1940. McKellar was credited with 22 confirmed victories. The decals went on well with the exception of the serial number on the port side. In trying to fix it, I mangled it somewhat but not having a spare $20 decal set to replace two digits I touched it up as best I could.
Final assembly included adding the propeller and exhausts. The kit exhausts are not very well done; fortunately Ultracast has produced a beautiful set of replacement exhausts in resin. I acquired these exhausts just before the model was completed. After painting and drybrushing, I removed them from their casting blocks and added them to the Hurricane. The kit parts have tabs that slide into slots in the fuselage. Ultracast did not replicate these tabs and after test fitting I discovered that you could see light straight though the aircraft. To prevent this, block the slot with a sheet styrene. Since this option wasn’t available with an assembled model, I filled the slots with Krystal Klear. Not an elegant solution but it worked.
In spite of the complexities inherent in the kit, the finished model looks very nice (at least in my opinion.) If you are at all interested in Hurricanes, the Hasegawa kits cover the entire spectrum of Hurricane production and result in very accurate models. Just be prepared to work a little bit for it.