Sweet 1/144 Hurricane I

HISTORY

The Hurricane was Britain's first modern fighter. It had the features that made it a classic. It was a fast low wing monoplane with retractable landing gear, a powerful engine and an enclosed cockpit. A bit of a throwback was that it was a tube steel airframe with fabric covering over most of it. Only the inner wings and the area forward of the cockpit were clad in metal.

It quickly became the main fighter type of the RAF, replacing the various units flying biplanes. By the time Britain entered the war, it was the main fighter type, though some had started flying Spitfires and some still had biplanes. Hurricanes were the type that were sent to France to help against the war with Germany and while relatively effective, were generally out-classed by the Luftwaffe's Bf-109Es. The Hurricane was also the major fighter against the Luftwaffe, its relatively heavy armament being best against German bombers. Later, it was sent to various secondary fronts where they wouldn't be up against the enemy's first team.

THE KIT

  This is Sweet's second kit and was released in 2001. Their first was the Macchi 200. The kit box touts that it can be built in 2 minutes and I'm sure it can, but that would be without taking care of seams and definitely without painting or decaling the kit.

Detailing is really super with engraved panel lines and properly muted canvas sections. There is no interior to speak of which isn't that much of a problem when working in Munchkin scale. Parts attachment points for some bits are rather large, but it shouldn't be a hindrance to construction. The kit is supposed to be the fabric winged version, but it looks like the same plastic as the later versions. The kit does come with a proper Watts two blade prop as well as the later three blade deHavilland version.

One of the two kits (not shown) is molded in clear plastic. Now this may seem a bit odd, but it saves them from having to do a separate clear sprue just for two tiny canopies. If you'll notice on the opaque sprue, there are two solid canopies located there. This also works with the landing light covers. Not the usual way of taking care of things, but it does work.

Instructions are a huge fold out sheet with all of the instructions and decal placement guides on one side and something in Japanese on the other. There are no fewer than eight different options with a variety of camouflage markings. Aside from the Finnish option, dark green and earth are the upper surfaces. The undersides are a variety of different patterns involving silver, black and white. Only the Belgian offering has a solid silver underside with even the Rumanian plane having the 'black left, white right' wing undersides. Some of the RAF options have the center fuselage in silver.

There are planes from 1, 87, 151, and 501 squadron provided. The Finnish, Rumanian and one 151 squadron option uses the three blade prop. The decal sheet is superbly printed and provides all you need to do two very nice, and very small Hurricanes.