Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIc 1/72 Arma Hobby

For some, the iconic British World War II fighter is the Spitfire, but for me, it’s the Hawker Hurricane. I almost always think of the movie Battle of Britain when I look at it, and the picture of the victorious night fight of the Hurricane over the Heinkel 111, which comes from Mr. Velc and was printed on the Směr kit box in the eighties of the 20th century. Almost every boy who was making models back then had this particular black cannon-equipped Hurricane in his display case…

A lot of years have passed since I made that black Hurricane from the Směr kit and it also doesn’t exist today… Then came the fall of 2023 and a friend who was just building a 1/48 Hurricane asked me to make masks for this marking. Well, my memories came back and I thought, while I’m at it, I’ll build it on my 1/72 scale as well! The choice of model kit was simple, there is only one plastic Hurricane on the market that meets my ideas of a good kit – and that is Arma Hobby. The cannon version Mk.IIc was released by the company in 2019 and I bought a small stock of both this version and the previously released Mk.I versions including the naval variants. The kit is very nice and yet with a low number of parts, a beautiful surface and great decals. For example, the cockpit, even from an ordinary kit without etchings, only with provided decals of devices and seat harness, is really very good. However, the model also has a few weak points, which can be solved quite easily. The first problem is the exhausts (for all versions), and the second is the 20mm Hispano-Suiza HS-404 cannons themselves. These cannons are unique, and I’m not afraid to say significant detail for the Mk.IIc version. These parts were not exactly successful in the kit, so I reached for a replacement made of resin 3D printed parts from the U3D company. Replacing the exhausts is completely effortless, they fully replace the plastic part. We have some work ahead of us with the Hispano barrels – we need to glue the wing first, then cut off parts of the barrel’s aerodynamic covers, drill relatively large holes in the leading edge (proceed gradually from smaller diameters, or mill them, otherwise you risk breaking the joint) and then insert and super-glue the resin parts carefully in the desired position. With a little care, there is no need to add any putty there… Another minor inconvenience is the filling and sanding of a slight defect on the left half of the nose, on the engine cover. This defect is on all my Army Hurricanes, perhaps a little more visible on the Mk.I kits. After solving these three, for me important issues, the next build is not tricky, and everything fits together nicely. I added some extra work by riveting the metal areas, and then I could start painting. For the night camouflage, I used black, black-grey and white colors from AK 3rd Generation Acrylics. Then a pure black wash was applied to panel lines and rivets.

I used the excellent Techmod decals from the kit for the roundels and fin flashes, the marking comes from the re-edition Směr kit decals, which were supplied by Propagteam (I even managed to get them in two versions, the batches differed mainly in the shade of red). The stencils are from separate Techmod sheet, although it’s possible that the Night Hurricanes didn’t have any stencils – but I wanted them there. All decals reacted nicely with Tamiya Mark Fit Strong and Super Strong. So much for the construction of my night Hurricane, and I still enjoy looking at it in my display case. It is worth adding that the selected marking is with the Czechoslovak track, this Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIc s/n HL605 was to be flown by F/Lt Ondřej Poslužný by the 32nd RAF squadron in the spring-summer 1942 period…