Hurricane in Training

Hurricane Mk I, L2006/Y, 11 Group Pilot Pool, RAF Sutton Bridge, August 1942

This is another of my Hurricane Season models. I chose this one simply because I had the decals, and it was a colorful subject.

The Subject

As pilots progressed through training they eventually got to fly ever higher performance aircraft in order to prepare them for types they would fly in combat. En route to Spitfires, it is possible that many flew the older Hurricanes that were no longer front line capable.

L2006 represents one of the aircraft that formed part of the training syllabus for future fighter pilots. According to my references, this aircraft could be marked as I’ve shown her, or have the standard Day Fighter Scheme of the period. The red band on the aft fuselage is possibly spurrious, but I like it for the color it adds.

The Model

This is yet another Airfix Hurricane Mk I with the fabric wing. The kit was announced last year and I’ve scooped up 7 so far and and I know I will get more. Since the subject is from 1942 I decided to use the armor plate in the cockpit, the armored windshield and the other later features from the kit. The prop is a spare from the Airfix Spitfire II kit as it’s the DH variable pitch prop which was used for this Hurricane and is a common configuration. For the wheels I used the Freightdog set and for canopy masks the Peewit masks. Both are highly recommended.

For painting I used my standards: Vallejo 70-921 for Dark Earth, Tamiya XF81 for Dark Green, Tamiya X3 for the yellow and X7 for the red. I put a gloss coat of Future (Klear) before applying the decals. The decals are from The Aviation Workshop, now out of print but can be found at trade shows. They are thin and fragile, I put them on using water only, and once dry applied Daco soft formula to ensure they snuggled down. After the decals had dried I put a coat of Microscale Satin to tone down the sheen.

Summary

This is a great kit, I cannot say enough about it. It will be shown on these pages many times in the future. I really enjoyed this build, even though it’s yet another boring Dark Earth / Dark Green scheme, it’s just different enough to look great on my shelf.

Thanks for looking…


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