History Brief

The Hurricane ranks with the most important aircraft designs in military aviation history. Developed by Sydney Camm, Hawker's Chief Designer in the late 1930s, the Hurricane was the first British monoplane fighter and the first British fighter to exceed 300 miles per hour in level flight. It was a single seat fighter with an enclosed cockpit. It featured a stressed skin aluminum wing with fabric covered aluminum control surfaces. The fuselage was a mix of steel tube, aircraft spruce forms, and fabric.

1700 Hurricanes fought in the Battle of Britain. That’s more than all other British fighters combined and those historic fights were seen as the Hurricane's finest hour. It fought over southern England and the English Channel during the summer of 1940 and fixed a place in history accounting for 60% of the RAF's air victories in the battle. After the Battle of Britain ended the Hurricanes were used across the world until the end of World War II.

Matt Greenburg was at the Columbus IPMS Nationals with a new product. They were selling like hotcakes, and after seeing the demonstration, I bought one. As a Convention Special, Matt threw in a pair of extra blades.

The knife is special because the blade rotates to follow the movement of your hand as it changes direction while cutting. This allows very good control of the curves and angles of the cut. The business card below was cut by Matt with one sweep of the Gyro-Cut.

The trick is that you start the cut and move your hand along the line to be cut, and the blade follows. Because it is angled, the tip drags the blade into cutting position, even if the line cut is not straight. So it is possible to cut a curved or wavy line just by drawing the knife along the line, just like using a pencil to draw. Acute angles (less than 90 degrees) require a little finesse, but the knife can do it. You just stop at the angle and let the blade swivel before you go very far.

This is the British Heavy Tank Conqueror Mark 2, heavy tank design featuring a 120mm main gun. Developed specifically as a response to the Soviet IS-3 tank, it was envisaged as a partner for the British Army’s mainstream and contemporary Centurion (armed with a smaller 20-pdr gun) tank so it could give a long-range anti-tank reach. A total of 20 Conqueror Mk.I and 165 Conqueror Mk.II tanks were produced from 1955-59, and they were allocated to tank regiments stationed in Germany.

• 6 sprues molded in tan styrene
• 1 separate lower hull
• 1 separate upper hull
• 1 slide molded turret
• 1 Clear sprue
• 1 rubber gun mantlet cover
• 4 rubber track sections
• 2 tow cables
• 1 decal sheet
• 1 instruction booklet.

Construction

The kit is not too complex and assembles in 19 stages which are not too complex.