Hurricane Mk IIb Trop

Published on
Review Author(s)
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$50.00
Product / Stock #
40008
Company: Arma Hobby - Website: Visit Site
Provided by: Arma Hobby - Website: Visit Site

Arma Hobby continues to expand its Hawker Hurricane line, this time releasing the MkIIb (Hurribomber) with Tropical filter. In the box you get 4 plastic sprues (one clear), canopy masks and a decal sheet with 3 possible camouflages: two on Temperate Land Scheme and one Desert Scheme. The Temperate Land Scheme aircraft were deployed in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the Soviet Union. The aircraft deployed in the Soviet Union, at some point served with a white distemper on the wings (I’ve found a YouTube video showing period footage of that aircraft in the Mursmank area with the camouflage as shown in the instructions).

Construction starts with the wheel well and continues with the cockpit seat. Then you are guided to “sandwich” the wheel well between the upper and lower wing parts and to assemble the rest of the cockpit (sidewalls, armor plate, etc) sitting on top of the wing.

While the construction order is different from most other airplane kits, it is neither hard nor difficult. The only part that was a bit tricky was figuring out where the control stick and seat are positioned relative to each other. The bottom of piece A17 (control stick linkage) goes below the seat through a small slot of part A23 (armor plate), just like in the real airplane!

I used the provided decals for the seat belts and instrument panel. Following the instructions for trimming the IP decal for a better fit does not disappoint. With a black enamel wash to highlight the surface detail, the model was ready to move onto the main assembly stage.

The next step is where I would suggest deviating a bit from the instructions. Instead of gluing both fuselage sides to each other and to glue the assembled fuselage to the wings coming “from to top” of the cockpit area, it was easier for me to present each fuselage side (one a the time) to the wing/fuselage assembly, ensure the armor plate has the proper angle to fit through the cockpit opening and then glue both fuselage sides and wing assembly together.

The back bottom-fuselage is a separate piece that splits along a natural panel line, avoiding the well-known gripe of other Hurricane models: a seam line across the fabric-covered section of the fuselage. Great engineering there!

I did have to work a bit to get the horizontal tail surface piece to sit properly on the back fuselage. Nothing that a bit of work with a file couldn’t take care of. I just had to thin the part a bit for a good fit.

The model was moving fast towards surface preparation for painting. I had a very minor surface imperfection in front of the cockpit, my mistake when removing a tad too much plastic when freeing the part out of the sprue. Otherwise, I had no need for filler anywhere in the model.

I had the opportunity to also review an aftermarket decal sheet, so I painted the model in an unusual camouflage used in Burma of Mid-Stone, Dark Green and Azure Blue, which also had unusual “Type A” markings (with a white ring between the red and blue) instead of the more commonly used “Type B” markings (red and blue only) for the top of the wings.

You are provided with masks for the canopy (with different sets for the open or closed part) which expedited reaching the painting process significantly. You are also provided with “plastic masks” for the wheel well. These are parts on the plastic sprue, but they are not landing gear covers. They are “plastic masks” that fit the wheel well opening. It is a great idea! You remove them from the sprue and dry-fit them over the wheel well to protect it while spraying the undersurfaces.

After priming, I painted the model using Tru-Color acrylics. They spray beautifully and dry fast. I was able to pre-shade and paint the bottom on a single Saturday afternoon. Next morning, I masked the undersurfaces and painted the Mid-Stone. After lunch, I masked the Mid-Stone camo and sprayed the Dark Green. By Sunday night, I had a fully painted model, and no paint lifted when the masks were removed. Nicely done, Tru-Color!

After spraying a gloss coat (Future) on the model, I applied the decals (aftermarket set reviewed elsewhere in this website) but I used the stencils from the Arma Hobby decal sheet. They responded well to the MicroSet/Sol combo, so I would expect that the rest of the decal sheet (ie main markings) would do too.

I was now moving towards the final steps, ie landing gear, masts, aerials, navigation lights, etc. Assembling the landing gear was relatively simple but ensuring alignment took a bit more of effort. The engineering is excellent. I just had to clean up and dry-fit all parts to make sure the alignment was proper. For aerials, I used EZ-line and a tiny dot of super-glue. I applied a flat coat and then focused on the navigation lights, which were painted with Tamiya clear paints of the appropriate color.

At that point, I was thrilled to see how good the model came out!

The only real advice I can provide is to take your time and to read the instructions carefully. The quality of the injection parts, the surface detail and clever engineering means you must clean up the parts well (ie remove all the nubs from the sprue gates), dry fit all parts to ensure proper fitting and you will be rewarded with an outstanding model.

This kit is not for the novice, but it is not a hard kit to assemble either. It just has enough small parts that a novice modeler might get lost or frustrated, but not too many parts as to get a veteran model lost or frustrated either. In Goldilocks-terms, “It is just right”.

Very highly recommended.

I would like to thank Arma Hobby and IPMS/USA for the review model.

Box front

Comments

Add new comment

All comments are moderated to prevent spam


This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.