The Hawker Hurricane
A Complete Guide to the Famous Fighter

by Richard A. Franks

Valiant Wings Publishing
Airframe and Miniature No. 16

Reviewed by Graham Carter

This range of superb reference books need no introduction as they have become the go-to sources for modellers and those interested in specific aeroplanes since they first started to appear ten years ago. It is a solid A4 272 page volume, well bound with a glossy card cover and printed on quality glossy paper that allows excellent reproduction of images and drawings. While primarily aimed at the modeller, there is much to appeal to the historian and technically-minded person as well.

The cover has a nice bespoke drawing of a 6sqn Mark IIds over the Western Desert by Jerry Boucher. Inside we find a Preface of over forty pages tracing the lineage, development, RAF and Commonwealth usage and use by foreign forces, all illustrated with masses of clear photos. A production list by various companies then occupies three pages. This is followed by four sections covering the evolution of each series - Prototypes to Marks I, II to V, Sea Hurricane and Canadian production, then the reconnaissance versions, prototypes and projects. Again there are photos and side profiles to show the developments of each variant.

There follows a large section on the Camouflage and Markings carried on these different airframes and what a wonderful variety there are, all illustrated by Richard Caruana in full colour. Most have  photo to back up the drawings and there are some fascinating model possibilities such as the one in full Italia markings, and a captured one in Japanese marks. The sixth chapter lists a selection of the available kits in all scales from 1/144 through to 1/24, with an assessment of the pros and cons of each, after which are five builds of an AIrfix 1/72 Mk II ( Libor Jeki), two of Arma’s Mk IIc and b (Libor Jeki), Hasegawa’s Mk I in 1/48th (Steve A Evans) and the Fly 1/32 Mk IIc (Steve A Evans). Both builders are well known for the quality of their modelling and their clear photos and explanations of how they produce their models are worth a detailed read.

The next section is a huge one showing in isometric drawings by Juraj Jankovic the differences between all the different variants. These annotated sketches are invaluable to the modeller although I occasionally think that it would have been useful to have had some undersurface drawings as well, such as the fitting of the blast plates and armoured radiator on the rocket equipped variant.

The ‘In Detail’ section occupies 44 pages and give the reader an enormous number of colour and B&W photos from modern and contemporary sources, along with technical manual drawings and excellent notes. This is really a highlight of this and other volumes in the series and provides an invaluable source of information for the interested technophile or the super-detailer. 

Finally, there are four appendices covering, in alphabetic lists by scale, all of the kits that have been available, Accessories, decals and a bibliography. The work that has gone into compiling these lists is quite astounding. 

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The volume concludes with a fold-out double-sided eight-page set of 1/48 scale drawings - sixteen pages in all - showing side and upper and lower views of a large number of variants.

This really is an exceptionally useful volume that should be in every Hurricane modeller’s library, regardless of which scale one works in, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Thanks to Valiant Wings Publishing for the sample.

Review Copyright © 2021 by Graham Carter
This Page Created on 22 March, 2021
Last updated 24 March, 2021

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