Hurricane Mk.IIc Trop

Arma Hobby, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Brett Green

The Hawker Hurricane was Britain's first modern monoplane fighter aircraft, entering service in 1937.

Hawker's chief designer, Sidney Camm, designed the Hurricane around the new Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. Although the British Air Ministry had not yet placed an order, Hawker nevertheless prepared for the production of 1,000 aircraft. This head start significantly expedited delivery once the order for 600 Hurricanes was received in June 1936.

In addition to the fabric covered rear fuselage, the earliest versions of the Hurricane featured fabric wings, reflecting the earlier production techniques of the Hawker Aircraft Company. These initial 600 aircraft were also fitted with a fixed pitch, two-bladed wooden Watts propeller, although these were quickly supplanted by de Havilland and Rotol three-bladed propeller assemblies that permitted pitch adjustment from the cockpit. The later improved aircraft also included windscreens with armoured glass. In time, the fabric wings of many of these early Hurricanes were replaced with metal wings.

The Hurricane Mk.II was powered by the improved Merlin XX engine with two-speed supercharger. The new engine was longer than the earlier Merlin and so the Hurricane gained a 4.5 in "plug" in front of the cockpit, which made the aircraft slightly more stable due to the slight forward shift in centre of gravity.

The Hurricane Mk.IIc was equipped with a new and slightly longer propeller spinner, and fully replaced the machine-gun armament with four 20 mm (.79 in) Hispano Mk II cannons, two per side.

A newly designed wing included a hardpoint for a 500 or 250 lb (230 or 110 kg) bomb and, later in 1941, fuel tanks.

By then, performance was inferior to the latest German fighters, and the Hurricane changed to the ground-attack role, sometimes referred to as the Hurribomber.

The mark also served as a night fighter and intruder with about three quarters converted to fighter bombers.

There were 4,711 Hurricane Mk.IIcs built by Hawker between February 1941 and July 1944.

Arma Hobby is best known for their extensive 1/72 scale catalogue, but they have already dabbled in 1/48 scale with two lovely PZL P.11 kits in quarter inch scale. I built one of these PZL kits and was suitably impressed.

In July this year Arma Hobby has launched a 1/48 scale Hurricane family. Their debut offering was a1/48 scale Hurricane Mk.IIc.

Arma Hobby has now expanded the family with a 1/48 scale Hurricane Mk.IIc Trop

The kit comprises 120 parts in grey plastic, 13 parts in clear plastic, self-adhesive canopy masks and markings for three aircraft.

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Thumbnail panels:

The three sprues are actually the same as the debut Mk.IIc release. This is a good thing!. Moulding quality is excellent with no flash, flaws or visible moulding imperfections on my sample.

The parts are moulded with a satin finish. Surface textures are just gorgeous. Arma Hobby has mixed an impressive combination of recesed panel lines, super-subtle recessed rivets, raised fastener heads and other structural details. These are all subtle and consistent. The overall effect is crisp and varied.

The interior of the major fuselage and wing parts are festooned with circles of raised ejector pins but they do not interfere with fit, nor do they intrude in any way on the outside surfaces of the parts.

The fabric texture on the rear fuselage and tail surfaces are particularly subtle and impressive.

The fuselage is supplied as left and right halves with the fin and the lower rear fuselage supplied as separate parts.

Some details are moulded directly to the inside of the fuselage and onto the wing. These are supplemented by a plastic framework, the "bottomless" floor with foot rests, rudder pedals, control column and more.

The decal sheet supplies harness straps and instrument dials for the cockpit.

The instrument panel is moulded with raised and recessed detail. It looks great. I think I'll be carefully painting and dry-brushing mine with individual dials inside the bezels.

The upper and lower wings are both moulded as full span.

Wheel wells are highly detailed including raised lettering. Main wheels are two pieces each in injection moulded plastic. Wheels are flattened and subtly bulged.

A Rotol propeller assembly and spinner are included.

The radiator faces feature super fine mesh detail moulded onto the plastic parts.

Two different styles of cannon barrels are included, as is a Vokes tropical filter, wing-mounted drop tanks, alternative styles of exhaust, lower fuselage inserts, spinners and more.

The canopy is quite clear and offers separate parts for the windscreen and the sliding section. Two sliding sections are included - one for the closed position and a wider one to display the canopy open and show off all that lovely detail.

Clear landing lights for the wing leading edges are included too.

Wing tip navigation lights are also supplied.

Self-adhesive masks for the canopy and the wheels are included,

Instructions are supplied in a 12 page stapled A4-sized booklet. Assembly is described over 37 steps using clear diagrams. An errata sheet is also supplied.

The kit is packed into a stout brown carboard box with a thinner cardboard lid featuring attractive box art. This is a big improvement over earlier releases with flimsy side-opening boxes.

Thanks Arma!

Marking Options

Three marking options are included. Each of the marking options gets a dedicated page with both side views plus upper and lower plan views.

Colour callouts are provided for FS numbers and a good selection of model paint numbers including Hakata, AK, Lifecolor, AMMO, Humbrol, Vallejo and Tamiya.

The marking options are:

1. Hurricane Mk. IIc trop “Hurribomber”, LB792/C, No. 34 Squadron RAF/SEAC, Dergaon (Assam) i Imphal (Manipur), spring 1944, pilot S/Ldr C.P.N. Newman.

2. Hurricane Mk IIc trop, HL885/AX-Z, No. 1 Squadron SAAF, Lt. Stewart “Bomb” Finney, LG142,  Egypt, September 1942.

3. Hurricane Mk.IIc Trop, HL851/GO-P “The MacRobert Fighter-Sir Iain”, No. 94 Squadron RAF, El Gamil airfield, Egypt 1942-43.

Decals are printed by Techmod.

They are glossy, colours are well saturated and everything is in perfect register.

We have had no shortage of 1/48 scale Hurricane Mk.IIc models over the decades. These have included Hobbycraft's kit from the late 1980s, Hasegawa's offerings from the 1990s and Italeri’s 2013 kit.

Arma Hobby’s new 1/48 scale Hurricane Mk.IIc and IIc Trop kits blows them all off the park in terms of surface textures and details. These are clearly the best 1/48 scale Hurricane Mk.IIc kits and I would also venture that it is the best 1/48 scale mainstream Hurricane kit of any variant.

In common with its recent predecessor, Arma Hobby's 1/48 scale Hurricane Mk.IIc Trop is gorgeous kit - excellent surface textures, moulding quality, detail and inclusions.

I look forward to hearing about Arma's next steps in 1/48 scale too.

Thanks to Arma Hobby for the sample

Review and Images Text Copyright © 2023 by Brett Green
Page Created 28 September, 2023
Last updated 28 September, 2023

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