1/48 Hasegawa Hawker Hurricane IID - No. 6 Sqn RAF Western Desert 1942

 

Depicted as an aircraft operated by No. 6 Sqn Royal Airforce in the Western Desert 1942

I've always liked the Desert Camouflage colours of the British and Commonwealth forces in the Western desert and Italy in World War II. Combine this with the Hurricane (another favourite of my mine, add in the Big 40mm cannon  IID Tank Buster version and I was always going to build this kit.

The Kit

• 1/48 Hasegawa Hawker Hurricane Mk.IID tropical version (Kit No 09052 / JT52)

The Build

I built this kit virtually straight from the box except for the inclusion of  a Vacu formed canopy , Ultracast exhausts' some scratch built lead foil seatbelts with Airwaves PE buckles and some scratch built 40mm gun barrels. 

I also dropped the elevators and re-positioned the rudder. Added the support to the centre of the front of the air intake and added the 2 missing struts in the rear of the air intake.

The only 2  problems with this kit are those which are well known. These are

• The position of join of the wings and fuselage on the underside. It means you have a join on the fabric section and this can be a little difficult clean up.
  
  
• The one piece canopy. The cockpit is so nice it really deserves an open cockpit so the detail can be viewed. I used a vac formed canopy I went  though 3 of them to get one set that I was happy with. I hate working with these tings as they are so flimsy. A tip I got from Hyperscale is to stuff the thing with Blu Tac. This made it slightly easier to work with but it was still a pain. I'd also recommend grabbing a mask set. I would save you a bit of time masking out the frames.

The cockpit in this kit is outstanding straight from the box, all I've added is some scratch built lead foil seatbelts with some PE buckles. All the instruments where punched out with my Waldron Punch set and attached individually. I like this technique as it gives a much better panel than I could ever hope to paint.

The kit guns have a flared end that appears to represent a "blank" that was fitted over the barrel. My references didn't show this and mentioned that it wasn't used in theatre. I wanted some hollow barrels so I used a syringe needle of the appropriate size stuffed into the hollow part of a cotton bud, which conveniently was close enough to the correct diameter for that part of the barrel.

Painting

Here's the aircraft with the paint on. I used Model Master enamels, I'm using these more and more as they really seem to airbrush well. 

I used the blu-tac sausage method for the camouflage. Usually I free hand all my camouflage and I tried that first with this kit. When I free hand I draw the scheme on the primed model with a 2B pencil. However in this case I found that I needed heaps of the brown paint to hide the black line. So much that it wasn't practical. So after a quick paint strip and recoat with middle stone I decided to try the Blu-Tac sausages. I was so impressed I stripped the Mk 1 Hurricane I'm building used the same technique.

Finishing

After the camouflage was finished and the bottom painted I sprayed a coat of Testors Polly scale gloss prior to decaling. I'm still searching for the best gloss coat as I really struggle to get a nice a gloss finish. Future and I just don't get on. The Polly scale airbrushed nicely but still didn't give a really (in my view) glossy finish. AS I found out later it's also not as good a protection against enamels/turps as Future. Still it looked ok so onto the decaling.

I used the decals straight form the box and these went down OK. I usually use Micro Set/Sol but these decals really didn't like the Micro Sol and 2 were still wrinkled the next day  Luckily I have plenty of spare roundels so I replaced these and just used Micro-set.

I tried a new product Flory Models Weathering Sludge Wash. It worked very well, so well I've ordered some more. Being water based it's really forgiving if you're like me and tend to be a bit heavy handed. This was sealed with another coat of Poly scale gloss. I then tried some post shading with my new Sparmax DH-103 airbrush. I really shouldn't have bothered, .as I over did it. Damn  Brett Green and his Scale workshops... he makes it look so easy .

I removed the worst with some Artists Turps but damaged the underlying paint on one side.  After a re-spray, re-wash, re-post shading I applied a coat of Mr Colour Flat. Some more weathering for the gun staining  was applied using artists chalks, this is my usual method for weathering  and I should stick with what I know . Paint chipping was done with a silver pencil and the silver compound in one of the Tamiya weathering kits.

A final coat a  flat and off came the masking for the cockpit. As the Tamiya tape had been on there a while there was some glue stuck to the vac formed windscreen . After a bit (read about an hour) of cleaning and a brush coat of Kleer the windscreen looked OK. The Gunsight is was then fitted.

The rear canopy had turned out crap though so I grabbed another from the CA Hurricane, thank goodness they have you 4, plus I had 2 squadron one spare. Another mask nightmare and a snappy coat of paint. This one was acceptable. The rear canopy was attached with 4 small spots of PVA and she was done.

When I went to bed that night I was a bit disappointed with the finish of this kit, particularly the over weathering and one of the landing light covers is a bit cloudy. But the following morning it actually looked better. And it actually looks better in the photos. So in the wash up, I reasonably happy, it's not my best work but it deserves it's spot in the cabinet.

The Photos

These were taken in 2025 when I finally sold this model.

1/48 Hasegawa Lockheed Martin F-16B Fighting Falcon - No 2 Sqn RNZAF - HMAS Albatross October 2003

 

In 1998 the New Zealand Government announced it was to lease 28 F-16A/B Fighting Falcons to replace the RNZAF's aging A-4K Skyhawks. The aircraft  were  Block 15OCU variants that had been bought by the Pakistani Air Force but embargoed following development their nuclear capacity.  More on the lease can be found here.

This model assumes the Labour Government didn't cancel the "Deal of the Century" in 2002.

It is depicted as an aircraft about to depart on a training sortie with units of the RAAF and RAN, this was 2 Sqn's main role when operating Skyhawks based at HMAS Albatross on the South cost of NSW, Australia.

The Build

This is the Hasegawa F-16B kit. It's been built basically out of the box with the addition. The kit goes together reasonably well although I had a bit of trouble getting a decent fit with intake. Apart from that it was reasonably straight forward. 

The pictures below show the kit cockpit which I thought was pretty good. I have no idea how accurate it is but the level of detail was good enough for me. Especially as I intended to have the canopy closed and the pilots fitted. With the pilots fitted I couldn't get the throttle fitted but you can't see it.

The ACMI pod and AGM-65 Maverick come from various Hasegawa's weapons sets. The LAU-117 was scratch built from an old missile rail found in the spares box. The CATM-9M was built from on the crap kit sidewinder. The Training AIM-120 is from the kit but I added the strip of plastic as every AIM-120 I saw had it.

Finishing

If the RNZAF had actually received the aircraft they would have come in their original Pakistani camouflage, which differs (and looks more attractive IMHO) from the standard USAF grey scheme. However I wanted to do something different so I went for the Euro 1  colour scheme of the RNZAF A-4K's. The pattern on the aircraft is basically that used when the USAF trialled the Charcoal Lizard on the F-16 in the late 1980's but with the dark green (FS34092) replaced with FS34079.

The kit was painted with Gunze Acrylics., Colours used were 301 (FS36081), 303 (FS 34102) and 309 (FS34079). The radome is Tamyia Satin black. I do like the Gunze paints but they seem to take an age (like weeks) to harden which means they are susceptible to fingerprints. After painting a coal of Kleer was applied prior to decaling.

The exhaust was painted with model master metalisers. I just used the colours that looked right as just about every picture of an exhaust I looked at had different shades.

The canopy was originally tinted with Tamyia smoke on the front half and clear on the back half. Unfortunately when I pulled that tape off it damaged the smoked part. So I stripped it and used a mixture of Kleer with black and yellow food colouring. It looked good when I'd finished it (see above) but now it appears to faded so I can't really notice the tint which I'm disappointed at. I've successfully fought the urge to redo it though.

The decals are the kit decals with the RNZAF specific markings coming from the Hasegawa A-4K kit. After decaling a enamel panel wash was applied and then a coat of flat. Some pastel chalks were used to add some streaks and then another coat of flat..

Now you'd think I'm nearly finished well it took another 2 weekends because I had a serious attack of AMS and kept trying to fix some minor imperfections (mainly ones that only I could see). This resulted in a fair few touch ups including the complete nose section and part of the wing and some major frustrations. Eventually I finally came to my senses and have got it to a standard I can live with (just).

The Photos

1/48 Tamiya Brewster B 339 Buffalo of No. 488 Sqn RNZAF, Kallang, Singapore, Dec 1941

Depicted as an aircraft operated by No. 488 Sqn RNZAF,  Kallang, Singapore, Dec 1941.

This is the Pacific Theatre Boxing of the excellent little Tamiya Buffalo Kit. The kit has a mixture of raised and recessed panel lines. I decided early on I was going to build this one straight out of the box and not get carried away. I've pretty much stuck to that.

If you've looked at some of other kits you'd know that I have a thing for RNZAF or  aircraft flown by Kiwis in the RAF. This kit comes with the decals for a aircraft in a Kiwi Sqn and it has the interesting dragon nose art, so I was always going to build this aircraft.

The Build

The kit goes together pretty well. The cockpit is quite nicely detailed  as most Tamiya kits are. The decals for the instrument panel fit well.

I had the problem with the step on the rear decking behind the cockpit, a bit of Sqn green fixed that. I did experience a small step along the rest of the fuselage join however as I was wary of this when assembling I made sure the step was on the underside of the model. Again a little bit of Squadron  green fixed that. The pics below show me going overboard with the filler. Once sanded down there virtually none of this left. 

Another area that required a bit of work was the underside on the wing section and where it joins to the fuselage. This needed bit of filler to as there was a step between the 2.  I used the cockpit decals and they look reasonably effective.

The only modifications I made were re scribing all the raised lines (well all bar 2 or 3 I missed) ,  I also scratch built a rear vision mirror because the 488 Sqn aircraft had a locally fitted rear vision mirror taken from a car. and I drilled some round sprue to make gun barrels for the wing guns.

Painting and Finishing

Tamyia included a set of canopy masks that were fun to apply but certainly did make masking the canopy and underside window easier. Nice touch Tamiya.

The kit was painted with Tamyia and Gunze Acrylics. I like Tamiya's Flat Earth (XF 52) for RAF Dark Earth. I used Tamiya Sky (XF21) for the sky 1/2 of the underside. I'm still to sure this is the right colour for RAF sky as it looks to green. But I've used it before, mainly because it seems to closely match the Sky fuselage band decals that many kit and decal manufacturers use. I also painted the fuselage band instead using the decal. I find you get a better result that way. Tamyia Flat black was used for the underside black. This sprays really well. For the RAF dark green I prefer Gunze H309. It just looks right to me.

The kit was then sealed with Pledge One Go and decals applied. They went down beautifully with no silvering. This has been the easiest decaling job I've done to date. I noticed in Mike's review he mentioned the dragon was only of the left side. I mentioned this on a NZ Aviation Forum I frequent and was told there is some evidence that it was on both side. It's a nice looking piece of art so I decided to put them on both sides.

Once decals had set, another coat of One go was put down and then an oil wash was applied. For the upper surfaces I used a mixture of raw Umber and some other browns. For the underside I used a grey wash, particularly to give a little bit of contrast on the black wing.
A coat of Gunze Flat clear was applied then a some pastel chalks for exhaust and gun stains along with the silver pencil for some scratches.

Conclusions

Good things about this kit are the decal options, the mask and it's ease of assembly. The figures are a nice bonus, unfortunately I didn't really do him justice. 

My only disappointment is the one piece canopy. It really could do with a 2 piece canopy so you could see in the cockpit.

The Pictures