THE EYE OF THE STORM! Revell Hurricane

[wunwinglow]

On 11/26/2022 at 10:07 PM, viper said:

I find it amusing that the original members that were swift to complain and decry have been slow in coming forward..after the designer posted his build …

shame really considering they were so swift to mock it …..

You sound surprised.....

[viper]

Shouldn’t do really …..

[LSP_Mike]

Let's move on....

[LSP_Mike]

Do we have a list of references for this kit, or Hurricanes in general? I have the Aero Detail book, any others?

[Uncarina]

I just bought the Wingleader book, but that goes up to the Battle of Britain. Valiant Wings as well.

 

Cheers,  Yom

[MikeMaben]

Hurricane books

[mozart]

My own modest “Hurricane library”! I’m fascinated by the Battle of France from a political, strategic and aerial warfare point of view, hence the bias in my books and fondness for early Hurricanes: 

 

 

 

 

 

These three are really excellent books, well written and full of interesting period photos, though Billy Drake’s book is more about his time in North Africa. The absolute gem though is:

 

 

and a couple of pics from within its covers:

 

 

Not sure about the dihedral on the lowest Hurricane!

 

Love this pic! And well, who knew:

 

 

……a lovely line up of Gauntlets! 
 

A couple of others: 

 

 

……which includes Tony building and reviewing available Hurricane models in all scales (published 2014 so not completely up to date) plus some useful profiles.  And finally:

 

 

…..as you’d expect, lots of contemporary photos and recounts of Hurricane operations. 

 

 

[LSP_Mike]

Thanks for the list Mike. I see I have a few in there, so I'm set. 

Nice selection of books Mozart.

[Dennis7423]

If folks haven't checked out the line of Wingleader books, you really should do so. They are quite impressive! I had a chance to peruse a few at Nats this year, and my socks were blown off.

 

https://www.wingleader.co.uk/

 

- Dennis S.

   Mount Juliet, TN USA

[Troy Smith]

14 hours ago, Uncarina said:

I just bought the Wingleader book,

It's really good.  I mean really really good.  a couple of points i might quibble with, but several 'new to me' bits of info and a load of photos no online.

 

I'm sorry some of the following is going to sound pretty negative,  but the Hurricane suffers from, well, not being the Spitfire, and as it is superficaillay simple,  repetition of wrong information....

 

14 hours ago, Uncarina said:

but that goes up to the Battle of Britain.

The main parts of the Hurricane airframe  are consistent over all the versions,  only the very early airframes vary a lot in detail, once you get to the P**** serial Mk.I's there are few differences, and they are the longer nose on the Mk.II, deeper radiator and wider carb intake,  and the armament sections on the wings.  I'm talking about the main airframe and engineering of, from the model makers and model manufacturer point of view, the external changes reuire a lot of big new parts if you want to them correctly, like six different wings..... 

 

14 hours ago, Uncarina said:

Valiant Wings as well.

Style over content, it looks great, well  printed, and seems comprehensive, but it's  full of omissions, mistakes and occasional utter fantasy.    Does have a few good photos, but don't trust a word of it without a cross reference. 

Basically, if you know what wrong with it, you don't need it, and if you don't know what wrong, then it will just confuse and mislead.  

 

I have a part done error list but it just depressing to do, it's a real 'where's wally' exercise,  every time I look I see another mistake.  How do you make such a bad job?  Basically they failed to get someone who knows about Hurricanes to read it.   I even phoned the publisher to complain about it.  

Didn't care, send me a list he said,  but I'm not rewriting you book for you.  I'll post up a list sometime so it can at least be used but I'm still seething about it.   

Note it has received uniformly good reviews online, but that is because it was reviewed by people who don't know the subject, and a 'wowed' by how good it looks.   

 

Note, The same author did the SAM datafiles, and the Valiant Wings is really an update of that.  That wasn't a good book either.

Evidently hasn't discovered the internet and specialist websites,     

 

4 hours ago, LSP_Mike said:

Thanks for the list Mike. I see I have a few in there, so I'm set. 

Be aware, many books are not for the modeller, and make mistakes.   

 

Francis K Mason is first real Hurricane book writer, but they have some mistakes.  Example, the 2nd edition Hurricane book by him from the late 80's has some plans, with his name on them.  They are excruciatingly bad,  and likely what Airfix used for the 2010 era 1/72nd Hurricane IIC kit, which is correspondingly garbage...

 

The best available book for modeller is the Wingleader, as it does deal those specific details. cater for the modeller, but only covers the Mk.I up to the end of 1940.

 

There are many thread on Hurricanes on Britmodeller, which will answer many questions,  the site search is not very good, but you can search there via google well, it's how I find things.

there is a monster 84 page thread "all the Hurricane questions" 

This is well worth reading if you have time,  

Yes, it's unwieldy, and a right pain to find a specific answer to question. 

this is a link to one modeller area not well covered anywhere else, interior finish

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234963507-all-the-hurricane-questions-you-want-to-ask-here/page/2/#elControls_1682406_menu

where I collated all the relevant information I could find on internal colours.

 

 

One really useful book is this, long OOP, but scanned here

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Camouflage-Markings/Hawker-Hurricane

 

It's old, published around 1970, but was the result of then newly declassified material.   Only covers NW Europe though, but much is the same for all versions and areas.  In particular note the factory camo and markings placement drawing on page 19.  

 

It's still the best primer for Hurricanes camo and markings I know. 

 

Since markings are a real topic for the modeller, a word of caution, there a some very famous Hurricane profiles that seem to have no photographic basis, and are not consistent with known schemes,   for the LSP fraternity this of note, as these turn up in large models and decals,  Many of the schemes offered in the Fly Models kits are in this category, and also by AM decal companies.

In particular do not trust profiles by Richard Caruana or the ones by Model Alliance by Jon Freeman, who designs decals for Xtradecal, which are frequently 'not quite right' as a result.   

  

On 11/18/2022 at 11:23 AM, Kagemusha said:

Anyone looking for inspiration could do a lot worse than hunt down this book, chock full of great profiles.

that are poorly referenced, or copied....  I have a SIG line on Britmodller, never trust a profile without a photo

I will explain why

many from this

 

again, not to be trusted, though there is some good info in here.... it AGAIN, has the usual suspects from Aircraft in Profile....

 

Note, LK-?, ZY-S, and FI-D are from know photos, and are reasonable profiles. 

 

the classic of this is Kuttlewasher's BE581/JX-E, see https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234976286-hurricane-mk-iic-flown-by-km-kuttlewascher/#elControls_1889582_menu

but other are the 'red elephant'  https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235009172-riaf-hurricane-with-elephant-nose-art-did-it-exist/

and the BP592 AK-G with the mottled nose, https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/29149-hurricane-ak-g-bp592-photo-needed/

the orange-red Radar Hurricane, 

the basis for all these schemes is the mid 60's Aircraft In Profile monographs. They, inevitably, all turn up in the Valiant Wings book profile section.... 

again, these are long OOP, but scanned here, along with other long OOP references. 

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/

 

 

Or even a profile based on a photo that is so laughably bad ..  this, again, is a marking option in the Fly IIC kit, based on the profile below, not the photo 

 

 

and the profile, 2nd down, again... Caruana (and again the red elephant) , again, also in the Valiant Wings book,  even though the reference photo is a few pages on....

In short apart from the Dark Green, and the pattern is wrong everything thing else is wrong, errors - wrong mark, wrong colours, should be Dark Earth and Sky, maybe Sky Blue, wrong shape and position B, wrong position of serial, wrong fin flash, no ID bands, no nose art, black spinner..... There is more on HV538 in the elephant thread BTW.

 

The Irish one at the bottom is also wrong...  

 

So, IMO, there is no up to date one stop Hurricane reference for the modeller.   There are books I don't have, like the Flightcraft book above, which maybe decent, as Tony O'Toole is good on Hurricanes but the same mistakes/omissions crop again and again.    

 

The Hurricane at War, Chaz Bowyer, and Hurricane at War 2 by Norman Franks can be got cheaply in the UK, and packed full of large clear period photos, with accurate captions.  

 

More usefully, as if you are reading this, you are online..

 

There are some very handy online photo sources.

 

|World Was Photos has 3 pages with 100's of Hurricane photos

https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/uk/raf/hurricane/

https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/uk/raf/hurricane2/

https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/uk/raf/hurricane1/

 

The caption are not always correct, but the photos are large and clear scans in the most part, and many details can be made out.   

 

asisbiz are also a great photo source, again, captions can be wrong

https://www.asisbiz.com/il2/Hurricane/Hawker-Hurricane.html

 

I use both frequently to illustrate posts

 

There is a collection of period colour photos here

https://www.flickr.com/search/?w=8270787@N07&q=hurricane

 

 

 

There is an amazingly detailed set of photos here

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235099841-hawker-hurricane-mkia/

of the Hurricane in Finland.  Unrestored, it's basically as it was in 1943, and is an amazing source of detail photos of the airframe.

As i said earlier, most of the airframe is the same on all marks, so this is incredibly useful series of images (despite being wrongly caption, there is no Mk.Ia, plain Mk.I)

the oddities on this are it's reasonably early, from the 2nd Hawker built batch, and as such has the Spitfire De Havilland prop, 5 spoke wheels (from photos, only seen on L**** and N**** Hurricanes) pole attenna and no 2nd starboard hatch, and a Finnish added first aid hatch and seat armour. 

apart from those details, it good for any metal winged Mk.I, and Mk.II/IV/XII Sea Hurricane specific bits aside, ANY metal winged Hurricane.     

 

 

It is particular good for getting a feel of the surface finish of the different materials.

there is an excellent series of the Shuttleworth Sea Hurricane

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/76586-hawker-sea-hurricane/

ignore the interior colours,  the exterior colours are right for a Sea Hurricane, and it's very good for a feel of a working airframe,  it's not got the glossyness of many warbirds. and it's one of the few flying Hurricanes that is not basically a modern replica.

Again, note the variations is surface finish.

 

HTH

 

 

 

 

 

 

[KiwiZac]

I was just going to be cheeky and say "@Troy Smith is my Hurricane reference library"

[Shoggz]

Thank you Troy, for your expertise.

 

It’s a shame about the Valiant Wings book..

 

Really must get the Wing Leader publication. I got the Spitfire Mk.I version at Telford and it is brilliant.

[Uncarina]

I echo Shoggz comment, and really appreciate your reference info!

 

Cheers, Tom

[LSP_Mike]

It seems I also have Hurricanes Over the Sand, so, another decent reference.

[MikeMaben]

8 hours ago, Shoggz said:

                  It’s a shame about the Valiant Wings book..

 I wouldn't dismiss any book because it's not perfect. There are too many details regarding any

a/c to be covered in any single book.