Niksic airfield, 15th April 1941, flown by Vojislav Rakic.

This kit is the new Airfix rag wing Hurricane released at Telford. I was lucky to pick up 4 kits that day and it looked so nice in the box I had to build one right off.

The Subject

This is meant to be a Zmaj license built Mk I. It represents a transitional machine, as Zmaj built approximately 24 fabric winged Hurricanes but with the Merlin III engine which had the 3 blade DH prop but without the armored windscreen. Another 24 Hurricanes were delivered by Hawkers, the first 12 being fabric winged, and the last 12 being metal winged. My refs are not clear, but it appears many of the fabric winged Hurricanes, both Hawker and Zmaj built, were rewinged at some point with metal wings.

I chose a fabric winged example based on a photo that clearly shows the aircraft with fabric wings and DH prop.

The scheme for Hawker built Yugoslav machines was standard Temperate Land but with a Sand or light brown color painted over it. Undersides were delivered as Aluminum paint, but probably overpainted in a light blue by Yugoslavia. The Zmaj built machines had a non-standard dark green, dark brown and sand scheme with light blue undersides.

The Model


As mentioned above, Airfix released this kit in November at Telford. The kit is very accurate and well detailed. The fabric effect is not overdone. I built the kit out of the box, with no aftermarket at all. The only detail that is incorrect are the wheels, which are 4 spoked, as represented by a modern restoration. I suspect the Airfix kit designer simply copied what he saw and was unaware it was not appropriate for a fabric winged Hurricane. At any rate, I used the kit wheels as I don’t have anything to replace them. When and/or if someone releases the correct wheels I’ll purchase a few sets for my other kits.

Construction was somewhat straightforward. I found the wing top/bottom joint was slightly off. I put some putty along it and only a few swipes of a sanding stick made it all right. The wheel wells are very well detailed and I did have to take care to ensure it was a good fit. It was a bit fiddly. The under-fuselage panel was a perfect fit; an area I thought was suspect before the build, but pleasantly surprised how good it looked. The landing gear popped right in, and was another surprise at how well it went together.

The canopy was the last surprise. Typically for a Hurricane model the canopy either fits poorly or is so thick as to be unusable. Airfix did this one right; it is very clear and fit perfectly. It actually clicked into place without glue when I was test fitting it; to include the windscreen. After I popped them off I put some Gator Glue on it and pressed them back on. I hope to make one of the future kits with the canopy open; we’ll see how that works.

Paint is all acrylic; I used Tamiya all around except for the cockpit green, which is Model Master RAF Interior Green. For the paint scheme the undersides are XF-23 Medium Blue, the dark green is XF-81 (RAF Dark Green), the brown is my first attempt at mixing RAF Dark Earth which is too brown and too red for Dark Earth but works here. The sand color is XF-59 Desert Yellow.
Decals are spare from my Sword Hurricane Mk I. They went on beautifully and settled down over a coat of Future/Kleer with Revell Decal Soft. I overcoated the decals with a clear flat to tone it all down.

I did have some difficulty with painting the canopy. I shot a coat of interior green then a coat of Desert Yellow. Unfortunately when I pulled the tape off it left huge amounts of glue residue that just didn’t want to come off. Eventually I soaked the canopy and windscreen in some Windex (contains ammonia) which cleaned it all up. I then remasked with a different tape and then shot only the Desert Yellow. All settled.

Summary

This is a great kit! Ease of assembly is near perfect and this is my FIRST kit ever that was accurate, well detailed and easy to build. The hat trick or trifecta, you pick your favorite term. I plan to build at least 3 more; two that use the kit decals and a third with Rumanian markings.

How does this compare to the AZ/Sword fabric winged Hurricane? While both are accurate and with the resin bits Sword is just as accurate, Airfix is much easier to build. I have another Sword kit I’ll build as a 111 Squadron machine, but if I want another fabric winged Hurricane I, I’ll be buying Airfix as it’s also less than half the price of the Sword kit.

Thanks for looking…