Zvezda 1:144 scale Hurricane

[Fitz]

This will be some air support for my poor beleaguered 15mm 1940 BEF. Not that they're ever likely to see much of it, but that's life in 1940 France.

It's a 1:144 scale snap-together model from Zvezda. It goes together very easily, but the decals are not all that could be hoped for — they're a little thick, though they do adhere well, but the biggest problem is that they're printed out of register, as is blindingly obvious in the yellow ring of the fuselage roundel. Also, for some reason I can't really fathom, the fuselage roundel and serial letters are all printed as separate transfers, so they have to be assembled in situ. Thanks to my ham-fistedness, that means that inevitably they're all wonky.

I've painted it in the black and white livery adopted by the RAF in the beginning of the war to ease ground-to-air identification. It was a pretty terrible idea, and didn't last very long. It didn't seem to affect friendly fire from the ground at all, while making it much, much easier for the Germans to see them.

[Mako]

Looks like a nice model.

Thanks for sharing, since I didn't know about it.  Need more Hurri's myself.

A pity about the decals, especially the yellow border.

Perhaps we can lobby Dom, of Dom's Decals to produce a set or three for us for various squadrons.  I could use some for Spitfires, Hurricanes, and Tempests (the Minicraft/etc. ones are crap).

I'd prefer a one-piece squadron lettering strip, and then separate fuselage decals, since some of my planes already have the latter.  Would be nice to put three letters on as one piece, to significantly reduce the alignment concerns you mention.

[von Lucky]

Nicely done (I always thought the underside was all black - as that's the profile you usually see. I learnt something new today, thanks!).

[Fitz]

The standard underside livery for day bombers was all black, for fighters black and white. Used from 1938 to June 1940, and then the black port wing (leaving the rest of the underside Sky-S) was reinstated for a short time after the Battle of Britain, from November 1940 to about April 1941.