Zvezda 1:144 Hawker Hurrican Mark 1

A closer look at the 1:144 Hawker Hurrican Mk. 1 game expansion made by the Russian company Zvezda. This kit belongs to Zvezdas range of small scaled modelplanes for their "Art Of Tactic" wargame. I built some planes from this range and they are easy to build, and can not only be used for Zvezdas wargame.

But without any words left, let us take a look at the kit which is included in this game expansion:

The Hurricane modelkit comes in a single sprue of sandcolored plastic, the same stuff Zvezda always uses for their Allied "Art Of Tactic" models. You can read my thoughts about this material in earlier Zvezda (p)reviews.

The sprue contains all parts needed to build this plane and I did not find any flaws on the sprue, no ejectormarkings or sinkholes were on the parts, and there is not much mouldlining to remove.

As you can see, there is the option to build the landing gear opened or closed, a nice feature that this kit has in common with all other 1:144 and 1:200 Zvezda wargaming planes.

The next "sprue" from this box contains the clear part:

The clear part for the canopy is casted as solid block, as they are in most Zvezda wargame planes, next Saturday we will see an exception. Due to its thickness, you could not add a pilot figure without a new piece for the canopy.

The third and final sprue in this box contains 2 parts to build a stand for the plane. It is included in every "Art Of Tactic" plane expansion. It seems solid and not too bad and would be a decent modelstand if all flash and ejectormarks would be removed.

As usual for "Art Of Tactic" plane kits, the Hurricane also includes a well made decalsheet for the model. In general, Zvezda produces decals of good quality, but these did not take the decalsofter without taking some minor damage.

A good layer of matte varnish may hide this, but I when I saw what happened after the application of "Mr Mark Softer", I thought that I messed up the kit.

Luckily that was not the case, my finished 1:144 Hawker Hurricane Mk.1 looks like this:

For a gamepiece this kit is ok, it is easy and fast to build due to the well made building instructions, and after you may have painted it you could add some of the decals that are included.

Do not expect a real modelkit, this one aims at wargamers, the plane could be used for early war scenarios like the Blitzkrieg or the battle for Africa, even the Sovietunion got them via the lend/lease contract.

In the end it depends on you, but if you need a Hurricane, you should take a look at this one, even when there are other alternatives in this scale like the (out of prodution) Revell Microwings Hurricane or the Sweet Aviation Models Hawker Hurricane,  both are way more detailed, but compared to the price of the Zvezda kit (below 4 Euros), their cost would be higher.

Tomorrow it is Sunday what means we will take a look at an expansion either for "TANKS" or "TANKS The Modern Age", this time we will take a look at the T-34.