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.

1:144 Messerschmitt BF-109 F2& Hawker Tempest Mk. 5

Some pictures of two recently finished 1:144 model planes. 

First there is the Messerschmitt BF-109 F2 made by Russian producer Zvezda for their "Art Of Tactic" Range. I got it together with the Ilyushin IL-2 and other things some time ago, while I built and painted the IL-2, see pictures in this post, the BF-109, you can see the sprue on this picture, was built but got lost somewhere.

When I found this thing in one of my bitsboxes, it had suffered some serious damage. The antenna went missing, what I still have to fix, two rotorblades were broken off, and both tailwings were seperated from the plane, one of it was broken in two halfes.

Fixing the rotor was no big issue, as also the reglueing of one of the tailwings, but the part broken from the other wing did not stick well to its counterpart.

It broke off at least 4 more times, the last time after the plane was painted, what you clearly can see on the picture below. But I thought fuck it, and left it as it is now.

The upper half was painted in Revell Aquacolor Khakibraun, while the lower half was painted in Revell Aquacolor Light Green, brightened with some drops of white. As usual, the decals were taken from the scrapbook.

The second finished 1:144 plane is the Hawker Tempest Mark 5 made by Revell from its old "Micro Wings" range. I wrote this in a previous post, and I write it again, it is too bad, that these small things are out of prodution, even when they are pretty simple and their moulds are almost worn out.

The belly of this plane was painted in a Vallejo Grey, which label is not readable anymore. The upper part was painted in a selfmixed blue grey, which got too blue, and Revell Aquacolor Dark Green. I used so liquid masking solution for the camouflage pattern.

The decals were taken from the kit and as usual produced in the same good Revell quality as usual.

At the moment the printer is running, I am printing a final plane for the planes expansion. If everything will work out as supposed I will add another post tonight.

Revell 1:144 Hawker Tempest Mark 1B

I found some pictures while I made a backup from my old mobilephone. This is a Hawker Tempest I built last year, also these two were built at the same time. The built went pretty fast with no complications even when there was much flash to remove since the moulds for this kit are old and kind of worn out.

The Me 262 was built and painted by my mate Olli, while both bases were made by me.

I heard that the Revell Micro Wings kits will not be published again, what would be a shame. These kits were some of the first modelkits I ever built, more than 30 years ago.

This is just a quick post, I am preparing some lines about the helicopters I use for "TANKS The Modern Age", that post should go online soon. After that I am doing some maintenance on the labels of this blog.