After a brief—ok, fine, two year—hiatus, the In Scale series of scale model builds returns with a 1/48 scale Arma Hobby Hawker Sea Hurricane Mk. IIc, wearing the overall-white livery of NF672/7K, the famous “Nicki” flown by Sub Lt. A.R. Burgham with Fleet Air Arm 835 Squadron off HMS Nairana. Sub Lt. Burgham’s mount is depicted circa mid-June, 1944, shortly before a non-fatal crash into the barriers on its home carrier by a different pilot.
Build Overview
Arma Hobby first released their well-regarded 1/48 Hurricane Mk. IIc in 2023 with an eye towards a future Sea Hurricane boxing thanks to the bottom fuselage behind the wing being a single, swappable piece. Their Sea Hurricane Mk. IIc boxing, released in 2024, provides a 3d-printed replacement for that part with the proper recess for an arrestor hook, also 3d-printed. The kit is notable for extensive riveting, both raised and sunken, on the wings, adding much detail and surface interest.
It’s here I must confess that I am somewhat “mark-agnostic” when it comes to aircraft variants. I respect the economics of the hobby and the fact that manufacturers cannot always create bespoke parts, like the rear fuselage drop-in, to represent the different versions of aircraft using the same basic molds, instead asking modelers to perform modifications of greater or lesser difficulty to more accurately mirror the vehicle type being built. When it’s a simple scribe or fill or deletion, I’ll happily scratch or putty or sand away, but when more extensive surgery is required, I often default to discretion over valor. Such is the case here. I refrained from removing the raised vents on either side of the fuselage below the cockpit, which a real Sea Hurricane Mk. IIc lacks, and left the landing gear bay doors intact, crews having removed a chunk of the lower spat to alleviate the doors catching the arrestor cable before the hook, which was likely a bad thing. Especially since I’d been away from the bench for a bit, I knew my attempts at the fixes would be more distressing than just leaving them be, so to the mark-purists out there, my apologies. We appreciate your knowledge, particularly when we ask desperate forum questions trying to get it right! So I know, strictly, this doesn’t represent an archetypal Mk. IIc Sea Hurricane. If it were an airframe I know well, it might bother me, but to my untrained eye, it looks close enough.
The build was quite straightforward, even with my aforementioned rustiness, as befits Arma Hobby’s growing reputation in the hobby. I found the cockpit to be exceedingly fiddly, with multiple parts coming together in a cage-like structure that then rests on the top of the wing, which, nicely, is composed of two solid spars, preventing any dihedral issues. The cramped pilot’s office on a Hurricane allows very little internal visibility once the fuselage is buttoned up, and assembling the cockpit felt like painting the back of a dresser—you know it’s there, but ain’t nobody ever going to see it.
I had a bit of fuss with the wing assembly, broadly because of my lack of practice at sprue gate removal and proper technique, but nothing that applications of elbow grease and fillers couldn’t rectify (mostly). The fit of the fuselage onto the wing approached a level of wonder, I must say—it’s the most precise alignment I’ve seen to date, with no filler needed at all. Just a beautiful bit of engineering and molding there. The bottom fuselage drop-in required cyanoacrylate to install, not being styrene, but the fit was push-tight, which allowed just a tiny bit of glue (and a bit of filler) to get the job done.
Beyond that, the build itself was a breeze. I was able to seal the fuselage seam flush with just a bit of judicious sanding and cyanoacrylate work, and the parts layout let me leave the vertical tail stabilizer (with its easily breakable antenna mast) off until the end. Fair warning—the raised rivets will catch and unravel cotton buds, particularly the cheap dollar-store type that adorn many a workbench. Use something else to clean/smooth/blend/whatever or be willing to devote significant time to plucking stray strands for the remainder of your build—and bemoaning them in pictures afterwards…
Aftermarket
With one exception, this was technically an out-of-the-box build. Alongside the 3d-printed fuselage insert and arrestor hook, Arma Hobby provides printed cannons, exhausts, and a seat (with molded seatbelts) as well on the same printing plate, taking care of some of the most obvious aftermarket go-tos one might pick up. The printed parts prove a solid upgrade over their styrene counterparts, and I used all of them here. They were in the box, just not on sprues, so it counts as out-of-the-box.
When I bought the kit direct from Arma Hobby—back in those halcyon days when ordering a box of stuff from Poland was as simple as placing an order on a website and waiting for the postal carrier to drop it at your door without any extra fuss—they bundled in a small sheet of colored PE from Yahu Models for an extra few Euros, and I sprung for the deal, entirely for the PE instrument panel. You can’t see it at all unless you get a flashlight and really crane your neck, but it’s there, and it looks the part, on par with what one might expect from flat PE from Eduard or the other major players in the aftermarket PE field.
Decals, Paint, Weathering
The actual colors of NF672 and its stablemates in 835 Squadron are, as they say, a matter of some contention, particularly the color of the underwing area. The pilot’s own recollection, as told to his son, weighs heavily towards off-white, top and bottom, the better to not be seen by enemy subs looking up into the grey-white skies of the North Atlantic. Some photographic evidence points to a darker shade under the wings, which has led to the suggestion that the aircraft bottom remained in the more traditional Sky color. Arma Hobby’s instructions lean towards a very dirty off-white for the unders, with the option given of using Sky instead.
My overall plan was to use Insignia White for the uppers and an Off-White for the lowers, all over black primer, with a black basing approach (mottle plus blend coats) to add tonal variation to each. For the Insignia White, I chose Mr. Paint MRP-099 White; I knew from prior experience with the brand that it takes several passes to really build up color, since it’s so thin right out of the bottle, which is typically a benefit when black basing. But it took forever to get coverage over the Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500 Black primer, and the multiple coats led to a slightly uneven coverage in places. The tonal variation became more pronounced than perhaps I was going for, especially on the wings with their multitude of bumps and divots, but I certainly got a worn look, as befits a field paint job. The instructions note that the anti-glare panel in front of the cockpit, left in Extra Dark Sea Grey/Dark Slate Grey on most of HMS Naira’s Sea Hurricanes, was overpainted just before NF672’s crash, which is when I set my build. (Yes, almost entirely to avoid having to paint the camo.)
And for the lowers? Inadvertently, I split the difference between Dirty White and Sky. My usual Off-White, Mr. Color C069, had off-gassed most of its solvent during my break from the bench, which of course I didn’t discover until moments before painting. Instead, I grabbed a bottle of Real Colors RC808 Off-White (in their “improved” dropper bottle format—and if anyone from AK Interactive is reading, your new bottles are terrible and leak all over the place from their ill-fitting tips). I figured it would be somewhat similar in tone to the Mr. Color, but it’s a much denser off-white, with hints of buff and caramel, and, bizarrely, when sprayed over black, doesn’t appear that far from a very faded Sky. Once I realized the color I had going, I went for a fuller coverage than my original black basing plan, but still let the darker tones shine through in places. It’s not exactly a definitive stance on the Dirty White vs. Sky debate, but I think the contrast between the Insignia White on the leading edges, the straight White (Mr. Color C001) on the Invasion Stripes, and whatever color the underside is makes for some visual interest.
I used the kit decals on this build, which come from Techmod. I’ve always found Techmod to have very thin but robust decals, and these performed similarly, which was fortuitous, as settling the roundels on the wings with all their raised rivets proved incredibly hairy. Even with copious amounts of MicroSet down to start, there was very little working time to get the decals in place before the rivets started to bite, and in some places the underlying wing detail does push through. Aided by some pin pricks across the decal and more MicroSol than one would think advisable, the roundels bedded down quite nicely in the wing’s nooks, getting that “painted” look and invisible film we all strive for. The surface detail on this kit is great, but it’ll be awhile before I put myself through that nerve-wracking process again.
On the weathering front, I did a very minimal pass with some oils along the wing roots and high-traffic areas on the wings proper, some minor airflow streaking, plus some darkening near the propeller and aft of the exhausts. I also added some oil weathering on the exhausts themselves. A final dull coat of Winsor and Newton Galeria Matt Varnish went down at the end to seal it all in, followed by the characteristic soot from the exhausts via Tamiya weathering powders—I originally tried to do it with oils, but just never got a pattern I liked. I’m not fully convinced by the soot, or the overall weathering, but for a first swing after a few years off, I’ll take it. The all-white base offers a tempting canvas for oil weathering, though, and I’d like to try my hand at a full-blown, intensive weathering effort on a similar color base in the future.
On the Shelf
For a welcome-back build, Arma Hobby’s Sea Hurricane Mk. IIc hit the spot, with just enough interesting build puzzles to get me back in the groove while still letting me accomplish something in every session thanks to some thoughtful engineering and parts layout. It’s my second Arma Hobby build, after their tiny 1/72 TS-11 Iskra, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they know what they’re doing.
I probably could have done more with the weathering, and the paint job isn’t up to my finest work, yet I’m glad to have this unique bird on my shelf. And on to adding some more planes to the shelf beside the Sea Hurricane, which is what this is all about…