StephenMG

There's virtually no difference at all. The F.6A was an F.6 with most of the mods for the FGA.9 except the uprated engine. There are some cockpit differences but externally the differences are usually just differences in antenna types and locations. The Academy/Italeri tailcone is a bit a long, but other parts of the fuselage are a bit short by the same amount, so overall they cancel out! The biggest problem with it is that they just stuck a 'lip' on the F.6 tailcone so there'e no bulge to the top surface to accommodate the parachute. I put a post on BM once with a list of all the things I thought were 'off' with the Academy Hunter. I'll see if I can find it. EDIT: Found the thread if it's any use - https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234909441-italeri-academy-hunter/ Mark

As has been said, a 'healthy' Hunter that's just been shutdown would have flaps and airbrake fully retracted. There is an interlock which prevents the airbrake being lowered when the undercarriage is down (in fact the brake will automatically close if the wheels are lowered with the airbrake out) so only loss of hydraulic pressure will cause it to droop on the ground. There is a test switch in the cockpit but that only partially opens the brake then snaps it shut again after a couple of seconds. To fully open the airbrake on the ground for servicing it was necessary to disconnect the jack. The test switch also came in handy for toilet roll bombing operations - operate the test switch, while the brake is partially open jam your toilets rolls in, take off, fly over neighbouring squadron's airfield, open airbrake to drop your 'bombs'!!! That's a fantastic video posted by YK GOH. Note that the Black Arrows (and the other Hunter aero teams for that matter) flew displays with one notch of flap on. That allowed a higher engine power setting to be used making it more responsive while flying the display.

Thank you all. This means there's another 20 quid I won't be seeing again! Thank you @Troy Smith for the great prop info. As you correctly guessed I'm more familiar with things that go "whoosh" than things that go "brrrrrrr"!!! I'm keen to build a Hurri as I've had a plan for a while to build aircraft related to RAF Pembrey where my Dad was based as a Hunter airframe fitter. Having done a Hunter F.1, Tempest TT.5 and Vampire T.11 (and with a Mosquito TT.35 half finished somewhere) I fancied a Hurricane as 316 Sqn were formed there in 1941. Although they've been 1/72 so far, that Airfix Hurricane looked so lovely I think I'll switch to 1/48, especially with Airfix' Hunter F.4 on the way later this year. Thanks again, Mark

Hi all, I have a hankering to build the latest mould Airfix 1/48 Hurricane but note it's currently being sold in 'tropical' or 'sea' guise. I'm not bothered about the decals but wondered if all the bits are in the box to build it as a 'standard' Hurricane, i.e. without arrestor hook or Vokes filter, with options for Rotol/DH props etc? Looking at some sprue shots I suspect they probably are but if anyone could confirm that before I hand over my Groats I'd be grateful. Mark

Genius!!!

B*gger! I wish I'd thought of that before I painted it cream!

@Ralph don't paint anything yet, I'm about to change my mind!!! I should have been painting the kitchen this afternoon but with all this talk of Qatari Hunters, and as I intend to build a new model of QA12 shortly, I thought I'd revisit my Tamiya colour mixes. While I happy with the Brown and Sand, I thought the mix for the Deep Sky Blue could be better - turns out it could have been a lot better! I thought my original mix was a little dark so I did what I should have done in the first place and got a better original paint sample to test it against. This is an original Qatari link collector which was filthy and had some weird milky build-up on it. I polished the front bit back to the original colour (then ran out of T-Cut so couldn't do any more!) and tried some paint mixes against it. Turns out that Revell Aqua 50 Light Blue (top left in this photo) is a pretty good stab at the colour straight from the bottle although it does need lightening a touch for a scale model in my opinion so a 60:40 mix of Light Blue:White should be pretty darn good. As for the Tamiya mixes, mine was indeed too dark. Lightening with white was good but threw the balance of the other colours in the mix off. Oddly the XF-18 has a significant effect when I first put some in but that seemed to lessen when more was added. Anyway to cut a long story short, the best mix to my eye was as follows, X-14 Sky Blue - 6 parts XF-18 Medium Blue - 1 part X-3 White - 3 parts (plus a bit more for scale effect to taste) I'm off to finish painting the kitchen before I get into any more trouble!

I don't know for certain John, but they certainly look very similar. The photo you posted looks quite saturated so the colours are very strong but in the photo here (look at photo 3 in the Strikemaster Gallery) https://www.baesystems.com/en/heritage/bac-strikemaster and at the photo you posted a few years back here https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235005846-what-are-the-external-differences-between-a-strikemaster-and-a-jet-provost/&tab=comments#comment-2422788 they look much the same as the Hunter colours, which would make perfect sense as the Hunters and Strikeys were delivered around the same time. It appears the Saudis, Kuwaitis etc. drifted more towards a lighter 'sand' colour (similar to Light Stone) and a paler underside blue later which may also fuel the confusion over the older Hunter colours.

Yes Steve, good for Kuwaiti Hunters too. In fact any time you see a Hunter in this Brown/Sand/Blue scheme it'll be these colours. The appearance varies massively in photos though, hence the confusion. Those Humbrol codes I quoted are very good matches. Unfortunately Humbrol only do the Dark Earth in acrylics (they seem to have ditched the Middle Stone and never did the WWI Blue) but they are still all in the enamel range. M

Where indeed?!!! Ralph, further to my reply earlier I've dug out the colour mixes for Tamiya paints that I used for a model of Qatari Hunter QA12 I built some years ago. The colours were matched, as best I could, to the same original components shown in the thread I linked to above. The Tamiya brown isn't perfect, but there was certainly a variation in the original colours (as visible in the photo below) so I wasn't too concerned. Please bear in mind the colours quoted on the Xtradecal sheet are wrong but you can see how confusing these colours can be when you look at this faded photo. (Also, Xtradecal have the 'Sand' ring of the roundel as gold for some reason when it's actually the same Sand as the camo) Tamiya colour mixes, Brown - XF-52 Flat Earth straight from the bottle Sand - 4 parts XF-3 Flat Yellow with 3 parts XF-60 Dark Yellow Blue - equal parts of X-14 Sky Blue and XF-18 Medium Blue with a spot of white These mixes on my model, To collect the paint information from my link together here, the excellent Humbrol matches I used straight from the tin are, Sand = Humbrol 225 (Middle Stone) Brown = Humbrol 29 (Dark Earth) Deep Sky Blue = Humbrol 109 (WWI Blue) Unfortunately Humbrol only do 29 Dark Earth in their acrylics range (they seem to have ditched 225 and I don't think they ever did 109) but a good acrylic alternative, for the blue at least, is Revell Aqua 50 Light Blue, although I would personally add a tiny smidge of white or very light grey for scale effect. Cheers, Mark

Thanks Paul. It's seems sooooo long ago when we discussed this last! To answer your question Ralph have a look at this thread I posted a while ago for starters as the colour recommendations on decal sheets are often well off the mark - Cheers, Mark

F.6 only or, at a push, F.6A or FGA.9. To turn it into a Mk.5 you'd need to modify the fuselage vents to match the Sapphire engine, remove the leading edge extensions, reshape the wingtips and replace the tailcone with the 'small bore' version. It's been done though, there's a build on here somewhere I think. M

Well spotted Selwyn, the AP I scanned was a combined F.6/F.6A one. It makes no definite distinction between the two as, like you say, some F.6s were retro-fitted with ERUs. 4FTS had a number for example. The FGA.9 picture is a little unclear. As you say it would make sense to have ERU-equipped inboard pylons with the big 230 gallon tanks coming along. Although some folk have stated that, because of the bracing strut, the big tanks were not jettisonable, they actually were - the strut was designed with a clever ball and socket connection at the wing end so it could disconnect and fall way if the tank was jettisoned. So an ERU would make sense to help shove that big tank away. There were plenty of FGA.9s with EMRUs on the outer pylon though so, as ever with Hunters, there are no hard and fast rules.

Sorry to be so late to this one, but thanks for the tag! I can't really add much to the excellent info posted already. Airfix have a made a dog's breakfast of these pylons for sure. I'm struggling to remember what I used as references when I did my SAM drawings now but I think I got someone to take measurements off a set of pylons that had been taken off an aircraft. Having said that, we have the perfect reference in YK GOH's measurements above. It does prove that Airfix' pylons are pretty hopeless. Not only is the depth dimensions all wrong but, as has been said, the sole plates are missing (or moulded as part of the tank) and top plates (which is how the pylons are secured to the wings) are also missing. I can confirm that, as Selwyn suspected, pylons with ERUs are externally the same as those fitted with EMRUs. Excellent diagrams have been posted already but I thought I might add these which show a direct comparison between the EMRU and ERU equipped inboard pylon. Firstly, inboard pylon with Electro-Mechanical Release Unit (EMRU). Note, 1 is the crutching tool used to tighten the store up to the bottom of the sole plate (8) as mentioned by Selwyn. A 100 gallon tank is hown here. Next is the same pylon but the version fitted with an Ejector Release Unit (ERU). Note in this case the crutching tool (1) operates via a gearing mechanism as the breech of the ERU (2) is now where the crutching nut used to be. A 230 gallon tank is shown in this case. For info, because a lot of people ask what the bulge on the top of the wing on some Hunters is for, this is an outboard pylon fitted with an ERU. You can see how far the ERU breech sticks up above the top surface of the wing and why it needs the bulged fairing to cover it. I must confess I'm a bit confused by this AIrfix Hunter. On one hand they've done a wonderful job of getting the overall shape spot on with their LIDAR work, but on the other hand it seems they lost interest with certain details thereafter! The missing blast deflectors (how could you ignore those on an F.6?!), these pylons, the detail-free nose wheel, undercarriage doors, flaps etc., the single operating rod on the rear nosewheel door, the featureless ailerons with trim tab and panel lines missing. It just seems a bit odd. Nevertheless, it gives us a superb base to work from (a world away from the old Academy job) and it gives the after-market chaps something to get their teeth into! Mark

This is excellent work! That nose/spine conversion is outstanding. What did you do for the tailcone? Did you make a 'small bore' one or just use the kit parts?