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Built this as part of a group build. I have been waiting to dig into my Arma Hurricane but without enough time I chose this old kit. The build itself was very straightforward. I used Tamiya acrylics, wash and some shaved graphite to accent the raised panel lines. I built this to represent KZ371 of 3 Squadron IAF in the CBI theatre. Picture of the real aircraft had the following caption: During an intensive period of bombing around Marghai on June 27, 1944, 3 Squadron’s Fg Off Dilip Kumar Bose flew Hurricane Mk.IIc KZ371/R twice in support of Tochi Scouts on the ground.

This build was started back in December but I've been unable to write about it on Britmodeller until now, so here goes with a slightly mammoth catch-up! This build is the first in a long term project I've been researching for some time now - the title of the project is "The planes my Dad fixed!". Let me explain... My father was in the RAF during WWII. He was an electrician and joined up in 1941 and remained in the RAF until demob at the end of 1945. Sadly he died in 1979 when I was 18 so I never got to be able to talk to him as a proper adult. I did, however get him to tell me some stories of what he did during the war. Whenever the atlas or the globe came out it'd be "Dad, show me where you went?" He'd point to Algeria, Tunisia, Sicily, Egypt India and Burma. When my mother died eralier this year, my brother and I went thorugh all her effects and found a load of stuff about our Dad, including an Xmas dinner menu from December 1943, with 81 Squadron inviting him for Xmas. This piqued my interest so I applied to the RAF to get a copy of his war record. This is quite easy to do - you just need a death certificate (if the subject is deceased) and you need to be next of kin. Thankfully in his effcts we also foudn his demob card which had his service number on so it was very easy to provide identity details to the RAF. It also costs £30 admin fee - well worth it as it turned out! 3 months later I got a large envelope through the post which has a copy of both sides of the paper war record that details his time in the services. From this I was able to see which squadrons he was attached to at various times and from that was able to deduce what aircraft he worked on. Essentially he was in training school until Feb 42 and was then stationed at South Detling, during which time 280 Sqn was present, flying Avro Ansons. From there he was attached to 122 Sqn during 42, 122 Sqn was at that time equipped with Spitfire Vb and Vc, then in October was transferred to 81 Sqn who were at that time in Gib, supporting Operation Torch, the invasion of NW Africa. So that accounted for his travels through Algeria, Tunisia and then eventually to Sicily in later 1943. 81 Sqn was at that time flying Spitfire Vc (trop) and Spitifre IX. Then in November 43, we was transferred to 5 Sqn, then based in India. By sheer coincidence, 81 Sqn itslef was posted to India and ended up just down the road from where 5 Sqn was based at that time (Sampam), which explains the Christmas menu invitation! He was then with 5 Sqn for the rest of the war, initially operating Hurrican IIc and IId in a ground attack role. In early 45, they converted to Thunderbolts. In the training section of my Dad's record is also notations for Mosquito and Lancaster, but I can see no evidence in the record that he ever really worked on them. So that gives me a very interesting selection to choose from. Well to start with I want to do a diorama which includes my Dad at work! In the photo album we have several of him his bush hat and shorts in Burma, so this seems a natural place to start, so here we go with the Hurricane IIc from Revell. I was lucky enough to pick up at the Telford Kitswap as the basis: Its not a terribly complex kit - its major downfall being that it has raised panel lines and it is the Revell bodge job of taking a Hurricane I kit, slappipng a couple of blisters on the upper wing, replacing the machine gun insert with cannon mounts and thats it. The panel lines on the wing are all wrong, the nose is wrong, the tailwheel is wrong... and so it goes on! So to improve the build itself, I invested heavily in aftermarket gear at Telford, picking up several items from Grey Matter Figures such as the cockpit and wheelbay enhancements. here is all the aftermarket stuff I aim to be using: Moving in a clockwise direction: on the black page you can see the cockpit set in the top left and the wheelbays in the bottom right. Next to that is a set of decals for the lettering in the right colours and size for 5 Sqn in India. Below that is a vacform canopy and next is a set of replacement exhausts, then replacement cannons and finally some masks for the canopy. In this one we have replacement radiator, main wheels, tail wheel and undercarriage doors. The next photo shows the main part of this set, the resin replacement nose Of course this is the build that I want to make diorama out of, featuring my dad doing his job as an electrician. So here are the final extras that will be used to create the diorama. In the family photo album, we've got several pictures of my dad from this period and in all of them he's wearing a bush hat, open shirt and shorts. So to get that combination I've got this little lot: Clockwise from the left: Airfix 8th Ary Multipose figures - this will be useful for the lower body, Airfix 1-32 Australian infantry - this will be great for the bush hat and open shirt torso. Next is the 1:32 Aber hand tools set - you'll have seen the 1:48 version of this in my Mohawk build, I suspect that this set will be easier to put together - not so eye-straining! Finally, I will toss in the 1:32 resin accumulator trolly from Iconair. Now I think this will need to have a compressor motor scratch built on the top, but lets cross that bridge when we come to it! So let us begin with the build. One of the first things I noticed was the elevators are cast as one complete piece. Well thats no good if I'm build a parked up machine undergoing maintenance! So I assembled them and then the razor saw came out and they were cut up. The notch that exposes the hinge was cut in and some plastic rod added. Two brackets were also added in the appropriate places to provide the attachment points for later. I also started opening up the fuselage to expose the electrics that my dad would have been working on: which also shows the elevators in an earlier stage of construction. Since the plastic of the fuselage is quite thick I chamfered the edges to thin the visible skin: I've been researching the internal layout of the fuselage so I can scratch build what will be visible behind these panels. Follow this link to the IWM collections to see the sort of thing I will be aiming to achieve, although not with the wellies!