Hurricane

This is the second model I’m building from Mick Reeves, the first being his FW190D. So to keep with the 1/6th scale I decided to build the Hawker Hurricane, which has a wingspan of 80” and fuselage length of 64”. All up weight should be around 11lb, but mine will probably weigh slightly more, as I’m installing a ryobi 31cc petrol strimmer engine upfront, which I converted myself. This model shall also feature retracts on the main units with home made functional oleos and robart wheels. The wing is already covered with epoxy and glass cloth, as is tail plane, elevators, fin and rudder. The stringers on the fuselage will be covered in nylon and the rest of the fuselage will be glass clothed. Radio gear shall mainly be standard in terms of servos except for a slightly more powerful one on the elevators, one servo per aileron, futaba pcm receiver and at least a1500mah battery pack. Building this model has been a little bit slow (that’s just me!!) but enjoyable, only real problem being the firewall moved back 2” because of the length of the engine. I hope to have the model-finished springtime ready for another terrific summer (we all hope) As I fly at RAF Coltishall, where the very legendary Douglas Badar was stationed for some of the Second World War, it seems only right to finish the model in the livery of 242 squadron with LED as the appropriate markings in respect for Badar.

The Hawker Hurricane was the first operational R.A.F. aircraft capable of a top speed in excess of 300 m.p.h.
 The design of the Hurricane, directed by Sydney Camm, was the outcome of discussions with the
 Directorate of Technical Development towards the end of 1933, aimed at breaking the deadlocked
 biplane formula. In these discussions Camm proposed a monoplane, based otherwise on his Fury biplane,
 using the proposed new Rolls-Royce P.V.12 engine (later to become the Merlin), and in time incorporating
 a retractable undercarriage. Originally, in concert with current armament requirements, a four-gun battery
 was proposed; but in 1934, with successful negotiations to licence-build the reliable Colt machine gun,
 it was deemed possible to mount an eight-gun battery in the wings, unrestricted by the propeller arc
 and thus dispensing with synchronising gear.

The first Fighter Command squadron to receive Hurricanes was No. 111, commanded by Sqdn. Ldr. John Gillan, 
based at Northolt before Christmas 1937; and it was the squadron's C.O. who flew one of the new fighters
 from Turnhouse, Edinburgh to Northolt, London at an average ground speed of 408.75 mph (659.27km/h) 
- a feat which earned the pilot the nickname "Downwind Gillan" for all time. Nos. 3 and 56 Squadrons took
 delivery during 1938, though the latter was not operational at the time of the Munich Crisis in September
 of that year. By the outbreak of war a year later 497 Hurricanes had been completed from an order book
 totalling no less than 3,500. At about this time the Gloster Aircraft Company started sub-contract 
manufacture of the standard Mark 1, which was now emerging from the factories with metal wings and
 three-blade variable-pitch propellers. One final refinement was adopted between the outbreak of war and
 the opening of the Battle of Britain; this was the Rotol co
nstant-speed propeller which, apart from enabling the pilot to select an optimum pitch for take-off, climb, 
cruise And combat (thus bestowing a better performance under some of these conditions) also prevented
 the engine from overheating in a dive.

A total of 1,715 Hurricanes flew with Fighter Command during the period of the Battle, far in excess of all
 other British fighters combined. Having entered service a year before the Spitfire, the Hurricane was
 "half-a-generation" older, and was markedly inferior in terms of speed and climb. However, the Hurricane was
 a robust, manoeuvrable aircraft capable of sustaining fearsome combat damage before write-off; and unlike
 the Spitfire, it was a wholly operational, go-anywhere do-anything fighter by July 1940. It is estimated that its
 pilots were credited with four-fifths of all enemy aircraft destroyed in the period July-October 1940.