History:

No question that the Hawker Sea Fury was the pinnacle of Sir Sidney Camm’s monoplane design that began long before with the Hurricane, and saw the lineage continue with the Typhoon and Tempest. All of which were to contribute much to the war effort and aviation development in general.

The Kit:

Those of us who read the hype and rumors about this kit’s impending release waited with baited breath, and opened the box with mixed emotions when it eventually arrived on store shelves.

When I consider the manufacturer, I shouldn’t really be surprised, since most of their other offerings have been in this same general quality range. I guess in this day of rising development and production costs, Hobbycraft should at least be commended for having a go at this project in particular.

The kit comes molded in soft light gray styrene which appears to be the norm nowadays, and at first inspection surface detail is rather heavy. For the most part this appears to be a scaled up version of their original release in 1/48, although some areas have been improved. On the down side if the modeler wants to have the fine detail of more recent 1/32 scale releases (from Hasegawa, Tamiya or Trumpeter), they will be sorely disappointed. The up side is that the overall shape seems to be fairly accurate so deciding what to do with it right from the outset will be key to a successful build.

I decided early on to build it right out of the box since this would be my ‘new kit for 2008’ contest entry (I started this last year with the PT boat after years of disappointment seeing a lack of new releases at the show).

Construction:

After reviewing the shape and comparing with pictures that I had taken of Sea Furys (at Reno and elsewhere), I had to agree with other reviewers who claimed that the model’s nose had a noticeably sharp rise from cowling to canopy. I decided this would be my one fix, so I basically collapsed the nose in that area and put the halves together, taking off material from the inside edges because with the lowering of the profile caused to the fuselage to fatten, and the canopy would not fit. While the shape was improved substantially, the canopy issue remained until the end and I’m still not totally satisfied with it, but oh well. Reshaping of the fuselage in front of the windshield also took care of those curious faceted panels which are not present on their 1/48th scale version.

The remainder of the build was problem free - really. Many of the smaller parts were ‘chunky’ for this scale, and cockpit detail was minimal; with simplistic stick and seat, and almost non-existent instrument panel details. The sort of things that are in line with (and that we’re used to) models from Hobbycraft..

I decided to paint my example in the markings of TG 117, an aircraft of the Royal Canadian Navy, delivered in 1948 in the extra dark sea gray and sky scheme, with red outer wing and horizontal tail surface panels for specific non-combat service with the Winter Experimental Establishment. This aircraft was later overhauled and repainted with the standard dark gray / light gray and was lost in a fatal crash in 1951.

The decal sheet looks great, and they work well.

Conclusion:

For those who wish to build the ultimate Sea Fury in 1/32, well Fishers is still your best bet. For those modelers who are bent on finding the best bang for their buck, then this example may be the way to go. At Can $51.00, it’s still not cheap, although it is a quarter of the price of its superior competition. At the end of the day, with a decent paint job it will look every bit the Sea Fury it’s meant to portray, and for those that want to scratch build and modify, well they’ll have a great starting point.

The price would be my only real complaint, since this release was rumored to have been in the $30-40 range - a price better suited for this kind of quality. In comparison, the new Hasegawa P-47D costs another $20, but it has better quality and detail.