Hurricane Mk IIb – Gallery – Tony O’Toole

My next 1/72nd Arma Hurricane Mk.IIb, represents WK-E, from 135 Sqn, India/Burma border, 1942/43.

Just like the Spitfire Mk.Vc, the Hurricane Mk.IIb served on more fronts and wore more colours and markings options than any other variant and between 1941-43 the Hurricne Mk.IIb was the RAF`s standard oversea`s based fighter. Aeroplane was holding the fort in places as diverse as Singapore, Java, Burma, India, N. Africa, Malta and even Murmansk in the Soviet Union. In Murmansk the Mk.IIb was provided to the Soviets in massive numbers after the RAF aircraft of 151 Wing that had been operating there had been handed over.

The Arma kits need no introduction, they are excellent and the addition of the Mk.IIb to the range is very well received by me at least! I decided to build my first (of many!) as an aircraft which helped to hold the India/Burma frontier over the Arakan front until 1943 and as I have a photo of a formation of 135 Sqn aircraft in flight near to Calcutta in 1942 in my collection I used this as reference, sourcing the codes and serials from generic sets.

After the fuselage roundels were converted to C1 Type in 1942 many Hurricane`s retained the large A Type underwing markings, possibly as they were more visible than the smaller replacements, and I have represented this here. The model, as usual, was brush painted. The reference photo that I used also appears in the excellent book `Hurricanes Over The Arakan’ by Norman Franks, and looking at the photo again, perhaps I should have just stuck to the standard fin flash and not opted for narrow ones,… oh well?