Hawker Sea Fury
First look at Airfix 1/48 Hawker Sea Fury
F
or many, the Hawker Hunter
was the most attractive
Hawker design, but I have
to disagree as for me that title
belongs to the Sea Fury. Now
I must admit a bit of a bias as
at the age of fourteen I earned
some pocket money washing
a bright red Sea Fury G-FURY
at Elstree aerodrome before
it departed for an air show.
Hitting the deck just in time
to feature in this magazine to
say the Sea Fury has been much
anticipated by many is a bit of an
understatement and it was with a
sense of trepidation I lifted the lid
on the latest 1/48 scale Airfix kit.
My initial impression was very
favourable, I will start backwards
as the decals were on top in my
box, these supply two options
both in variations of sky and extra
dark sea grey camouflage. Thefirst option has the low fuselage
demarcation and C style roundels
more familiar on World War 2
aircraft. This aircraft is the colours
in which the example operated
by the Royal Navy Historic Flight
operated in during 2017 and was
originally carried by this aircraft in
1948 when operated by 802 N.A.S.
The second option is from an
example with high demarcation
line and was flown by 801 NAS
of HMS Glory during the Korean
War. Although this is not the MIG
killer many associates with the
Korean War, but the kit does have
a very interesting option as during
operations the black underwing
serials were overpainted in sky
and both sky over painted and
the original black stencil are
supplied on the sheet. There are
plenty of stencils to apply and the
instrument dials for the instrumentpanel are more than adequate.
The instructions are in the now
normal 3D style and are as clear as
you would expect, which is just as
well as you have many, many choices
to make during construction.
The only thing I do not like
is that the painting guides are
only to the Humbrol paint range,
which is not available all around
the world, though at least they
call the paints by the right
names in the colour guide.
The plastic all I can say is
WOW, this may be the best fromAirfix in this scale to date, the
panel lines though a touch deep,
are very consistent and the
raised rivets may be a little too52 • MARCH 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL
FIRST LOOK!
052-57-FirstLooks-0318.indd 52 09/02/2018 14:28