Hurricane Mk. I of Pilot Officer Jimmy Dunn

The Hawker Hurricane is one of my favorite WW2 Aircraft. The Spitfire may be more graceful, the FW190 more brutal looking and the P-51 more elegant, but the Hurricane radiates all the characteristics of a true work- and warhorse.

The kit is the Airfix early fabric-wing Hurricane, and as most, if not all, modern Airfix kits, it is easy and fun to assemble. The detailing is quite good, but the plastic is quite soft. Thus, be careful when cutting and sanding. I used decals from several sources: LF Models 'Hawker Hurricane Mk. I. Battle of Belgium" for the roundels markings and Aviaeology's 'Vital Storm pt. 1' for stencils. Seat belts were added from masking tape, and some figures were added from the old Airfix RAF ground crew set. Dunn's Hurricane had the second type of exhausts, and not the original 'kidney' exhaust. It was also equipped with the two-blade Watts wooden propeller. The picture may indicate that Dunn's Hurricane had the early type of radio mast, and not the late type with a short and a long aerial shown on the LF Models instruction sheet.

So, what about the pilot, Pilot Officer Horatio James 'Jimmy' Rennie Dunn? He was awarded his pilot's certificate on December 17, 1938, after successfully passing through the RAF College at Cranwell. He was married to Denise Dunn, neé Foster. Dunn's war was fairly short, and he may have been a bit of an accident-prone pilot. Pilot Officer Dunn flew for No. 87 Squadron, and he was initially based in Lille/Seclin air base in France. On November 10, 1939, Dunn ran out of fuel after having engaged a reconnaissance Dornier over Tourcoing, and being lost, he was forced to land in the Mouscron area in West Flanders, i. e. in neutral Belgium. The Hurricane, L1619, was slightly damaged. Dunn was interned by the Belgian authorities near Antwerp, but he escaped on November 24, 1939, subsequently returning to his base.

Pilot Officer Dunn flew various Hurricanes during the Battle of France, and he claimed one Bf 109 on May 19, 1940. After being evacuated back to Great Britain, Dunn was flying a training flight in a Hurricane nn June 1, 1940. Unfortunately, Dunn failed to recvover from a stalled turn, and he was killed when the aircraft crashed near Yeadon at 12.30. Dunn was only 23 years old.

Source: http://www.henhamhistory.org/DunnWMem.html

Source: www.belgian-wings.be

Douglas TBD Devastator

The Douglas TBD Devastator was a very modern aircraft when it was introduced in the late 1930s. being the first metal monoplane torpedo bomber of the USN. The rapid pace of aircraft development during that era also meant that the Devastator was all but obsolete when the United States entered the war.

The Airfix TBD was for many years the only kit available in 1/72. I'd say that the molds date back to the late 1960s or early seventies. The kit is accurate, but suffers from the typical molding techniques of that era, in this case raised panel lines and overdone riveting. However, the TBD was built before the era of flush riveting, so we'll let that slip. The fit is decent, although the interior isn't very detailed. On the other hand, the thick canopy doesn't really show the cockpit. An additional review can be found here.

Two after-market items were added: White Ensigh photo-etch and decals from Techmod. The phot-etch set consisted of the wing folding mechanisms, the pitot head, an air filter, propellers for the Mk 13 torpedo, the wheel wells, and the hatches for the bomb sight. The decals were unfortunately very delicate and did not react to setting solution, even on the non-corrugated part of the model. Nevertheless, this TBD is marked as the aircraft flown by VT-2 commander Lt Cdr J. Brett together with AOM2c D. F. Hallock as observer and ARM1c A. D. Hensley as gunner off the carrier USS Lexington. Brett led the attack against the IJN light carrier Shoho at the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 7, 1942. Five out of nine of the notoriously unreliable torpedoes actually hit the target. VT-2 lost two aircraft during the attack, but the entire complemet of Devastators went down with the Lexington when she was sunk after the battle.

Sopwith Pup C242, No. 7 Training Squadron, Netheravon 1918

No. 7 Squadron was declared operational on July 28, 1915 at Netheravon, an aerodrome located on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. The aerodrome had been in use by the Royal Flying Corps since 1913, and it was part of the formative phase of the RFC. Several squadrons trained at what was referred to as the "Netheravon Concentration Camp" before being sent abroad. Netheravon was used for the disbanding of squadrons following the armistice. Some of the original buildings are still standing at the site of the aerodrome.

In 1918, training had improved quite a bit with the Gosport System developed by Robert Smith-Barry. The RFC (RAF after April 1, 1918) was capable of graduating 500 pilots per month in five different training areas reporting to a Directorate of Training (DOT). The DOT had 1,203 aircraft in June of 1918, out of which 368 were Avro trainers. A so-called "all-through" system was implemented, which meant that a pilot would remain at one location throughout his training, with the exception of gunnery school. Gone were the Days when a RFC pilots would have three hours solo flying under his belt to qualify as a "good pilot", and the number of training-related accidents had decreased. In the Days of the old Training Division, trainees wrecked a stunning 9.75 percent of the Aircraft on any given day. By the turn of 1917-18, the number was down to 3.11 percent.

A film about training pilots of the United States Air Service in 1918 can be found here.

The Airfix Pup remains a fun build, and it also features a decent cockpit, including a dashboard with instruments and some detailing of the insides of the fuselage halves. I added a seatbelt, a joystick and the floor planks. My previous summary of building a Sopwith Pup can be found here. The cadet is a modified Preiser figure with an added swagger stick.

The Blue Rider decals were bought on eBay, and this was my first real attempt to use decals that actually cover most of an aircraft. The decals were of excellent quality, and they worked well with setting solution, although it remains difficult to join decals over, for example, the wing edges. I did add some weathering to make this Pup actually look like an aircraft that is handled by inexperienced pilots on a daily basis as well as being subjected to inclement weather and rough landings. Matte varnish took away most of the gloss of the decals, making the Pup look less toy-like. By the way, C242 seems to have ended up in civilian use, being registered as G-EBFJ after the war.

Netheravon just before the outbreak of war.

Sopwith Pup C242.