The Little World

A casual post on the internet alerted me that my favourite go-to model company had released a 1:72 version of one of my favourite models of the 1960’s: the Hawker Sea Hawk. And this one from Hobby Boss was reported to be more than just a quick-build kid’s kit.

Be that as it may, I never make a fuss on that account anyway. I am delighted to build the snap-togethers anyway as it is that much quicker to the painting and decorating. And Hobby Boss do a bang-up job of the moulding detail. You take some of it with a grain of salt and an Xacto blade and it all looks good. And the price always looks good.

My first Sea Hawk was an Airfix baggie and it went together like a dream. I loved the grey/green scheme and the smoothness of the design. I’ve no idea if it was a good fighter or even a good airplane, but I always thought it one of the designs that guaranteed flight like a bird. This reprise will be a delightful walk down a more detailed memory lane.

It’ll be a memory lane quite different from before, as the makers have kitted this plane with either West German or Indian navy decals. In real life the West Germans sold their Sea Hawks to the Indians who flew them off INS VIKRANT and from several shore stations. And the planes got into a couple of Indian/Pakistani wars in the 60’s and 70’s so they have combat form. Of course they had also been under fire in the ’56 Suez crisis while flying off RN ships.

The kit is no quick-build. It’s bagged, rather than presented on a tray. The sprues are clean and seem undistorted. The cockpit is an exemplar of clean moulding.

The colour call-out is their best yet and the decals look fine. I don’t miss the FAA version at all.

The only decision to be taken is whether to use the rockets provided. More research needed, but a box illustration suggests that they did carry them into battle: