¹⁄35

Storm Warning

This is Hasegawa’s magnificent Hawker Typhoon, built out of the box with a little detailing, and confined mostly to the 60lb rockets. Paints used are Colourcoats enamels, from White Ensign Models, see review HERE, decals are from the kit, including the D-Day stripes, and are for a 247 Squadron machine in June 1940. I wanted to do this scheme for 2 reasons. One because the codes have the D-Day stripes left unpainted around them. This would mean I would have to position and mask these unpainted areas very, very carefully, and two the number 247 is very special to me. It was issued to me by the Queen, as the last 3 of my Army number.

From the outset I intended to paint the rocket warheads with the 3 coloured fill bands, as per the original. I had never seen this done on a model carrying rockets. I also wanted to depict the “pig tails”(electrical firing leads), connected to the aircraft, so it was obvious it was about to leave on some “target” (tank) killing mission. You will quite often see these leads depicted hanging from the rocket body, (which is, probably, how they would be until just before flight, for safety reasons). But the only model, on the net, that I found with them fully connected, had them in the wrong place (I believe, from what I have been able to deduce). I also didn’t want this beast to look safe.