1/48 Classic Airframes Curtis Hawk

Fighter type 10

by Colin Whitehouse

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  Thailand National Day 2007 

 

Despite a passion for big jets, whenever I went to the Royal Thai air force museum I was always intrigued by this great little plane. 24 were delivered in 1935 and a further 50 were built locally from 1937 to 1939. A classic Thai painting depicts resistance to the Japanese invasion when 3 of these took off to face the entire Japanese armada on the 8th December 1941.  None returned.  Despite this some survivors continued in service until 1949. 

When I saw the Classic Airframes kit become "limited stock" in Hannants, I decided the time was right and it winged its way east.  Looking at my photos from the museum I saw the rudder is completely wrong shape and so this was modified.  I also could not get the cowl ring to fit so this had another section inserted.  Otherwise the only issue was Classic Airframes desire not to provide location lugs so it was like stacking golf balls to get it assembled.  Finally I had to build an assembly jig and use the outer struts first then add the inner carbine struts later.  I'm sure these came out a bit too short but it looks OK from most angles.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

The paint scheme on the kit and air force museum examples also don't match so I decided to follow the museum example.  The under surfaces are blue according the instructions but the Thais didn't do this and the museum example was silver.  We also reasoned that as the planes were silver before camouflaging so again this would point them to being silver underneath.  Paints by Mr Colour were earth brown and greens.

Although the Thai's have used a few different national insignias over the years, none of my Thai friends could agree with the Thai markings in the kit.  I therefore used yet another set of Siam scale Spitfire decals for national insignia and kit markings for the rest.  The plane in the museum has a blue diamond around the demon which is missing from the kit so I added this from painted decal strip.

Colin

Photos and text © by Colin Whitehouse