Sweet 1/144 Hawker Hurricane Mk. I

After defending the British Islands from the German invasion in the Battle of Britain, most Hawker Hurricanes were relegated to other theaters of combat such as Malta and North Africa. These aircraft were often equipped with special “tropical” engine filters. The Tropical Hurricane is one of the latest boxings of the Sweet 1/144 Hurricane Mk. I kit.

The best way to review the Sweet Hurricane is to just reference the name of the company. This is a sweet kit! The kit comes in a neat box with colorful Japanese style cartoons. There are some great hints and tips on the box; such as if your cat knocks your liquid glue onto your model, you will be left with a pile of molten plastic.

Anyway, on to the review, within the box there are two complete kits. One is in tan plastic and the second kit is in clear. By cleverly molding two canopies on each sprue there are two clear canopies and two tan canopies that can be used as masks. I decided to build the tan kit. The detail on the exterior parts is excellent, in fact this looks like a mini-Tamiya kit. Interior detail is a simple seat/headrest molding that is adequate for the scale and size of the very small canopy. You are given the choice of two props and two styles of antenna masts. All the parts fit very well and I only had to use a small touch of Mr. Surfacer in a few spots. In fact most of the problems I had with this kit are due to my hamfistedness with the small size of the parts.

The kit provides five decal options all in variations of Dark Earth and Mid Stone over Azure Blue. I decided to do something different and built my Hurricane as a PR Hurricane based on Malta in overall Azure Blue. The decals went on beautifully, but it looks to me as if some are slightly too large.

I highly recommend this kit. It is quite simple and very beautifully done. Good job Sweet.

Thanks to Sweet, John Noack, and IPMS/USA for the review sample.