Special Hobby’s 1/72 Sea Fury Mk. 11 Reviewed by Chris Bucholtz

History

Representing the apex of piston-powered fighter design, the Sea Fury is arguably the most beautiful and certainly the most powerful fighter to emerge from the immediate pre-jet era. There’s a reason for that: its design represents a synthesis of two of World War II’s greatest designs: the Hawker Tempest and the Fw 190. Hawker engineers pored over the Fw 190A-3 that the hapless Oberleutnant Armin Faber accidentally delivered to the RAF in June 1942, gleaning from the captured machine details of the airframe and powerplant. Meanwhile, Hawker was nearing the completion of the development of the Tempest V, the fastest low-level prop-driven fighter of the war.

When the Air Ministry issued Specification F.6/42 calling for a new high-performance fighter, Sydney Camm and his Hawker design team were already contemplating a lighter version of the Tempest powered by the then-troublesome Bristol Centaurus engine. The specification was re-written in April 1943 specifically for the promising Hawker project, and some time later Camm realized that the same aircraft might satisfy the Royal Navy’s Specification N.7/43 for a carrier-based interceptor. The two specifications were combined as F.2/43; then, RAF interest flagged and the aircraft was finished as a carrier fighter. The first Sea Fury flew on Feb. 21, 1945, and an order was placed for 200 Sea Fury F.Mk. 10s. The war’s end saw these orders cut in half.

The first production Sea Fury flew a year after Japan’s surrender, and the aircraft entered service in spring 1947. The FB.Mk. 11, a fighter-bomber, quickly followed it into service. A total of 615 Mk. 11 aircraft were delivered.

For a “post-war” aircraft, the Sea Fury saw considerable action. It flew from HMS Theseus, HMS Ocean, HMS Glory and HMAS Sydney over Korea, and the most famous of these Sea Furies, WJ232 piloted by Lt. Peter “Hoagy” Carmichael, downing a MiG-15 in 1952. The Sea Fury also served with the naval air arms of Canada, the Netherlands and Australia and the Cuban, Egyptian and Burmese air forces. De-navalized Furies were supplied to Iraq and Pakistan. Almost 70 Furies and Sea Furies survive today, with more than 40 airworthy examples on civilian registries around the world.

The Kit

Special Hobby’s kit is not the only modern kit available in this scale; High Planes Models had a Sea Fury in its catalog. However, this kit is readily available and minimizes some (but not all) of the short-run issues High Planes is known for.

Construction starts with a finely-detailed resin cockpit tub that’s outfitted with a resin control column, a reasonably nice plastic control panel and a resin/plastic combination for the head rest and rear cockpit shelf. There’s a blank-off plate for the top of the tailwheel well, a plate where the engine would go (it’s hidden by the massive prop spinner) and the fuselage halves may be joined.

The surface detail is represented by nicely-restrained scribed lines. The exhausts are provided as an integral part of the fuselage, and the many small exhaust pipes just beg to be drilled out with a pin vise and a lot of perseverance. The rudder is a separate part, and both the naval rudder and the land-based rudder are provided (an indication of the next release), and the horizontal stabilizers have tongue-in-groove connections, a step up from the typical short-run kit butt-joins. A resin plug for the main gear bays is adequately detailed and is sandwiched in the three-part wing. The landing gear itself is rather flash-ridden, and the main wheels are provided as halves; I suggest getting a Heller Tempest and robbing the gear from that kit, as they are easy to find on vendor tables at model shows. The inner gear doors are properly shaped but a little thick; the outer doors, however, are terrific. They capture the structure on the interior of the door and have no ejection pin marks, something that even Academy couldn’t accomplish!

A decent tailwheel is provided, but the stinger-style arrestor hook could use a replacement. Nice drop tanks are also included, but there are no rocket rails or other ordnance. The pitot tube might best be replaced with a little telescoping tubing, and the boarding stirrup could also be stolen from that Heller Tempest.

The propeller, despite its rather nondescript appearance, is accurate. It’s disconcerting to see a symmetrical and nearly constant-chord propeller blade after looking at Spitfire and Mustang props for a while, but the photos of real Sea Furies bear out the accuracy of the kit part. The prop is trapped between a plastic backing plate and a resin spinner. A vacuformed canopy completes the build; there are two in the kit.

Decals allow you to build one of three Sea Furies: the aforementioned WJ232 from 802 Sqaudron, HMS Ocean and VR943 from 801 Squadron, HMS Glory, both during Korean cruises. Both planes wear extra dark sea gray-over-sky camouflage and invasion stripes, although you’ll have to paint the stripes yourself. Carmichael’s plane also has a neatly-printed 802 Sqaudron logo under the left side of the cockpit. The third option is a similarly-colored FB.51, the export variant of the Mk. 11, with Dutch markings representing an 860 Squadron machine aboard the Karel Doorman in 1952. Unlike the Royal Navy scheme, the extra dark sea gray extends all the way down the fuselage. The printing of the decals is very good, with only a bit of a registration slip on the Dutch roundels.

Conclusion

With a little skill (and perhaps a bit of kitbashing) this kit will yield a very nice Sea Fury. It’s still a short-run kit, but not the most difficult short-run kit I’ve seen, and will fill a glaring gap in many Royal Navy and Korean War collections.