1/72 Hawker Fury LA610 (Sabre)
The Hawker Fury was conceived following the capture of an intact Fw190 when it was realised that the Tempest, although
similar in role, was a much bigger and heavier aircraft. The easy way to reverse the trend for bigger heavier fighters
was to remove the centre section from the Tempest and fit the resulting wing to the smallest possible fuselage given the
choice of engines (Centaurus or Griffon required). The Griffon prototype proved to have disappointing performance due to
a huge 'chin' radiator so a Sabre VII was installed which gave a top speed of around 470mph. This is the aircraft I
decided to model, in spite of the Fury not being proceeded with for the RAF, although it developed into the FAA Sea Fury.
Whilst there have been several kits of the Sea Fury there have been just as many of the Supermarine Spiteful (a failed
project from the same era) but none of the Fury that I know of. Is it just because it wasn't made by Supermarine ?
The first step of the re-incarnation was to immerse the Sea Fury in Modelstrip hoping that, as well as the paint coming
off, it would cause the tube glue joints to fall apart, especially as I made models 'wheels up' in my early days as a
modeller. I ended up with the wings and fuselage as separate, but complete, assemblies although a little persuasion soon
removed the undercarriage doors. Now, to surgery ! The front of the fuselage was removed immediately aft of the 'exhaust
ducting' (or whatever it is), which also coincides with the front of the u/c bay, and I measured up the Tempest VI nose,
also the one from the Heller Tempest, as well as looking hard at the two photos I had of the Sabre Fury. My immediate
reaction was that I could get a better joint due to the extra length in the Heller nose when remove immediately in front
of the windscreen. I also had no idea how to get the slim Tempest nose to match the tubby Sea Fury fuselage so turned to
the 'Scale Models' Sea Fury plans which showed the Frog kit to be a bit of a dog, and an overweight one at that !
To reduce the size of the problem I cut horizontally backwards just below the panel line at the top of the fuselage sides
to a point which lined up with the rear of the u/c bay and the front of the mounting for the cockpit floor. I then cut
down each side and through the wing root to remove a rectangle, leaving the central bar of the u/c bay (hopefully the
exact nature of the cuts can be seen from the photos). I then cemented together the two halves of the Heller nose, with the roof of
the radiator duct included for strength, but with a 3mm spacer at the windscreen end to widen it. Once this was dry I cut
off the chin radiator fairing. At the same time I removed the leading edge from each wing, back to the panel line for
the main spar, as far outboard as the cannons. I then made a fundamental error as I had assumed that the windscreen to
nose distance was the same for the Fury as for the Tempest (guess who didn't scale up the tiny drawings in his
references !) and I cemented the Tempest nose straight to the Sea Fury fuselage. Another help in solving the width
problem was to use a burr in the minidrill to remove a bit of the thickness from the fuselage sidewall below the cockpit
before splurging on loads of Green Stuff to fair the two together. While this was curing I went back to the wings and
installed a piece of plastic card as a main spar into one of them, leaving sufficient length to serve the purpose for
the other wing as well, stretching from the outer edge of the u'c bay to help enclose that at the same time as aligning
the two wings. To complete the preparation of the wings I superglued the LF Models radiators to the leading edges and
filled all evidence of wing folds. After much puzzling about wing alignment I also removed the locating tabs and cut a
slot into the wing root, backwards from the rear of the u/c bay. This was matched by one cut into the fuselage, and a
length of plastic card was fitted to serve as an alignment tab and rear spar. I also boxed in the rear edges of the u/c
wells in the wings with scrap.
Trial fitting then followed which showed up my error with the fuselage length and brute
force had to be employed to remove the Heller nose, followed by careful realignment and gluing some 8mm or so futher
forward (I was still working by eye). Plastic card was then used to fill the gaps in the fuselage sides and to roof and
enclose the u/c bay. Additional filler was then used to make good the gaps created by the lengthening.
A point not to be missed is the reshaping of the lower rear fuselage and rudder to remove the arrestor hook after which
I was able to fit the wings and start work on the lower nose. How to get the slightly 'heavy' but streamlined look had
been a puzzle since the project began - I had some ideas involving a Phantom centreline drop tank - but in the end turned
out to be fairly obvious in that I cut the Heller nose below the exhausts and the LF nose at an angle below the exhausts
so that it fitted closely to the radiators at the rear but left enough spare at the front for the 'chin' carburettor
intake, which I hollowed out with a burr in my minidrill. A smidgen of filler to create a slightly bumped centre section
between the radiators and that was it.
For the minor details I used the Heller canopy & wheels, Matchbox Tempest II spinner, spare Academy 4-blade Typhoon
propeller, Frog u/c legs and doors (found in the spares box after 30 years !)
except the curved mainwheel door was replaced from card as it is a feature
of the inaccuracy of the kit. Colours were standard late war Ocean Grey, Dark Green and Medium Sea Grey with Black
propeller and spinner and silver u/c bays and legs. Decals, apart from the prototype 'P', were all from Modeldecal 50in
Type C roundels on the upperwing, 32in Type C underwing and 36in Type C1 on the fuselage. Fin flashes were 27x24 Type C
and serials were the standard
8in. The yellow 'P' in a circle to denote Prototype came from the new Joe's Decals sheet and were not a complete
success as the yellow is claimed to be 'scaled down' so it looks pale alongside a Type C1 roundel and the top half of
one 'P' lifted when I was spraying on the matt varnish - I put a on generous quantity of varnish then sprayed in the
other direction to blow it flat onto the varnish and hoped, which seems to have worked.
At the end of this I have a reasonable model, which I hope is unique, created from a kit that had been abandoned many
years ago. The lesson is - never give up, never throw it away, just wait for inspiration.
By Ross Marven (from SIG newsletter 1/00)