Bowman Kit's Hurricane

[Mike Watters]

I recently aquired a Bowman kit's Hurricane, saved by a relative from going in the bin during a house clearance. 

 

I remember Bowman kit's adverts in the 1980's RCM&E, but none showed the Hurricane. 

 

50" span with light foam / veneered wings. Moulded glass fibre fuselage is chopped matt which is a little on the heavy side. 

Recommended power is a 'hot' 25 or 40 with retracts. 

 

Has anyone had one of these Hurricane's back in the day, or know if there was a kit review in any old magazines. There's nothing relating to this model on the Internet. 

 

Thanks Mike. 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Mike Watters
Pictures added

[Robin Colbourne]

Mike, given for how long Bowman's kits were produced, there are surprisingly few mentions of them in the journalistic content of modelling press.  Maybe they relied on their undoubtledly good value for sales, rather than providing numerous review kits?
There were a number of glass fibre moulds and what appeared to be a glass fibre Hurricane fuselage on ebay recently, from somewhere in or near East Anglia.  I did wonder at the time if they were Bowman's related.

 

[leccyflyer]

That's interesting.  I bought what I thought was a Bowman's models Hurricane in a job lot of models and bits - 50" span, veneered foam wing, but it had a built up, balsa and ply fuselage as opposed to that rather nice looking fibreglass one. I gave it to a clubmate years ago as I preferred the Pilot Hurricane and I didn't think that Hurricane would be a good candidate for electrification.. 

[RottenRow]

Mike,

 

The Bowman's Hurricane was previously available with a built-up fuselage, probably with veneered foam deckings. I have one of those kits, unstarted, somewhere, dating back to the early 1980s. I think the fibreglass fuselage version came out later, it may have been sold alongside the built-up version I can't remember now.

 

I don't recall ever seeing a review of the Hurricane. It did feature in their magazine adverts though, that would be how I bought mine. Here is one from RCM&E February 82.

 

 

Another of their models was a large Magister, 85" wingspan. Most of the rest were trainers, gliders or sports models. They were much like Galaxy models; in fact the similarity of some of the two companies' kits resulted in legal action that Galaxy lost, specifically their Skyman trainers and the Galaxy Escort.

 

Brian.

[Mike Watters]

Thanks for your replys.

Interesting to hear it was also available as a balsa fuselage version. 

A closer look at the bottom of the plan is dated 83. 

 

Nice to finally see the old advert for the kit.  

[RottenRow]

Mike,

 

I found this later advert in the Spring 1986 edition of Radio Control Scale Aircraft. This is for the glassfibre version that you have.

 

 

By this time Bowman's had moved (they were still in Ipswich). The advert was much smaller, perhaps because it was in a specialist scale magazine so they didn't include the trainers, sports models or gliders. The price of the Hurricane kit had almost doubled in 4 years... that can't all be due to g/f fuselage.

 

Do you intend to build yours? I'm glad that you diverted it from it's final flight into a skip!

 

Brian.

[leccyflyer]

Here's the balsa version Mike - the one on the right, next to the Pilot Hurricane.

[Mike Watters]

Thanks again for both of your replys.

 

There is a fading price sticker on the box for £42.95 indeed quite a mark up from the balsa kit version. 

 

Interestingly the Bowman address looks to have moved for a third time to Devon. 

 

At some point I'd like to build the kit. It would make a nice semi scale fun flyer. Cheers Mike 

 

[Roy Thompson]

Hi gents,

 

As some of you may know I’ve really got into building the old Bowman kits of late, the fleet contains 5 examples currently. Well I’ve just acquired one more from a lady’s late stepdad estate. It’s a built-up fuselage version Hurricane un-started and in it’s original box. I’ve had a good look through it, and its all looks very nine and still in very good condition, plus there’s are some of the additional bit’s in the box.

 

One thing I have notice is the joining method of the foam wing panels and the aileron linkages are different between the this and the glassfibre kit. I assume these were little upgrades over time. Can anyone out there who built one of these back in the day, remember if there were issues with the wing panels coming apart?

 

The plan for this kit when space on the building board allows is to, convert it to electric and add a set of retracts and steerable tail wheel. The instruction show details for the Mk IID and having a look at some images of the Mk IID on line I think I’ll go with it.