After the Battle of Britain, the Hurricane was the aircraft most sent overseas. The reason was that the calibre of the opposition in places like Somalia, the Western Desert, Malta and India wasn't exactly as high as what was being faced over Northern Europe. Also, the Hurricane was a rugged plane that could withstand the kind of punishment that the less civilized environs of those place offered. When sent to the desert, they were fitted with a rather ungainly air filter. They remained in service in those places well into 1943 until finally replaced by more modern equipment as it became available.

I had heard about Sweet and seen several of their Macchi 200s at various shows, but had not seen them before 'in the raw' so to speak. 1/144 is not a scale that I normally fit to WWII fighters. The only one of this type that I've recently built was the Eduard Bf-109F and while it was OK, it wasn't that great. If I can judge by the built Macchis I've seen and this kit, Sweet has upped the bar a notch or two.

Detailing is really super with engraved panel lines and properly muted canvas sections. There is no interior to speak of which isn't that much of a problem when working in Munchkin scale. Parts attachment points for some bits are rather large, but it shouldn't be a hindrance to construction. The kit is not the fabric winged version, but the metal winged, 8 gun one. If you want to make a non-filtered Hurricane you can as the 'regular' intake is also provided. You also have a choice of radio masts and props.

You may have noticed that one of the kits is in clear plastic. Most unusual, but if you look hard, you can see that the two sprues are identical. This means that on the opaque sprues, you have solid canopies and landing lights (look above and to the left of the wings)! I guess that is one way to do things!

Instructions are totally in Japanese as I guess that it wasn't intended for the 'furrin' markets. The cutesy animé characters on the box are further carried over into the instructions. There are lots of helpful hints and suggestions in there, but again, it is something I cannot read.

What is super is that there are no less than five different markings schemes. All of them are in a desert scheme of Dark Earth/MidStone  on the upper sides with most of them having an Azure underside.  Decals are by Cartograf so are of excellent quality and printing.

The aircraft with the Azure undersides are from 73 Sq, 274 Sq, 208 Sq, and the box art plane from 261 Sq. The lone different plane has a sky underside with one black wing. This is from 274 Sq 'in the barren desert hinterland, 1940'. The painting and decal placement instructions take up the entire other side of the instruction sheet and are in full color. All paints are given with an FS number, a very nice touch. In addition, the painting chart shows if the plane has the A or B camouflage. As you can imagine, no stencil data is provided!

I can't tell you how impressed I am by this little kit. I know that the company is coming out with several other aircraft types in the near future so if you are really into this scale, you need to keep your ears open for additional kits. I'm very much looking forward to building this one myself so you know it will be going on the 'to be built' pile.

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