1/72 Toronto Hawk Biplane

[Brian da Basher]

In the summer of 1925 the Commonwealth Air Forces of Britain, Australia and Canada went on a goodwill tour of tour of Europe and the United States. Great crowds thrilled to the aerial finess of some of the world's best pilots, but when the Canadian contingent returned home, the leaders of the Canadian government were dismayed to discover their airmen were universally confused with those from Great Britain. It was due to this that Ottawa decided in 1927 to replace the standard Commonwealth roundel with something more uniquely Canadian and the Royal Canadian Air Force's maple leaf roundel was born. The RCAF enjoyed a resurgence of popularity with the new markings, and many young men who would later become leaders of the force were inspired to enlist.

    Fast-forward to 1930. The RCAF was still primarily equipped with obsolescent license-built designs of British origin. The need was great not only for a new fighter but one suited for the harsher conditions of the Great White North. A design competition was announced and the winner was a design submitted by the Canadian Car & Foundry Co. The prototype aircraft was known as the CF-1 and the experience Canadian Car & Foundry gained in building many license built types was used to great effect. Little known was the part an exotic dancer named Monique and a case of Candian Club had played in the design. For in late 1929 representatives of the Curtiss Aircraft Co. were on a business trip to Detroit to find a manufacturer for their new engine destined for the latest generation of Hawk fighters. The boys from Curtiss decided to take a side-trip to the well known clubs across the river in Windsor, Ontario and the agents of Canada's intelligence service were waiting. After subtley steeering the Curtiss crew to a club called Chez l'Chat, they paid a dancer named Monique to distract them long enough to wrest copies of the plans for the new engine from them and the Alberta V-12 was born. This was mated to an all metal streamlined biplane and the CF-1 was born. The aircraft demonstrated a top speed of 285 m.ph. and was heavily armed with no less than ten .50 Browning machine guns and two .37 m.m. wing-root cannons. The icing on the cake was the streamlined spats which would be the envy of airmen the world over.

    The new fighter was called the Toronto Hawk although RCAF armorers simply referred to it with the 12-gun weaponry as "job security". The example shown here flew with 434 Squadron and showed off its punch to good effect at the 1934 Paris airshow, completely obliterating all targets in an amazing air-to-ground gunnery demonstration. Export orders soon followed and today Toronto Hawk #342 is on display at the Windsor Museum of Aeronautics.

1st of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[cthulhu77]

Beyond love...that is the greatest!    What a great build!  "streamlined spats which would be the envy of airmen the world over. "

  INDEED !

[Mossie]

Gull winged gorgeousness!  Love it Bri!

[Brian da Basher]

The base kit for this project was the 1/72 Academy P-40B "Flying Tigers". While I'm told Academy offerings can often be hit-or-miss, I think this is one little gem of a kit. There are just the right amount of parts and the simple construction makes it ripe for whiffery! My only problem was trying to decide how to whiff this lovely kit. I'd been thinking about bulding one as a biplane for a while and Eddie's P-40 biplane experiments really had my imagination going. But adjusting that wing root area to accomodate a lower biplane wing seemed like soooo much work...

2nd of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

As fortune would have it, Leigh was kind enough to include 3/4 of a PZL P.11 in the generous box of spares he sent me. Since it was missing half its fuselage, I figured the wings were fair game. With a little work to extend the ailerons using sheet styrene (thanks, Baz!), they seemed to match the P-40 wings nicely. I was reminded of the gull-winged fighters of the 1930's and knew I was on to something. I decided to recycle the PZL's struts as that gap between the wings told me to. I also added an extra gun to each of the upper wings to balance things out. Then I filched the spatted gear from an ancient Hasegawa Ki-15. I filled in the wheel wells with more sheet styrene (thanks again, Baz!) but the left over landing gear bulges needed explaining so I made some wing-root cannons out of spare parts. Here's a shot that really shows off the gull-wing look.

3rd of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Daryl J.]

Oh this is good!      

It even fits right in with the R3C-2.

Well done, BdB, well done!


Daryl J.

[Brian da Basher]

I procrastinated for over a week trying to figure out a paint scheme and markings. I wanted to do a yellow upper wing with maple-leafs but couldn't find any examples of RCAF front-line aircraft with yellow wings in the 1930s. I decided on a variation on the all-silver RAF schemes (silver really shows off the flaws) and went with an overall gray scheme. Of course, I realized maple leaf roundels weren't invented until after W.W. II but that can be covered in the backstory. The entire model was brush-painted by hand using acrylics, including the red "dart" on the nose. Testor's Light Gull Gray was used overall and the (invisible) cockpit interior was painted with ModelMasters RAF Sky. Tamiya Gunmetal was used on (what else?) the guns and ModelMasters Steel was used on the prop and exhaust. The "dart" on the nose was PollyScale Red and the tires were painted in Mars Black Artists' Acrylics.

4th of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

As I stated previously, it took me a while to decide on the markings. I was tempted to make this Russian with nice red stars, but didn't have 8 in the same style. I kept going back to a wonderful sheet of RCAF markings for a Canadair Sabre I purchased from CanMilAir. I noticed the Canadian red ensign would just fit on the rudder and then I noticed the 434 Squadron markings would fit the front of the tail perfectly if trimmed at the right angle. The only adjustment I made was cobbling together two extra roundels from spares and widening the outer blue ring with more spare decals. I can reccomend the CanMilAir decals heartily. I had my difficult moments with them, but I attribute those to my own clumsiness and lack of Micro-Sol called for in the instructions.

5th of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

I had a blast with this build and it feels great to have finally emerged from my modelling malaise. This is the first project I've done in over two months and while far from perfect, I'm pretty happy with it! On a side note, I had a very difficult time finding another 1/72 Academy p-40. I had exactly one in my stash, but it was promised to Rafa so he could play along too. As fate would have it, the very day I mailed my only P-40 off to him, another one appeared like magic on the shelf of the hobby shop. Talk about coincidence!

Last of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

Wow thanks for the very kind comments, gents! I'm really chuffed you enjoyed this fun project. I'm also really pleased to see so much interest in this group build!

Brian da Basher

[The Rat]

I was born and raised in Toronto Brian, and you've brought a tear of joy to my eye. FANTASTIC! From wingtip to wingtip, spinner to rudder, and spatted gear to top-wing she's every inch a beauty!

After subtley steering the Curtis crew to a club called Chez l'Chat, they paid a dancer named Monique ...

Don't know that place, but there used to be a Monique at Studio 4. Well, a friend told me anyway...  

[Chap]

...From wingtip to wingtip, spinner to rudder, and spatted gear to top-wing she's every inch a beauty!...

Couldn't have put it better myself! Beautiful work yet again sir!

~Steve

[John Howling Mouse]

"He shoots----he SCORRRRRRRRRRRRES!!!!!"

Absolutely fantastic, from the backstory, model concept, and final execution.

What a superb addition to your growing collection.

[K5054NZ]

*applauds, for no words he can muster can suffice"

[ysi_maniac]

This is beautiful, plausible, imaginative... I am in love