A couple of years ago I was approached by a friend who mentioned that he had pitched my name to a guy interested in having a 1:24 Hurricane built up. 1:24? "Good lord" I thought. "Didn't my friend remember that I'm a 1:48 guy?" What did people do with 1:24 scale models? I imagined my cat sitting in the cockpit. My friend put me in contact with Jim, a Continental Airlines pilot. He explained that he had recently acquired the skeletal remains of Hawker Hurricane shot down in May of 1940 just off the coast of Dunkirk and was wondering if I could recreate the aircraft in a model. Jim had done quite a bit of research on the aircraft and even made a trip to England to speak with surviving family members and friends of the pilot, an early Battle of Britain ace, RHA 'Dickey' Lee. Richard Hugh Anthony Lee was born in London in 1917 and was educated at the famous Charterhouse School. He joined RAF Cranwell as a Flight Cadet in September 1935, graduating in July 1937. He survived the shoot down in P3311, only to be killed a short time later in another Hurricane while chasing several Bf'109s out to sea off the coast of England, northeast of Marston. Lee, who was only twenty-three at the time of his death, was one the leading scorers for No.56 squadron.
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