1/48 Tamiya F4U-1A Corsair (Finished).....
Hello all, I suppose every aviation modeler has that one plane they just don't asthetically like for one reason or another. To me, thats the Vought F4U Corsair, which to me has to be the ugliest fighter to ever grace the skies. The birdcage version especially.....yuck! That said, the "whistling death" design worked and it was a nasty surprise for the Japanese, who had no real answer for it. This turkey, along with the Hellcat, essentially made the Zero aerial scrap metal. So why do I want to build one? Well....I have a particular fondness for its most famous driver....Gregory "Pappy" Boyington. When I read about his exploits, he reminds me of one of my old bosses who liked to come back from lunch hour drunk calling everyone names, but we all liked him. Anyways, my inspiration is this picture below, Boyington laying out the mission for the day.
So here goes my homage to VF-214, the "Black Sheep". I will attempt to loosely recreate this with the Tamiya Navy Pilot set, but obviously I'll throw Pappy's "915" Corsair in the background, which was his last mount before being shot down, by means of the Tamiya kit........hey! a diorama!.
Off we go. I started with the cockpit which is beautful straight from the box. No need for resin here. I followed the article "Corsair 101" on the Modeling Madness website regarding Corsair cockpit colors (they're certainly more knowledgeable than me). Its a mixed bag of Gunze Interior Green and Tamiya XF-3 Yellow Green for the Zinc Chromate areas. I used the decal with Micro Sol for Instrument bezels and added 5 minute expoxy for glass. The decal apparently shifted a little during application but its not too bad. I'm usually fairly good at getting them where they need to be. It looks ok but I should have found an Eduard zoom IP. I added Eduard seatbelts too.
The assembly fit like a glove into the fuselage.
I buttoned up the fuselage and glued the wing root assembly together. I used a silver Sharpie to check the seams and all look good. I like the way the wings tuck into the fuselage which ellimated any gap problems. No issues so far. This kit is supposed to be awesome and I have no reason to think otherwise yet. Here's where I left off before I ran out of time (this is only two consecutive nights of work). I'll be riggin' that ole Pratt and Whitney in no time....
I'm already starting to "un-hate" the Corsair a bit....
Joe