1/48 KIttyhawk F9F-8T Cougar

Tarn and Paul -  Good explanations, otherwise if the canopy were to be always closed, a second windscreen would make as much sense as taking sand to the beach.

Thanks guys.

Patrick

More information: Before the advent of the powerful steam catapult, Navy fighter and attack aircraft were designed with sliding canopies. The standard procedure was to launch (and often recover) with canopies open in case of emergency ditching. That way the pilot get out quickly before the ship/wake pulled the temporarily floating aircraft under. The first Navy single-seaters to feature clam-shell canopies (and hence, closed canopy launch/recovery) were the A4D Skyhawk and F4D Skyray (and everything since).

r13b20

Great Save!! Fine looking build. Maybe you can send K.H. a "nasty-gram" and get a descent reply? Bob

It might be helpful if everyone would drop Kitty Hawk a nice comment about our disappointment with their plastic. You have to use an email address to contact them: 

kittyhawkmodel@vip.sina.com

Patrick, this is a "useless piece of trivia from TarnShip",,,,,,,,but, even when at rest on the deck of a carrier, anytime there is a reason for a pilot/instructor to be sitting in the back seat of a naval aircraft, there is at least 40 mph of wind coming into a cockpit,,,,,,,more than that on days of with more than a 5 mph wind.

So, even if the back seater gets onboard the aircraft before the ship turns into the wind,,,,,eventually he will be sitting there with wind coming over the aircraft nose while the canopy is still open. (canopies close while sitting on the Cat or while waiting behind the JBD in the days before the super efficient air conditioning units)

Rex

D.R.- What a study in patience, but by sticking with it you turned a pig into a fine Arabian show horse. GREAT JOB you made of it. I know zip of this airplane, but I see two windscreens. Was this airplane intended to takeoff and land with the canopy open, in order for emergency exit purposes? If that is the case, that could explain the second wind screen. Just wondering.

Beautiful build, thanks for posting.

Patrick  

Very impressive model, especially given the fight it gave you. Thanks for posting the bad news and the good news - hope KH takes notice.

Mike

Great Save!! Fine looking build. Maybe you can send K.H. a "nasty-gram" and get a descent reply? Bob

Super nice build. It's amazing to see where this came from and where it landed. Truly amazing looking aircraft. Well done!!

I have overcome adversity and gotten this done. It's actually a nice feeling after the difficulties that were encountered during the build process. With that said, this isn't that bad of a kit. The plastic doesn't play well with Testor's liquid cement, but others are using Tamiya Extra Thin and say it's bonding just fine. The surface detail of the kit is very nice. On the next build I won't follow the instruction sequence. It's better to stop with the top fuselage pieces and work your way down. The cockpit is usable, but an aftermarket set would really improve it. The canopy fits like a glove, which was nice. The clear parts are also extremely well done. I think my second build will go much smoother now that I know what to look out for. Since there's no intake trunking to speak of, I made up a set of intake plugs which I'll release in the Steel Beach line. Lastly, the landing gear and wheels could stand some replacement. I'll be using the SAC gear to get the extended nose strut. That will make the "sit" of the model look a bit better.

Nice recovery, Darren!

wow, that sure "has the right look for a TwoGar" to me, and I mean that in the specific dimension sort of way

If this family model is any indication, they will have a winner for the shape with the single seater too

Just as long as you guys put the word out as to which glue to use, the kit will make a very good upgrade from the Resin kits of before. Maybe advise KH at the Nats to include a "suggested glue paper insert" into his Cougar kits, to eliminate that problem? (oh and take this one with you to show that "it can be done")

Side bet, there will be conversion sets for this one for -6 and -7 before 2015 Nats, Doesn't 1/48 still "need" an F6F-6P conversion set?

Rex

I couldn't help myself. I spent the morning decaling. NOW I'll get back to casting Steel Beach stuff. LOL

Paint is now on and decaling will commence shortly, although I have to work on a Steel Beach restock, so that's going to take up most of my time over the next couple of days. I'll try and squeeze in some decals between pours. Markings will be of the NAS El Centro base hack. They are simple yet different.

I might not do all of them, but there are a few I'd like to do. :-)

It's now primed and almost ready for paint. There are a couple of areas I want to touch up. I've got to decide what markings to put it in. The easy way would be to choose one of the decal sheet options. However, since this build has already challenged me, I'm thinking of going the extra little bit and painting the majority of the markings on. I'm leaning towards one of the training squadrons since I've obliterated some of the surface detail and a nice gloss finish will hide that somewhat.

are you going to build all the squadrons that operated the Fighter version?

It seems that you sort of hinted that you will be building a lot of those when they get released,,,,,it just reminded me of your Tomcat set.

Rex

ps, does this mean that 1/48 builders will be looking for a -6 in their scale too now?

That is gonna be a nice plane when done. You've definitely made the issues unknown to the observer at this point. Can't wait to see it done.

Through brute force and sheer will, I think I've pulled victory from the jaws of defeat. I switched over to CA glue and that seemed to hold I reconstructed the forward fuselage and reattached it to the bottom rear fuselage section. I glued in my support pieces and got ready to add the upper fuselage sections. I also added a support piece to the tail section. After adding the upper sections of wings, I went ahead and added tabs to help align the outer wing sections. Then I assembled all the subsections. With the support pieces in place, the fit wasn't horribly bad. It's now assembled and ready for primer. I still need to add the wing fences, but I've made a set of resin ones that I want to try out. This is by no means contest quality, but it gave me good experience for the next one I build. Yes, you read that right. I'm going to give this another go. I want to get proficient at building the basic Cougar kit so when the fighter variant comes out I'll be able to whip through it with no problems.

Bummer! I just bought the KH Jaguar Gr1, and thought the plastic looked "funny" when I pawed thru it. Now I know it's evil waiting to happen. Too bad, 'cause Ive been waiting a long time for a modern kit of the subject, like the rest of you I doubt I'll be wanting any more of Kittyhawks offerings.

Mike

Darren Roberts

Are you having any problems with the seams staying bonded? I agree whole-heartedly about the them making a beautiful kit only to cancel it out with difficult to work with plastic. Imagine these kits with Hasegawa or Tamiya style plastic.

I haven't had a problem yet using Tamiya Extra Fine but the plastic does react differently to it. I am concerned about attaching the nose. There are very few attachment points and they want me to weight it - I just don't trust it will hold the weight without falling off. I was hoping this would be a relaxing build. Kitty Hawk is making some very interesting kits, but based on my experiences so far, I doubt I'll buy another.

Are you having any problems with the seams staying bonded? I agree whole-heartedly about the them making a beautiful kit only to cancel it out with difficult to work with plastic. Imagine these kits with Hasegawa or Tamiya style plastic.

I'm building their 1:48 F-101 Voodoo right now and I have to say the plastic is really crappy. It's brittle, full of white stress and injector pin marks. Just removing the pieces from the sprue stresses the plastic. There are also a lot of fit issues so far. Kitty Hawk spent a lot of time in engineering a finely detailed aircraft only to negate all that work by using horrible plastic.  For the cost of the kit, it's really sad.

Darren Roberts

And this project is now a big, hot mess! Everything has now, literally, come unglued. Oh well, I'll press on and overcome.

Are you kidding me???!!! How in Hades did this happen? Yes, I know that you can recover from this by using alternate methods and glues, but really... for as much as they charge for a new tooled kit like this there is no excuse on their part. If thise is how their plastic is, I sure will not be buying ANY of their kits. And that is a true shame, as they have some long neglected subjects coming out....

yeah, Anne and I went looking at the "mileage circle" centered at Nashville,,,,,,it turns out that we can drive to St Louis in the Midwest faster than we can get to Little Rock in the south, from here.

I will bring all kinds of "boring goodies" along with me for you to look at. It does look like all the models I bring will be "off topic" Air Force stuff,,,,,but, that is just because of timing.

Ooh, you're going to be at the St. Louis show? I've been toying with the idea of going. Hanging out and talking NavAir with you makes it even more appealing.

if you are going to be at the St Louis show, I will bring you a kit for show and tell, that you can then "take and make",,,,,it is 1/72 but, it will help put things into perspective if you ever feel like a "kit will win" and beat you.

I have to show this kit to someone, because most people just don't believe me when I type about it,,,,and pics don't do it justice, lol.

Don't worry, it can be built US naval, lol.

Rex

Yup, the plastic is not melting and bonding. I've already switched over to CA and have put the cockpit/front fuselage back together. As bad as it looks, it will be okay. I made masters to reinforce some areas. I'm going to make molds tonight and cast them tomorrow. Once that's done, I can continue with assembling the fuselage. I haven't had a kit fight me like this in a long time. That's okay, though. You need a challenge every once in awhile.

"come unglued"?

do you mean that the plastic is not melting and bonding with plastic cement? sort of like happened with too much tube glue back in the old days?

I would try this kit with CA and Accelerator if that is the case,,,,and I mean the "fumes on a brush method" not baking soda

or if you really want it to bond as it is supposed to, maybe try high quality Lacquer Thinner or MEK, etc.

The only "styrene" I remember running into that wouldn't melt with hobby cement was from Eastern Express a long time ago,,,,,,and LT worked on that plastic.

Rex

And this project is now a big, hot mess! Everything has now, literally, come unglued. Oh well, I'll press on and overcome.

I'm sure you'll do fine.  Looks like you're off to a good start.

But the more I read about Kitty Hawk kits, and the more WIPs I see of Kitty Hawk kits the more I think I will just avoid KH if at all possible.