This is the second of four Wildcat kits that I have completed today.
Outside of a couple of the "Easy Assembly" kits I built several years ago with my daughter, this is my first 48th scale Hobby Boss kit (if my recollection is correct). I do have several other Hobby Boss kits in my stash but this one is the first to actually build.
So what do I think?
Well, the kit is generally speaking very well engineered and goes together well. Notice that I said "generally speaking". That means that I found some issues with this kit that I did not like much at all. The least of these is the rivet detail. Grumman aircraft typically had a bunch of rivets that were not recessed, but the Hobby Boss kit recesses just about everything. Not exactly accurate but not a big deal at the end of the day.
Next, the wing joins are tiny stubs that don't seem sufficient to hold the wings to the fuselage. Once I got the wings attached and had let them sit overnight, I was decaling and one of the wings snapped right off. Perhaps not enough glue, but I could not seem to get enough glue (I use Tamiya liquid cement) to properly adhere. I ended up using CA to get that wing to stay put.
The biggest gripe I have about the kit is the 2-piece canopy/windscreen. If you want to close up the canopy, you will discover that the canopy does not sit anywhere near the same height as the windscreen, and there is nothing that I could do to mitigate that issue. I even took the old Monogram kit's canopy, which is a 1-piece affair, and cut the windscreen from that one to see if I could mix-and-match those parts. That didn't work. The canopy piece is also too thick to sit properly in the open position. So I opted for a Squadron canopy. Even that was problematic, as the Squadron windscreen did not sit properly in its attachment point. I finally decided to use the kit's windscreen with the Squadron canopy posed in the open position.
Paints are Vallejo acrylic US Navy blue gray and Model Master Acryl light gray over dark gray Stynylrez primer. Interior - cockpit is Humbrol bronze green while the wheel well is Model Master medium gray. Dirtied up with a good coating of Flory dark dirt wash, various Tamiya weathering compounds and a silver Prismacolor pencil.
The scheme represents an August 1942 Wildcat belonging to USN VF-6 aboard the USS Enterprise. This particular bird was -13 as piloted by Machinist Mate Donald E. Runyon (BuNo 5193) who during the Guadalcanal campaign in August 1942 scored 8 kills in this Wildcat.
On to the photographs.
The cockpit under construction. I used Eduard fabric adhesive belts for this build with the kit's seat.
The lower half of the forward fuselage. Having built the Tamiya kit once before and also right now, I can see why the Hobby Boss kit is as it is. The Tamiya kit has a similar underside but it includes the lower wing. If Hobby Boss copied that, they could get slapped with copyright infringement, I would think (although not certain how the law works in the countries that they HQ in). Even so, Hobby Boss includes some wheel well and engine detailing that is not in the Tamiya kit.
Fit of the lower half to the upper was problematic. One cannot simply attach the upper halves then put the lower half in place; you will end up with mis-alignments and gaps. I ended up attaching the lower half to one side of the upper, massaged everything into alignment while the glue set, then once that was done, did the same thing with the other upper half. Took a while and a good bit of patience to hold these parts while the glue set but I think the effort was worth it.
The engine is ok out of the box but it could use some ignition wiring. Which I completely overlooked until now. 
Flory dark dirt wash.
The landing gear apparatus. With the Wildcat, any kit manufacturer is likely to have issues with this thing. It is a fragile piece. The kit instructions are not crystal clear on how part of it goes together. I think that after about an hour studying my various references, I got it put together correctly. Then getting this part installed into the wheel well is an entirely new set of struggles. I had to conduct a small bit of surgery to the piece that mounts it between each side of the wheel well to get the part that covers it (the bulb on the underside that includes the catapult connector) to lay down properly.
The tires after some Flory.
Here are the various shots of the canopy and windscreen that show the problem I had with this. The first picture is the complete kit parts. The second picture displays how the kit canopy sits unacceptably upon the spine of the 'Cat. The third picture shows the Squadron canopy sitting properly in the open position. The fourth photo shows the Squadron canopy combined with the kit windscreen.
The canopy and windscreen painted and awaiting installation. Due to the flimsiness of the vacuform canopy, I hand-painted the frames. I did the exterior portions of the frame with a flat-tipped brush and a steady hand, and the internal portions of the frames with a sharpened toothpick and an even steadier hand. I'm not sure I was totally successful on it but to the naked eye it looks decent.
Finally, the drop tanks after a coat of Flory.
The final reveal.
Lot of photos but I know everyone likes to see a lot. I still have to finish the Tamiya and the 1/32nd Revell. Given that I have a trip to Aggieland in the morning to watch my Aggies defeat, er, take on the Tennessee Volunteers, I don't expect to get any bench time this weekend.
Regarding Hobby Boss, I think I did a good job with a kit that has a lot of great features but also had some real knuckle-headed problems. Off the top of my head, I know I have an A7 Corsair II, a F-105D Thunderchief, a Bv141 (German reconn oddity) and an F-80C in my stash. I hope those go together as well without having the issues that the Wildcat has (and I actually would like to add the Hobby Boss FM-2 Wildcat to my stash).