Ron Denning
Kansas City, Missouri
Ron had a lot to say about his scratchbuilt 1/18 scale F7F Tigercat: "The fuselage and nacelles are basic former-and-stringer construction with thin styrene-sheet covering. I tried to maintain the same seams in the fuselage that the real plane had. The wings are rib-and-spar construction, again covered with sheet styrene. The engines are scratchbuilt … gear wells are detailed with hydraulic cylinders, linkages, oil tanks, water-injection tanks, and air and oxygen bottles … The .50-caliber machine guns are detailed with blast tubes and ammo boxes which can be seen through the access doors below the cockpit and nose gear well. The cockpit has virtually every instrument and gadget that was in the real aircraft … The only things I did not detail were the wing cannons. I got tired after three years, and just wanted to finish it up. Although the ribs were fabricated to receive the cannons, I covered them up."