Tamiya 1/48 F4U-1

[Mike Swan]

Here's another commission project underway. I've installed Ultracast's resin raised flaps as the Tamiya kit only provides dropped flaps which isn't a normal configuration for parked Corsairs.

Ultracast is a Canadian company and offers excellent aircraft, armour and figure accessories and enhancements.

Mike

[NZMark]

One of my favourite aircraft. Look forward to any up-dates, Mike
Mark
NZ

[Mike Swan]

Thanks, Mark. I'm pretty close to painting stage.

Regards, Mike

[Mike Swan]

A bit of progress between painting an exterior wall of our house. The aircraft was much more fun.

Mike

[Quatsch]

Sweet, lots of detail on your model. I worked with a man who flew f4us off the Bennington at the end of WW2, a great guy. He let me read his "yearbook" from the carrier, wich had pics and detailed their various missions, looked like a highschool yearbook but about war. He loved the f4u but loved the jets even more, he trained US pilots after the war in the Air National Guard till the 60s or 70s. I asked what he thought about going from prop jobs to jets and he said there are a few glaring differences, one is the lack of vibration in jets that all prop jobs have, the jets are much quieter to the seated pilot, and the sheer power immediately available with a push of the throttle.

[Mike Swan]

That would have been an interesting discussion with the veteran. Tamiya's later kit of the F4U-1D includes decals for a Bennington aircraft.

Also, by great coincidence yesterday, I saw my first Corsair flying at a local air show. Not a WW2 machine but an F4U-5. It was still a wonderful sight and sound.

Mike

[Quatsch]

Oh now I'm going to have to build a Tamiya F4u!


I met another guy who was a maint officer on F4us, depot level. He said if you blipped the throttle of one of them in wheel chocks it could flip the entire plane right then and there. He said he watched in wonder as some numbskull did exactly that, tipping it up on one wing right on the hardstand before he killed it. I asked my friend who flew off the Bennington if that was so, and he said not only that, but that huge engine and huge 4 bladed prop would flip it at low speed in the air. That was like their greatest danger in takeoff/landing, too fast an application of power. Wave offs would have been a scary thing.

I remember another deal he told me about. It was mostly dark by the time he had got back to the Bennington and his transmitter wasn't working but his receiver was. He was the last plane back. The receiver was a regen type and he knew he could send morse with it by tapping the code with the antenna wire connector on the receiver. If he didn't id himself before he came in on the blacked out Bennington he knew they'd blow him out of the sky, this was the time when the greatest dangers to US ships was the kamikaze. He landed safely and even told me what the calls letters were, but I can't remember half the stuff he told me.

I was spolied to live near Offut, wich has an outstanding open house every year, they get everything from b2s to biplanes. I got to see just about all my faves, got to sit in a Mustang, touch just about every other make and model predominant in ww2. The thing that I noticed was that the ww2 bombers aren't near as big as you'd think they'd be, they were made with just enough space for the guys, guns, bombs, and gas to do the job.

[Mike Swan]

Completed today as an aircraft of VMF-213, based on Guadalcanal, mid-1943.

Mike

[Lou58]

Nice one Mike, the colour and weathering look great.

Lou

[Panzer Meyer]

Beautiful work.

[msteve21]

Great

Outstanding work Mike

[Luis22]

awesome!

[Mike Swan]

Many thanks for the kind comments. It's difficult to mess up a Tamiya kit.

Mike

[mario1]