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Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat BuNo 5093, Lt. Cdr. John S. Thatch, Officer Commanding VF-3, USS Yorktown, Midway, 1942-06-04 Kit: 1/72 Hasegawa F4F-4 Wildcat Afermarket parts: True Details #72455 resin cockpit and wheel well detail set Squadron #9105 vacu canopy Decals: Aeromaster #72-093C F4F-4 Wildcat Aces Pt.1 The following improvements made to this kit were: Inner surfaces of wing halves and rear fuselage halves (rudder) were thinned down to obtain sharp trailing edges. Some panel lines were filled and some added according to reference photos. In addition, the overlapping panels (for example, on the rudder) were represented using thin metal foil. The cockpit was replaced by the True Details resin parts. The canopy was replaced by the Squadron vacu formed item. Since the Squadron canopy is designed to fit the Academy kit, some adjustment work was required for mounting it on the model. The canopy replacement forced widening the fairing above the control panel in the cockpit, which have originally had rather wide margins for placing the thicker kit canopy. This fairing was also thinned down for correct scale representation. The most serious flaw with this kit is just an empty space where the landing gear bay should be. This problem is partially solved by inserting the True Details tub, however some extra work was still required. For instance, the recesses to accommodate the main wheel are just repeated in full size on the resin tub and, since it is designed to fit the kit fuselage having rather thick plastic, these recesses turned out to be much deeper than they should be. Some filling and re-scribing was required to fix this problem. Some additional detail was also added to the rear bulkhead and to the engine compartment interior partially visible in front of the wheel bay. In addition, the fuselage walls around the front of the wheel bay were partially thinned down for the correct skin representation. The air intakes in the forward engine cowling ring were deepened and thinned down to scale. Some detail was added to the rather basic kit parts for the reasonable representation of the Wildcat’s complicated landing gear. The aileron, elevator and rudder hinges molded as solid pieces were improved by cutting out their inner areas. The missing central elements were also added to the fairings covering the hinges of the landing flaps. Too shallow kit exhaust stacks were replaced by scratch built parts and the fuselage panel around them was also somewhat refined by making extra steps, holes etc. A new rounded propeller hub and the visible part of the arrester hook were made from scratch. A larger pneumatic tail wheel provided with the kit was replaced by the solid smaller one which is correct for this particular a/c. The replacement wheel was the part left unused after building the F2A-2 kit as a Dutch Brewster Model 339C. Some further minor improvements made on the model can clearly be seen on the photos.