1/72 Wildcat

[Steven]

Hi all,

I want to do a couple of quick builds and am thinking of the Hobby Boss and Academy Wildcats.

I know they are not great kits but they will just be experiments in painting and decaling.

So my question is this I have a few AM decal sheets featuring FAA Martlets and was wondering which mark of Wildcat are these two kits are suitable for..

Thanks in advance Steven

Edited January 22, 2014 by Steven

[Don McIntyre]

I built the Academy kit way back when it first came out, and remember liking it very much. As your using it as a test platform, I'd suggest whichever is cheaper.

[Bruce Archer]

Hi all,

I want to do a couple of quick builds and am thinking of the Hobby Boss and Academy Wildcats.

I know they are not great kits but they will just be experiments in painting and decaling.

So my question is this I have a few AM decal sheets featuring FAA Martlets and was wondering which marks these two kits are suitable for..

Thanks in advance Steven

Hi!

The Hasegawa, Hobby Boss, and Academy kits all are F4F-4 Wildcats. There is no direct FAA version of the F4F-4. The closest are the Wildcat V ( aFM-1) which only has two guns per wing. Remove the outer guns and you have a Wildcat V.

If you remove the carb scoop, the intercooler scoops and the Mags from the engine, you have an AJxxx series Martlet II. Add the above wing Pitot you would then have an AMxxx series Martlet II. Both the AJ and AM serialed Martlet IIs have one cowl flap per side.

Remove the outer gun, and fill in the folding wing panel lines, add a straight pitot and you have an AMxxx serialed Martlet III (AM954 to AM963). If you remove the intercooler scoops, and use one cowl flap per side you have the ex-Greek F4F-4A Martlet III.

That is about it as the remainder of the Martlet/Wildcat series had Cyclone engines.

Go to www. clubhyper.com/reference/wildcatfaaba_1.htm for more information. And if you have any other questions e-mail me at:

bad at cfl dot rr dot com

Bruce

Edited January 22, 2014 by Bruce Archer

[Steven]

Thanks Bruce thats very helpful.

[MDriskill]

With all due respect to my fellow Tennessean Don, the Academy kit is not very accurate at all, having a particularly bad case of excessive corpulence aft of the wing! The Hasegawa kit is the current pick of the 1/72 litter, but the Hobby Boss is really quite nice for the money. (Don: you can reply to my insolence in person at Knoxville's IPMS show on March 8, hope to see you there!)

 

The Hasegawa kit has its minor issues--canopy area a little narrow, top aileron chord a little too wide--but IMHO superbly captures the machine's overall shape far better than any other 1/72 kit, or most larger-scale F4F's for that matter.

 

Note that Hasegawa did release the kit as a Martlet II, which has this version's unique cowl correctly done. And also as an FM-1, and this same plastic as a Martlet V, which has the top wing gun access paneling done for you at least. The underwing ammo access doors are wrong though (a common fault with just about every kit and drawing of the folding-wing variants ever done. It's a misinterpretation of factory manual diagrams of ammo box locations as individual small access panels, when in fact the two inboard guns were covered by a single large removable panel).

 

Here is a fascinating link, two superb builds of the Hasegawa kit by master modeler Jumpei Temma, conversions to the FM-1 (Martlet VI), and F4F-3 (mostly a Martlet III per Mr. Archer's wonderful article). To my eye at least, his own drawings accompanying the photos are the most accurate of the Wildcat existing, and don't miss the superb profiles of all six Martlet marks on the last page.

http://www.geocities.jp/yoyuso/fm2/fm2.html

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by MDriskill

[Greenshirt]

I'd love to see his work translated into English. To some degree I can follow it; it is modelling; but his descriptions would be priceless.

Tim

[BD1944]

Ref. MDriskill's post, and the underwing gun/ammo panels on folding Wildcats: I've been banging on about this for nigh on 20 years, but nobody producing kits or drawings (except Jumpei Temma, qv) has taken this up.

See the following for proof: http://war-tundra.livejournal.com/1680737.html

pics 10 & 20: or Google "Wildcat, Barrier crash, Copahee, April 1943" & choose "Images" - pic 10  is the first shot. There's also a retreating Martlet VI on p. 51 of  Brown's "Wings of the Navy" which shows the Mk. V/VI lengthened version. There's a clear shot under a red-outline FM-1, at (among other places) https://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=944

(second pic. down.) Plus D&S 30, p.43 top R, (pic ref. 8522) which doesn't show the cover, but makes it clear that there's nothing between the two ammo boxes to fasten a cover plate edge to. I think JT (see http://www.geocities.jp/yoyuso/fm2/fm2e-1.html

for the English version) has over-chamfered the cover plate corners a bit, but apart from that the lad's a genius.

 

[tempestfan]

1 hour ago, BD1944 said:

Plus D&S 30, p.43 top R, (pic ref. 8522) which doesn't show the cover, but makes it clear that there's nothing between the two ammo boxes to fasten a cover plate edge to. I think JT (see http://www.geocities.jp/yoyuso/fm2/fm2e-1.html

for the English version) has over-chamfered the cover plate corners a bit, but apart from that the lad's a genius.

 

Is it a rearming Scene Close up? If it's what I have in mind, it's (also) the clearest Close up of the -4 style Blister in front of the outer case ejector Slots.

[Seahawk]

On 23/01/2014 at 11:30 AM, MDriskill said:

With all due respect to my fellow Tennessean Don, the Academy kit is not very accurate at all, having a particularly bad case of excessive corpulence aft of the wing! The Hasegawa kit is the current pick of the 1/72 litter, but the Hobby Boss is really quite nice for the money. (Don: you can reply to my insolence in person at Knoxville's IPMS show on March 8, hope to see you there!)

The Hasegawa kit has its minor issues--canopy area a little narrow, top aileron chord a little too wide--but IMHO superbly captures the machine's overall shape far better than any other 1/72 kit, or most larger-scale F4F's for that matter.

 

 

That puts it in a nutshell.  There is one, possibly two, threads on BM started at about the time the new Airfix F4F-4 came out, which eventually concluded that the Airfix kit was a little too corpulent and the Hasegawa a little too emaciated, both with about the same deviation from what it should have been.  However the Airfix kit gets the relationship between the fuselage and the spine wrong, and the cross section of the spine wrong, even before we turn to that awful canopy which tapers in profile where it should not.  I can live with the errors in the Hasegawa kit now that they have been pointed out to me but the Airfix Martlet/Wildcat just "does NOT look like a Martlet/Wildcat to me".  Which is an enormous pity because it has an optional wingfold and lots of interior detail, esp in the wheelbay, which ought to have knocked all the opposition into a cocked hat.  So sad they got the basic shape of the airframe wrong.

 

Have only ever had a quick glance at a Hobbyboss Wildcat but seem to recall a lot of the detail eg of the undercarriage was rather simplified and little advance over the standard of the old Frog/Academy kit.

 

Thought the old Academy Wildcat had been consigned to the dustbin of history: it's waay too corpulent.

 

PS If you can find the Hasegawa Wildcat/Martlet, it will be immeasurably improved by the reasonably priced True Details interor set which brings the detail in the cockpit and wheel bays almost up to Airfix standard.

 

 

 

   

[Gwart]

Basic details aside the Hobbyboss Wildcat f4f-4 (1/72) has a pretty decent shape with probably the best canopy of all the 1/72 kits.

[sroubos]

Personally I think the main issue with the Academy kit is the curved line of the canopy which should be straight, it is a really glaring deficiency.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2017 by sroubos

[MDriskill]

On ‎6‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 8:42 AM, BD1944 said:

Ref. MDriskill's post, and the underwing gun/ammo panels on folding Wildcats: I've been banging on about this for nigh on 20 years, but nobody producing kits or drawings (except Jumpei Temma, qv) has taken this up.

See the following for proof: http://war-tundra.livejournal.com/1680737.html

pics 10 & 20: or Google "Wildcat, Barrier crash, Copahee, April 1943" & choose "Images" - pic 10  is the first shot. There's also a retreating Martlet VI on p. 51 of  Brown's "Wings of the Navy" which shows the Mk. V/VI lengthened version. There's a clear shot under a red-outline FM-1, at (among other places) https://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=944

(second pic. down.) Plus D&S 30, p.43 top R, (pic ref. 8522) which doesn't show the cover, but makes it clear that there's nothing between the two ammo boxes to fasten a cover plate edge to. I think JT (see http://www.geocities.jp/yoyuso/fm2/fm2e-1.html

for the English version) has over-chamfered the cover plate corners a bit, but apart from that the lad's a genius.

 

 

Sounds like we spent the day with the same under-wing gunaccess panel bonnet bee on the loose...

 

The following images all come from the superb Central Repository for Aircraft Photography site (which link I believe I first discovered here on Britmodeller): https://www.flickr.com/photos/133697406@N05/albums

 

First, a well-known shot of an F4F-3's undersides. Nice and slick under the wing, not an access door or blister in sight. The gun adjustment trunnions are accessed through little holes behind the ejection slots:

 

 

 

Next, an F4F-4 (same basic 6-gun folding wing as Martlet II and IV). The single ammo bin access panel for the inboard pair of guns is evident, as is the "tempestfan blister" in front of the outer gun's shell slot. The blisters under the adjustment trunnions were necessitated by the main spar's being farther to the rear in the folding wing; i.e., the gun breeches, located aft of the spar, are no longer in the thickest part of the airfoil:

 

 

 

An FM-1 (aka Martlet V), same famous pic you already found. The later 4-gun folding wing deletes the outer guns, with longer access panels for the inner guns' ammo boxes:

 

 

 

Finally an FM-2 (Martlet/Wildcat VI). Wing details identical to the FM-1 as far as I can tell:

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by MDriskill

[Giorgio N]

Knowing very little of the Wildcat, I'm glad to hear that the Hobbyboss easy kit at least has a decent shape... as I acquired not one but 3 of these little kits for a fiver euro each at least I know that they'll look the part

[Mike Esposito]

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but how easy would it be to backdate the Airfix f4f-4 to an F4F-3?

 

Thanks

[Graham Boak]

Original post deleted because of my confusion with Martlet Mk.IV, which was a revised version of the original Airfix tooling.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Graham Boak

[Greenshirt]

1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

Pretty difficult.  It would be much easier to start with the Airfix F4F-3 in the first place.

??

 

I wasn't aware Airfix released a -3. 

 

To backdate the Airfix -4 (presuming you mean the recent new tooling) you could get close by filling in all the panel lines on the wings including the wing fold lines. Remove any hint of the guns and then re scribe the panels, adding the guns in a slightly more inner location. Depending upon which -3 you'd prefer, you will have to modify the cowling as well. All too much for my skills. 

 

If if you don't mind using resin, you can try the Quickboost -3 wings or the Arma Hobby -3 wings, both are meant as replacements for the Hasegawa kit wings and fit very well. Quickboost has some errors in the panels, Arma's is much nicer. Cowling mods are still required, but are quite easy. Quickboost do provide a replacement -3 cowl which is nice, but again for the Hasegawa kit. I used the Quickboost items to convert a Hasegawa -4 to a Martlet III and am quite happy with the results. 

[MDriskill]

On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 10:47 AM, Mike Esposito said:

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but how easy would it be to backdate the Airfix f4f-4 to an F4F-3?

 

Thanks

 

Here's a later version of the link referenced early in the thread, and in English. Be sure to scroll all the way to the end! It starts with a conversion of F4F-4 to FM-2; then follows with conversion of F4F-4 to F4F-3.

 

There are full drawings of these three variants, and lovely profiles of each Martlet variant to boot:

 

http://www.geocities.jp/yoyuso/fm2/fm2e-1.html

Edited June 17, 2017 by MDriskill

[Mike Esposito]

Thanks guys!