FAA "recce" Hellcats

[Fernando]

Esteemed readership,

Does someone have information about the many "recce" (I mean,the various TacR, PR, FR, etc.) Variants of the Hellcat I/II used by the British East India Fleet and Pacific Fleet? A schematic of the "various variants" and some ztechnical detail of the camera installations?

Any information will be most appreciated andin due time taken on board in a model (hopefully)

Fernando

[DaveCromie]

Hi Fernando

This is a project I have also been looking at and to that end I have managed to get a hold of the Kagero monograph (no 10) which has line drawings showing the position of both early and late camera mounts and a colour profile of a Hellcat FRII from 804 Sqn HMS Archer in TSS with unusually proportioned fuselage roundels. The January 2011 Model Airplane International has a profile of another FRII in overall "mid blue" from 888 Sqn which has the later style camera fairing on the starboard side - I could be wrong but I thought they were all mounted to port??

Not much help I know, but I will be keeping an eye on this thread to see if anyone can come up with the actual shape of the fairings as none of the drawings/photos I have found show how far out the stick up!

Cheers

DC

[Seahawk]

The later Hellcat II(PR) equated to the US F6F-5P, which had camera ports on both sides. If you look closely, the Hellcat at the FAAM is one such. The mount area is one of those times where a photo is worth a thousand words because drawings are difficult to interpret. From memory it's not so much a fairing as a plate to provide local strengthening around the port (say 5 thou in 1/72 scale) with an oil deflector in front of it.

Edit: and here is just such a picture:

http://museumplanes.com/plane.php?plane_ID=219&pic_nr=11

Geoff Thomas' Eyes For The Phoenix has as one of the appendices an interesting memo by the CO of 888 Sq (IIRC), listing the various types of Hellcat PR and FR camera mounts and even listing some serials. But it's a reproduction of a faint original and takes a bit of deciphering.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Seahawk

[DaveCromie]

Cheers Seahawk!

I will have a rake through "Eyes" later on as Fernando has piqued my interest in the TR/FR options as well. That photo is exaclty what I as looking for, and the suggested thickness of sheet sunds just abut right too!

DC

[ReccePhreak]

.

Edited December 13, 2015 by ReccePhreak

[MikeC]

In terms of models, OWL do a conversion set in the three main scales (1:32 still in the future though) - search for "Hellcat FR" on Hannants. There are also markings in 1:48 on this Xtradecal sheet https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/X48103

HTH

Edited October 6, 2015 by MikeC

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I'm a little late to this thread, but after looking at the photo in the link, I decided to look at the other photos of that plane. There is also the vertical camera port here:

http://museumplanes.com/plane.php?plane_ID=219&pic_nr=19

It's the first really clear photo I have found of a recce Hellcat's vertical camera port.

Larry

Someone - can't remember who, cos it was a couple of years ago - was modelling a Recce Hellcat on here & asked me to take some photos of the camera ports at the FAAMuseum (so the same airframe as the Museumplanes links). I am away on business at present, but if you like I'll dig them out at the weekend & put them up on here. Would that help? Or I could PM them.

[Seahawk]

'Twas I. Or, since I'm apparently not the only person interested, you could maybe talk to Julien about setting up a mini-walkround?

[DCRanger]

A couple of photo's from Eyes Of The Phoenix which show the camera ports. The book also has some details of camouflage and markings.