F4U-7 Corsair (Suez) help Needed Please

[Doug]

Hi all,

I am currently building a Heller 1/48 F4U-7 Corsair (oob) this time so that I know how the kit goes together in advance of building a second kit which I intend to detail. So far the kit has gone together well and see no reason why the second kit should not be more of the same, however I have come across some area's where I need help and guidance from more experienced modellers, so I hope you can help with the following questions.

1. Rocket rails or stubs? the kit comes with rails or pylons if you prefer whilst most other kits come with "stubs". I have tried to check which come with the Hasegawa kit and several builds show both types being used.

2. Interior protective colours? I understand that late type Corsairs had a mix or yellow chromate and interior green, the green being used for the cockpit whilst Chromate yellow/green almost everywhere else, is this correct? I have been told salmon pink protective covering was sometimes used, but i thought this was only on early Corsairs upto F4U-1D?

3. Interior wheel bays? I have seen mention of chromate yellow/green, interior green, white or dark sea blue?

4. Main wings? Firstly did the F4U-7 have all metal wings as the fabric panels (on outer wing panels) on most Corsair variants are not present on the kit? and secondly did french Corsairs have the three navigation lights on the underside of the wing as there are also not present in the Heller kit?

5. General Finnish? I assume like American machines the original finish is gloss dark sea blue all over, however many of the builds I have found seem to be finished with a satin or satin/mat finish, is this scale effect or just down to the modellers preference? I have to say many of the black&white photo's of French Corsairs I have found (During the Suez Crisis) do tend to show a more satin finish, than a gloss finish, so I was just wondering which is the more accurate finish in 1/48 scale.

Sorry for asking so many questions, it's more for me to detail the second kit.

Thanks in advance.

Doug S.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Doug

[Troy Smith]

Main wings? Firstly did the F4U-7 have all metal wings as the fabric panels (on outer wing panels) on most Corsair variants are not present on the kit? and secondly did french Corsairs have the three navigation lights on the underside of the wing as there are also not present in the Heller kit?

http://www.vought.org/products/html/f4u-5.html

The entire outer-wing panels, for the first time on any Corsair, were metal covered. A substantial reduction in drag resulted.

this applied to the F4U-7 and AU-1 (basically the F4U-6) as well.

I think the F4U-7 had a mostly black cockpit, I found a PDF online in French, this gives a good idea.

wheel bays GSB

rocket stubs, as it had been found during WW2 rails were not needed.

thoughit might be that the rockets were fitted onto the outer wing racks

from - lots of pics BTW

http://www.ig-corsair.de/F4U-7%20Aeronavale.html

worth a read - http://modelingmadness.com/review/korean/cleaverf4u7.htm

the finish was GSB, but this did dull down with weathering.

Any reason for picking the Heller kit over the Hasegawa?

[Doug]

Yep, I already had two Heller kits and I wasn't prepared to pay Hasegawa's over inflated prices.

Seriously, thanks for all the info I think I misnamed the rocket pylons, but it seems from all your pictures and most of those I found myself on the internet show that they are not stubs like the ones the USN and USM used on their F4U-4/4B and F4U-5(N to P), the ones used by the French seem to be longer and solid rather than just a front and rear stub. Seems Heller got that right as the launchers in the kit look very much like the ones in the photo's.

As for the overall finish might go for a blend of gloss and satin just to add a bit of interest to the overall blue.

As I said Troy thanks for all the info I will incorporate a lot of the detail into the next build now that I know what the Heller kit builds like.

Doug S.

[Troy Smith]

Yep, I already had two Heller kits and I wasn't prepared to pay Hasegawa's over inflated prices.

Re Hasegawa, the F4U-7 kit was reboxed by Revell of Germany

same plastic, and probably better decals. You have enough posts, you could ask for one in the Wanted section.

Hobby Boss are doing the Corsair family, but their F4U-5 has fabric outer wings

Place for real Corsair experts will be Hyperscale.

[Doug]

Hi Troy,

hey I'm happy with any information and you have given me enough to be going on with, Didn't know that the F4U-5 like the later models all had all-metal wings, I have just purchased the D&S Corsair Part 1 & 2 books so hopefully this will help me even more. I was aware of the Revell kit being a reboxing of the Hasegawa kit, but I can't find either at a sensible price at the moment, Hasegawa are really getting to expensive and Revell are using a sort of limited run for the reboxing kits, as soon as they are released they are withdrawn! I brought a Revell kit whcih was supposed to be a reboxing of a Hasegawa kit and it turned out to be a monogram moulding in the box??? it seems they printed more boxes than they had kits so they filled up the remaining boxes with Monogram mouldings.

I know the Heller kit has issues, but it builds up real well and to be honest I am really happy with it so far and with some resin and scratch-built parts I can make it look better so I'm happy to build it.

Will check out Hyperscale if I have any further questions so thanks for the heads-up about that site.

Once again thanks for the help and info.

Doug S.

[Doug]

Gosh Troy, you wasn't joking about the info on Hyperscale regarding Corsairs were you! lol started off searching for F4U corsair then after page after page of entries I simply searched for F4U-7 Corsair and still ended up with page after page of info.

Cheers.

Doug S.

[Don McIntyre]

For the cockpit, you'll want to do it interior green below the side consoles and black above.

LG Bays should be overall Blue like the rest of the aircraft.