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F2H-3 Banshee - Academy 1/72 - VF-151


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This is the Academy 1/72 kit of the big Banshee F2H-3 with decals from the Skylancer sheet which is very hard to come by and I must thank HansReggelsen for helping out with this sheet. The Skylancer sheet also has many tips for adding detail to the fairly basic Academy kit and also Tailspin Turtle's blog site has more valuable information. 

 

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The main alteration I did was to the nose landing gear which in fact is more suitable for the F2H-2 Banshee, but not the later models. I cut away everything but the wheel and then using plastic rod reconstructed a fairly basic nose-gear but at least it more closely resembles the look of the real one now. I also cut away part of the main gear in order to get them to sit further into the wing and  thus helping to give the aircraft a slightly nose high attitude compared with the nose down stance of the F2H-2. The cannon troughs also needed some Milliput in order to avoid potentially being able to see through into the fuselage.

 

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The Skylancer decals were a bit fragile even after adding decal film and I also made a catastrophic mistake by putting one of the yellow arrows for the VF-151 "Vigilantes" scheme meant for the nose on the drop tank. By the time I realised, it was too late to remove the decal without destroying it - in order to recreate the arrow on the nose I made a mask, sprayed the yellow and then edged the arrow with thin black decal strips. The end result wasn't too bad and pretty much indistinguishable from the decal on the other side of the nose.    

 

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A couple of pics with its older sister the Airfix Banshee F2H-2P. Hope you like!!

 

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Pat

 

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Very nice indeed,.... they both look superb. I have an Academy kit which I want to make in Royal Canadian Navy markings someday,

Cheers

        Tony

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Thanks for the comments guys.

 

14 hours ago, tonyot said:

I have an Academy kit which I want to make in Royal Canadian Navy markings someday

 

That I would like to see Tony - don't see too many jets from you! I was tempted by the RCN options for the Banshee (I think there is a Canadian decal company that do a sheet which allows you to model any RCN Banshee squadron) but I feared that when the XDSG paint went on, the urge to do it as an RN WHIF may have been irresistible!!


Pat

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3 hours ago, twinpin said:

Great looking Banshees.  What decals used on the Airfix one ? Do you know the source of any pics of the 2P in the Grey scheme ?

They were home printed using a USN style font found on the web. The pic I used to base the 2P on was in one of the Naval Fighters series -will try to dig out which one later.

 

Pat

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