F6F-5 Hellcat, Flottille 12 F-PA Arromanches, Indochina 1953

[russ c]

Hi Everyone, thought you wouldn`t mind if I shared some pic`s of my latest effort

My attempt at a French Indochina Hellcat 

Built from Eduards 1/48 Weekend Edition kit

Finished to represent an aircraft flown by Flottille 12 during the Indochina conflict

As usual mostly from the box contents with a few additions................

......namely rocket rails from the spares box and I noticed that French Hellcats didn`t seem to us the normal centre line fuel tank that US ones did.

Luckily I found one that looked right in the stash ( probably off a Hobbycraft Bearcat ) and adapted it to fit.

Decals were from Berna Decals set BD 48-24

Hope you enjoy the photo`s, thanks for looking

Cheers Russ

 

[Dric]

Nice colors for this Cat. Bravo !

[colin]

Beautifully done Russ, you've managed to break up that monotone colour with some lovely weathering

[John Masters]

Lovely Russ. I picked up some Glossy Dark Sea Blue so I can build some French Indo-China era US surplus aircraft--Corsair and such.  Your Hellcat is superb.  

[fubar57]

Beauty. Now you need the Hobby Boss F4U-7 to go with it. Needs a bit of work but a nice kit

[russ c]

14 minutes ago, fubar57 said:

Beauty. Now you need the Hobby Boss F4U-7 to go with it. Needs a bit of work but a nice kit

Thanks Fubar, I did a Hasegawa AU-1 a while ago to go with it, if you`re interested  

Cheers Russ

[Navy Bird]

Beautiful paint work. You've captured it perfectly. Great job!    👍

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Rabbit Leader]

That’s just beautiful Russ. I really love this overall SEA theme and you are most certainly doing it the ultimate justice in kit form. 
 

Cheers and well modelled.. Dave 

[Troy Smith]

14 minutes ago, fubar57 said:

Now you need the Hobby Boss F4U-7 to go with it. Needs a bit of work but a nice kit

AFAIK HB were lazy and just used  the fabric covered outer wings from the earlier Corsair kits they did.   The Hasegawa kits of the late Corsair are overall better,  and in Europe, Revell of Germany reboxed the Hase F4U-5 and F4U-7 kits 

The only useful HB Corsair is the F4U-4,  as it is reasonably accurate,  and all the other F4U-4 kits in 48th are poor.   

 

Apolgies for the thread digression @russ c,  hope of some interest.

 

Lovely work on the hellcat as welll

[CJP]

Beautiful smart model Russ - I really like how you have done the exhaust staining

CJP

[BlueNosers352nd]

Awesome job..........that exhaust is killer!

 

[fubar57]

Yep, the HB -7 needs the fabric covered over, trim tab(s?) on the tail feathers removed and I believe the cowl is the wrong shape. The fabric was about an hours work, filled with Bondo Spot and Glazing putty and then sanded. A couple swipes with the sanding stick took care of the trim tab(s?). I lived with the cowl

[RidgeRunner]

Very nice, Russ. It’s great to see one in French marks

 

Martin

[giemme]

Impressive, Russ  And beautifully photographed too

 

Ciao

[Spitfire31]

You really aced that 'attempt', Russ. The exhaust effects on the paintwork is just poetry.

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

[Kampartiger]

The weatheing on the Hellcat is just fantastic as it's often difficult to weathered down (if that's the word for it) an all blue navy plane.By the way,your AU-1 Corsair is terrific too.(Don't know how I could have missed that one out).Hopefully Hase will put back the AU-1 into the market again.Nice builds Russ.

 

[Vinnie]

That's superb, Russ. Very realistic and beautifully photographed as well.

[Wulfman]

Great build, lovely finish and the exhaust stains are brilliant.

 

Wulfman 

[Courageous]

What they ⬆️ all said. Love the photography too.

 

Stuart

[72modeler]

@russ c,

 

Wow! What the others have said- exhaust stains are perfect, with the vertical bands so often seen on Hellcats and Skyraiders, and the weathering/staining is very realistic- hard to do convincingly on a sea blue finish. I also looked at your AU-1 build and it is very, very nice; I especially liked the asymmetric loadout which was very common on AU-1's.

 

BTW- that external tank was a Douglas 150-gallon tank, IIRC, and came into use immediately postwar, so is correct for your Hellcat; I doubt there were any of the WW2 era Hellcat drop tanks still available with the fairing between the tank and the fuselage. I think I recall @Tailspin Turtle doing these tanks on one of his outstanding Tailhook Topics blogs. The same tank was used on F8F's, F-7F's, F4U's, and F9F-5P's, to name a few.

 

@fubar The cowling on Russ's AU-1 build  is correct, as the AU-1 was built on the F4U-5 airframe, but did not need the two speed, two stage supercharger with its larger intercooler that was fitted to the dash 5, so the two cheek scoops were faired over on the AU-1, since it used the same cowling as the F4U-5. Thus it had that distinctive pear-shaped cowling. 

Mike  

Edited December 14, 2019 by 72modeler
added text, corrected spelling

[Troy Smith]

7 hours ago, Kampartiger said:

Hopefully Hase will put back the AU-1 into the market again.

The only difference between the Hase AU-1 and F4U-7 kits is the cowling, which on the F4U-7 kit has an air intake at the underside. 

The F4U-7 kit seems easier to find, in Europe Revell of Germany reboxed the Hase F4U-5 and the F4U-7 kits,  and converting the -7 is not hard.

Hase did redo the AU-1 in 2016, as a limited edition with Korean USMC options

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/hasegawa-07426-au-1-corsair-korean-war--980993

It was expensive in the UK, but probably easier/cheaper to find where you are.

 

16 hours ago, fubar57 said:

Yep, the HB -7 needs the fabric covered over, trim tab(s?) on the tail feathers removed and I believe the cowl is the wrong shape. The fabric was about an hours work, filled with Bondo Spot and Glazing putty and then sanded. A couple swipes with the sanding stick took care of the trim tab(s?). I lived with the cowl

Which leads me to suggest go directly to the Hase kit, or most likely, the Revell of Germany boxing as this has better decals than the Hase original, big cartograf printed sheet.

 

[Troy Smith]

29 minutes ago, 72modeler said:

as the AU-1 was built on the F4U-5 airframe, but did not need the two speed, two stage supercharger with its larger intercooler that was fitted to the dash 5, so the two cheek scoops were faired over on the AU-1, since it used the same cowling as the F4U-5. Thus it had that distinctive pear-shaped cowling. 

AFAIK, the AU-1 cowling is not a -5 with scoops faired over, but an entirely new cowling, without the cheek vents, and thus a different shape

PS re=reading the linked post, the exhaust position is different as well from the -5 to the AU-1

 

This does cause confusion, and there are pics here in this post which illustrate the differences

useful thread for anyone interested in the lat Corsair variants

 

HTH

[ForestFan]

Great job again! Go on, tell us how you achieved the exhaust staining....

[RMCS]

Lovley 

[72modeler]

Troy,

 

I was only commenting on the remarks made about the cowling not being correct on the HB AU-1 kit; your observations regarding the exhaust troughs and stacks  are correct. With that being said, everything I have read or was able to refer to in my references regarding the F4U-5 and AU-1 cowlings  states that the cowling of the AU-1 was an F4U-5 cowling with the cheek intakes faired over. This was described and illustrated in all three volumes  of the Squadron F4U In Action, in the Aero Detail No. 25 on the F4U, and in Corsair, 30 Year of Filibustering.  Tailpin Turtle also described and illustrated this in one of his Tailhook Topics blogs- see the link below and scroll down to the AU-1 section; you can clearly see the new cowl ring without the air intake scoops as well as the pear-shaped sections behind that covered the original ducting used in the F4U-5. (If I am wrong, I will gladly fall on a pitot tube!)

Mike

 

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-last-propeller-pulled-corsairs-f4u.html