Kitty Hawk FJ-3/3M Fury 1/48

[Sabrejet]

Well Kitty Hawk’s FJ-3 kit has finally arrived and overall impressions are similar to my view of the FJ-2; pretty impressive overall.

 

 

You get a new Sprue ‘A’, which means new cambered wing parts, deeper forward fuselage halves; deeper intake trunk lower section and a deeper intake ring. You also get the option of the later flat-sided gun muzzles and the ammo doors to match the extended leading edge. An IFR probe is also included in this sprue.

 

 

 

On the photoetch side, you get the addition of wing fences and the small barrier engagement devices too.

 

 

On the downside, you retain the collapsed nose gear leg, the blank cockpit turtledeck and the steep windshield. None of those are too much of a bother.

On the new sprue, my only real gripe is the new intake ring, which as with the FJ-2 kit, is too stubby at its top foremost extremity. Hopefully Hypersonic will do a nice drop-in for that part.

 

 

Final bit of strangeness is the drop tanks, which KH have shown in the correct location on the instructions (they are incorrectly-placed on the FJ-2), but there are no locating pins on the pylon parts, or locating holes in the wing. Again, not a major issue just a strange one.

 

 

 

You get six colour schemes to choose from, most of the decal options being pretty accurate:

 

 

 

However, some versions can’t be modelled without using the short-chord wing from the FJ-2. A few others need some additional fettling. These are my main observations:

 

1. FJ-3 135943 114/NG from VF-91 - no major issues.
2. FJ-3D2 135867 14/UF from VU-3; you’ll need to add the prominent drone controller blade aerials and blank-off the lower machine-gun muzzle openings.
3. FJ-3M 136155 100/M from VF-24 - no major issues.
4. FJ-3 135978 408/H from VF-154; to be fully accurate for this scheme, the a/c should have the narrow-chord wing (no wing fence (PE parts in the kit) and non-ribbed rudder. Photo below via WT Larkins:

 

5. FJ-3 136041 204/AD from VF-173; I can’t vouch for this s/n being correct, however if you model 139261 (which was marked 204/AD), then you can configure it as an FJ-3M. Photo below via Tailhook:

 

 

6. FJ-3 135862 215/I from VF-21; this is another narrow-chord wing a/c with no wing fence and the ‘smooth’ rudder.

 

 

It’s strange that KH chose to depict only one FJ-3M, but you have the parts there when the aftermarket catches up.

 

As said, the colour schemes look generally OK, but the blue on the national insignia is too bright. Not a major issue, especially when the Caracal sets become available. The stencils are minimal and as with the FJ-2 kit, contain some errors. This one did make me smile:

 

 

And some stencils have no lettering at all, like decals 129, the AOA sensor markings, which just have two white lines and no text.

 

 

So a few niggles and a few inaccuracies, but nothing that most won't be able to overcome. And my main takeaway is that without much effort you can make a very good model of an FJ-3 or FJ-3M. And as ever, photo references are your friend!

[CaracalModels]

The kit decal sheet certainly has some issues - the font used for the tail modex numbers has no relation whatsoever to the actual styling of these numbers, and even the basic geometry of the national insignia is suspect. Give the kit decal sheet to your son or nephew so they can decorate their toy planes to their heart's content.

Edited February 1, 2021 by CaracalModels

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

@Sabrejet I have a two part question for you. The FJ-3 how far off from a Sabre Hog are they ? They both have deeper fuselages and two cannons per side.could taking the cockpit, canopy, and tail surfaces from the revell Sabredog convert one into an “H”. Or how about the old Esci FJ-2/3 with the Revell bits ? Could that help move towards an H fuselage ? I know it would take a boat load of work but I'm seriously tired of waiting for a hog in 1/48 scale.

 

Dennis

[Tailspin Turtle]

38 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

@Sabrejet I have a two part question for you. The FJ-3 how far off from a Sabre Hog are they ? They both have deeper fuselages and two cannons per side.could taking the cockpit, canopy, and tail surfaces from the revell Sabredog convert one into an “H”. Or how about the old Esci FJ-2/3 with the Revell bits ? Could that help move towards an H fuselage ? I know it would take a boat load of work but I'm seriously tired of waiting for a hog in 1/48 scale.

 

Dennis

As it happens, I was looking at it the other way round in 1/72 once upon a time: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/08/north-american-fj-3-redux.html

[SAT69]

Someone feel free to correct me as needed, but the cannons on the F-86H are positioned very differently from those on the FJ-3. Also, the F-86H had a 6" horizontal splice added to the entire fuselage, making it deeper to accommodate the larger air intake and, I suspect, the engine too. Clicking on the link to the web site above, it appears the F-86H has a deeper air intake as well. 

 

I'd love a new 1/48 F-86H. It's my favorite among the day fighter Sabres. But I'm inclined to think we're better off waiting for a "designed from the ground up" F-86H kit. Didn't Modelsvit say they would seriously consider it in another thread? Given that they've given us two classic North American Aviation products (F-51H and forthcoming F-82), I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see them provide an F-86H as well. It's been asked for at various times quite a bit here at Britmodeler.com. Again, my two cents worth.

[Sabrejet]

12 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

@Sabrejet I have a two part question for you. The FJ-3 how far off from a Sabre Hog are they ? They both have deeper fuselages and two cannons per side.could taking the cockpit, canopy, and tail surfaces from the revell Sabredog convert one into an “H”. Or how about the old Esci FJ-2/3 with the Revell bits ? Could that help move towards an H fuselage ? I know it would take a boat load of work but I'm seriously tired of waiting for a hog in 1/48 scale.

 

Dennis

 

Dennis,

 

I'd forget the ESCI "whatever it is" - it's an awful thing. However I think if you combined the Revell F-86D (cockpit area) with a Hasegawa F-86F-40 (wings) and FJ-3 fuselage, you'd have something that would look like an F-86H. It wouldn't be 100% accurate, but it would be a start. You would still need to do a lot of filling, sanding and scratch-building though!

 

My hope is that someone very business-savvy will do an F-86A in such a way that all of the missing A/E/F & Canadair variants can be done by having separate fwd and aft fuselage sections. So by combing an 'F-86A' fwd fuselage with an 'F-86F' aft fuselage you'd get an early F-86E/Sabre 2 without having dedicated tooling.  Minor panel inserts would also help that one.

 

Then a good set of narrow-chord, slatted wings (with separate slats) will fill a MASSIVE gap, and if you sold them as a separate, complete set then modellers could convert their Hasegawa/Airfix/Eduard/Academy kits back to early variants too! I'm talking just 1/48 scale. Why no-one has already done it escapes me: Airfix really missed a golden opportunity.

 

Once that's done, let's look at the F-86H!

 

 

[Julien]

You have to be careful around the Dnager Intakes!

[Julien]

I really wanted to be excited about these kits, but by the time you have bought the kit, the correct bits from Hypersonic and then decent decals from Caracal its starting to look expensive.

[Corey in Colorado]

@Sabrejet, are the wheel wells on the FJ-3 interior green like the FJ-2?

[Sabrejet]

3 hours ago, Corey in Colorado said:

@Sabrejet, are the wheel wells on the FJ-3 interior green like the FJ-2?

I haven't really looked, but I'd say yes (for now)

[Corey in Colorado]

Just now, Sabrejet said:

I haven't really looked, but I'd say yes (for now)

thanks!  

[jpk]

On 2/14/2021 at 9:37 AM, Julien said:

I really wanted to be excited about these kits, but by the time you have bought the kit, the correct bits from Hypersonic and then decent decals from Caracal its starting to look expensive.

From my perspective unless you are a detail oriented modeler, the kit OOTB is pretty good with the only thing really needing correction is the oleo nose strut length, an easy correction. I did it on my FJ-2 kit before the HS set was available. Yes, the decals suck but passable if you're not too concerned, the turtle deck is missing detail but you can scratch a lot of it. However, overall the kit is more correct than not. Add to that who else is going to do one? As for cost of decals and resin addons, Caracal's sets are very affordable, as are Hypersonic's resin parts. The kit can be had from China for at or a little north of $50.00 so in comparison to other recent 1/48 new kits that is not an outrageous amount, in fact pretty average. Even new kits like ZM's Phantom's have aftermarket stuff available for them and their kits start at almost a Benjie and that is before postage.      

Edited April 30, 2021 by jpk