FR-1 Fireball "VF-41"

This is a Czech Model short-run kit I got on sale from Squadron. It was my first short-run kit and from what I can tell, Czech Model was kind to me. The fit of the parts was good, aside from the engine nacelle.

The assembly of the resin cockpit and engine was pretty straight forward with no real problems. After getting the fuselage together along with the wings, I had decided that the rear cockpit bulkhead/headrest is slightly too far forward, so I remedied this by sliding the canopy back. The most trouble I had was getting enough weight in the nose. All of that area in front of the cockpit is filled with lead fishing weights.

After completing the main assembly, I decided that I was not going to stick with the kit decals; good thing I didn't, the backing film on the decal sheet was completely out of register with the color decals and they would have fallen apart before I got them in place. I would like to point out that Squadron/Czech Model was great to provide a mini "In-Action" booklet and from this I decided to do the scheme of VF-41 "Firebirds" instead of VF-66 or VF-1E. I particularly liked the double yellow stripe going through the national insignia and the asymmetrical wing tips from the top and bottom view. I painted the ID numbers, stripes, and the white "stars-and-bars". I was luckily able to use the Firebirds squadron insignia provided on the kit decal sheet (oddly enough VF-41 was the only FR-1 Squadron to carry the insignia) and the stenciling and black 17 on the tail were cut-and-reposition leftovers from my Eduard Hellcat decal sheet. The only thing I wasn't able to work out was the pilot's rank and name under the canopy.

All in all, a good kit and with all the out-of-the-box kits I've been building, a good exercise in honing my modelling skills. Pros to this kit were the relatively good fitting parts and a unique and arguably very historically important subject. Cons were lack of room for weight in the nose, poorly fitting engine nacelle, and inaccurate placement of the headrest and rear cockpit bulkhead.

F6F-3 Hellcat "VF-6"

When Eduard released the Hellcat in 1/48 scale, I had to get one. The Hellcat is one of my favorite WWII fighters and I had been waiting for for a decent kit for a while. I chose to get the -3 version because I like the 3-tone scheme much more than the 1-tone dark sea blue.

Everything is out of the box. The cockpit side consoles are not as good as some of the other Eduard offerings, but I couldn't justify spending money for something frivolous that I could update myself. The rest of the cockpit is very good, especially the seat. Everything fit perfectly and I only had to use a little filler at the wing joints, but I think this was probably due to my lack of proper test fitting before committing with glue. One of the easiest kits to build; I got the fuselage, wings, and empinage together in one afternoon. The "grin" of the chin intakes look very accurate and I especially liked the way that Eduard did the tie-down straps on the drop tank. I sanded away the seam on the drop tank before I noticed that this seem was very pronounced on the real thing, oops.

Of course I picked the markings of Lt. Alex Vraciu's aircraft after the "Great Mariana's Turkey Shoot"; who wouldn't with the options available in this kit. One note on the photos: the blue of the national insignias do not show as much contast against the sea blue paint in real life as they do in the photos; I attribute this phenomena to the camera flash. I decided to put a 250 lb. anti-personnel fragmentation bomb, but only one as the -3 carried ordnance under the starboard wing only. I figured this load out to be possible as the Hellcat often performed strafing duties on its missions.

I highly recommend this kit to all fans of easy, accurate, and detailed models. Hellcat fans rejoice.

Sea Harrier

Here are some pics of my son's birthday present we built together. The kit is an older Tamiya 1/48 Sea Harrier FR.1. He picked the markings (because its a "pirate flag") and all the colors. Not too bad for a toddler.

Ki-84 Hayate (Frank) "57 Special Attack Unit"

I got this 48th scale Hasegawa beauty at an IPMS show a couple of years ago and have finally gotten to build my first Japanese WW2 fighter. I went straight from the box on this one (Aeromaster decals excluded) and I'm glad that I didn't put any money into detailing it because it definitely didn't need it. So far, this kit has had the best surface detail I have ever worked with, as well as parts fitting properly. I did get a heads-up about the landing gear needing to be glued in, since the rubber grippers supplied by Hasegawa don't work the way they theoretically should. I filled the space for the grippers with Squadron Green Putty, let it dry, then drilled out holes for the pins and glued the gear struts when ready. This worked well and the landing gear is solid.

For the undersurfaces, I used the same process as my Buffalo and for the upper surfaces, I used a 70-30(ish) mixture of MM Military Brown and Burnt Umber. This color came out looking like a warm and rich chocolate brown that I like. Aeromaster's instructions suggest this aircraft was black over natural metal, but I like the brown better and other sources state that the aircraft from this unit were a dark chocolate brown. I added a black anti-glare panel on the nose, however, to break up the brown a little and I think this adds a little more interest.

I didn't want to weather this aircraft very much for a couple of reasons. First, this was a suicide attack aircraft which means the pilots probably didn't fly the aircraft a whole lot before they would have headed out for their ultimate mission. Secondly, the scheme is very beautiful and I didn't want to distract from it like a Bob Ross painting that has a huge tree right through the middle.

B339 Buffalo "2-VLG-V"

This is Tamiya's 1/48 B339 kit that highlights the late model Buffaloes sold to foreign nations who, at the outbreak of war in the late 30s/early 40s, needed fighters in a hurry, especially in the South Pacific. There were four marking options available: two Brittish examples, a Dutch East-Indies aircraft, and a U.S. Navy airframe in overall grey scheme. Because of the less-than-usual nature of the Dutch markings, I chose to model the aircraft flown by Lt. August Diebel. This was perhaps the most successful B339 airframe, Lt. Diebel having scored four kills in it. The Finns were more successful with the B139 Buffalo, which was much lighter and faced inferior aircraft than those fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific.

For the bare-metal finish of the undersides, a used Tamiya Silver from a spray can sprayed into a cup and then transferred into my airbrush cup over a gloss-black primer coat. Once dried, this made the base over which I could mask the other colors. To simulate different panels, I used various mixtures of Metal Master Aluminum and Stainless Steel Metalizers as well as MM Aluminum to simulate a silver laquer painted onto the fabric ailerons and elevators. The upper surfaces were MM Military Brown and MM Khaki Green. I have no idea whether these were accurate to the scheme that the Dutch used because in my research I haven't seen a single source that agreed with one another. Nevertheless, I like the way this scheme turned out which is most important.

The Tamiya Buffalo kit is a little dated, doesn't have enough detail in the landing gear bays, and the instrument panel looks a bit hokey, but overall I really like the kit. Straight from the box, this kit looks good to me and was fun to build. I'm not looking for it to win any awards anyway.

LaGG-3 "44 Fighter Regiment"

I came across this ICM kit for $10 while taking a weekend trip with my wife and I couldn't pass it up. ICM doesn't have the best reputation, but this kit was well detailed and overall quite good. It is definitely not for the beginner modeler because it does have some semi-serious fit issues at the engine cowling and trailing edge of the wing roots, as well as a lot of flash. Another area to watch out for is the fit of the wings and fuselage; the fit is too tight and causes the wing dihedral to vanish. There are also a couple of sink marks under the cockpit, but all of these problems are solvable. The pros to this kit are all the different cowling and exhaust options provided and a well-detailed cockpit. With a bit of research, know-how, and enginuity one can make almost any version of the LaGG-3 from this kit.

Another thing about the ICM kit is that the "Series" designations are confusing and probably incorrect. The LaGG-3 series assignment is very convoluted and depends on where and when the aircraft was made. I found a source that can help explain the early LaGG series with drawings of aircraft from each factory and may shed some light on why there is such a wide range of styles and explanations for them. Click here to link to this sight.

I chose to do "White 14" of the 44 IAP stationed near Leningrad in the fall of 1941. My original source (clike here to linke to this source) states that it was made at State Factory 153 in Novosibirsk. Having lived in Novosibirsk, this was the main reason I chose the subject. However, after some more research, it appears that the aircraft was made at Factory 23 in Leningrad, which makes sense since it was stationed at Leningrad and the oil cooler intake, tail wheel, and radiator outlet cutout are consistent with those produced at this factory.

The paint scheme uses the standard Green/Black colors, but is unique in its application. My original source calls it a "Bukhanova tiger-stripe" cammouflage, and this may be the real test to see which source was correct; where was Nadia Bukhanova working at the time this aircraft was produced? Either way, I used the kit stars and painted the white 14 numerals using a sticker stencil drawn from MS Paint. I really like this kit, and if you're willing to do a bit of research, you can modify this kit to whatever early-series LaGG-3 subject you wish.

Il-2M Shturmovik "White 24"

Rarely is the tail section of a model the point of interest, but I really like the uniqueness of this aircraft. The kit is from Eduard and it was rather fun to build. The build was quite complex but everything seemed to fit very well. I really liked how the radiator ducting went together to make a very realistic engine cowling.

The wings were nicely done, but I think that I put them together out of sequence and had to work a little harder to get them to fit right. The cockpit is also nicely done, and I really liked the tailgunner's compartment.

I chose this option from the kit because of it's unique scheme (apparently the Soviet Navy had a liking for dramatic paint schemes). Eduard's explanation for the differnt tail section was multiple repairs on the forward fuselage and wing areas. This may be true but my theory is that this aircraft suffered significant damage to the tail section and was replaced with a good tail section from another damaged aircraft, afterwhich, the crew added some personal markings of "For the Honor of the Guard" on the port side and "For the Motherland" on the starboard. This makes sense to me because the majority of the aircraft is painted in the earlier AII Green and Black scheme, where the fuselage tail has the later Raw Sienna color added. Also, photo evidence shows that the starboard aileron has been replaced and appears to be painted Raw Sienna.

Anyway, this kit came out beautiful and I really like it, eventhough the Il-2 has got to be one of the ugliest aircraft to come out of WWII victorious.