I do not like Humbrol and our go to paints in South Africa are Tamiya for which one usually must concoct one's own mix. The rather aggressive scheme carried by F6F-5 Hellcat ‘White 7’, which was selected by Paramjit for his second Hellcat build, is a VF-27 aircraft, which made a significant contribution during the Battle of Leyte Gulf on 24th October 1944. A bit of filling to do and the ever fiddly bit of painting a thin line round a cone but, with the kit decals on and a little red decal on the support arm from my spares tray to make it look right, I'm quite happy. Sometimes it was too sticky and made it difficult to get the parts apart and sometimes the little blob of glue would transfer to the other part.

To illustrate the strength of the Hellcat’s design, a late production F6F-F3 machine, which was the former mount of famous US Navy ace Lieutenant Commander Edward Henry ‘Butch’ O’Hare, was sent back to the Grumman factory for repair, having sustained significant combat damage.I realised quite early that, if I wanted some flexibility but also hold (sound like my wife talking about hairspray) I needed to line my lines with something. The image showing the full internal of the fuselage highlights all the areas which are going to require Chris’ attention in the weeks to come, but crucially, also their correct placement in the construction of a Hellcat fighter. The test frames arrive at our Head Office in a large, rather nondescript cardboard box and not as you might imagine, individually boxed like a normal kit release. Unfortunately, his aircraft sustained significant damage during these actions and he himself had been wounded by shrapnel, a situation made all the worse when he noticed four Zeros on his tail, all lining up for an easy victory.

Can anyone suggest the best glue (type) to enable me to 'temporarily glue' the engine panels in place for paining, but be able to remove some/all the panels afterwards without damaging the underlying paint.in terms of preshading, my observation has been that the camera doesn't pick up the contrast real well. Desperate to ensure their new aircraft was a significant improvement on their rugged little fighter and an aircraft squadron pilots could operate effectively without too much additional conversion training, they enlisted the help of some of the US Navy’s most accomplished combat pilots, asking them what they wanted from the new fighter.

Airfix included a detailed cut away illustration showing their suggested route to run the electric wires from the motor to a hatch in the belly behind the cockpit. Modest to a tee, Chris failed to tell us that at this stage, he had already spent months perfecting the shape of the Hellcat, then breaking it down into kit component parts, ensuring that all the manufacturing formers, ribs and stringers were in their correct positions. He would also have the opportunity to inspect Hellcat II (KE209) on several occasions (which is on display at the Fleet Air Arm Museum), taking a great many detailed pictures during his visits and having the ability to check various aspects of the internal workings of the aircraft. Over the years, we have covered the various stages of new Airfix model tooling development in some detail within Workbench, so we are purposely going to be a little light on technical detail within this feature, using exclusive project images to tell the story, as opposed to long paragraphs of detailed descriptions. The Number 32 decals were going to have to be used as There was no way I could mask around all the little instruction ones near the cockpit successfully.It really makes me want to start mine, but I have so many sitting on the bench in need of completion including a stalled build of the 1/24 Typhoon. This was actually a completely redesigned aircraft in every respect, from its massive new engine to the rugged, wide-track undercarriage which made deck handling much more assured than with its predecessor – significantly, the Hellcat was 60% heavier than the Wildcat and a true fighting thoroughbred. I wanted one wing folded with flaps up, and the other wing extended with flaps down and gun bays open.

There are several good “in-box” parts reviews on the web, so I’ve skipped that to get straight into building this big Cat. So I tried a trick that the WWI boys use of painting in a lighter colour than the base colour then sticking thin 1mm strips of masking tape over the ribs then spraying with the base colour. Historic photographs exist of this aircraft having just landed on USS Essex, with its burning home carrier Princeton visible in the background. It's the oil cooler but all the oil cooler assembly sits behind the firewall so presumably all the oil pipes from the oil tank and the engine which are in front of the firewall have to get through there somehow. Tried to make the finish somewhat "dirty" to match the real aircraft, but a fine balance with scale models not to overdo that.I had trouble using copper wire as suggested by Airfix, so I ended up using solder instead — good thing, as snaking the intake and exhaust pipes through the tight confines required nudging wires and the solder performed brilliantly. A crucial time in the development of any new model tooling and one of great excitement (and no doubt also some trepidation) for the Airfix team, the arrival of the first test frames from the tooling in the Airfix office is the first opportunity they will have to see how the new kit will look and if all the incredible detail they have been working on is accurately reflected by the tooling. As chuck540z3 says on his hellcat build, there's a complete dearth of pictures of the rear of the engine.