1/48 Hasegawa/Hobbycraft Vought Corsair II

Gallery Article by Robert-Jan Willekens on Dec 15 2003

 

I was stuck with a non-fitting Hobbycraft fuselage and Hasegawa wings from a previous project, and decided to tackle this the hard way by gluing them together. Needless to say, a lot of filler, plastic, patience and sanding was required, including a completely scratch-built lower fuselage! I've always liked the FAA Corsairs with their Slate Grey and Extra Dark Sea Grey topsides over Sky type 'S' lower areas; a welcome break from the blue and white of US Corsairs. British Corsairs also had a shorter span; about 2.5mm had to be cut from the wingtips to achieve this. This was required on the real aircraft so they could fit in the lower ceilinged hangars of the Royal Navy's carriers!  Sorry about the focus on the picture below.

 

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The horrendous Hobbycraft cockpit was surgically removed and discarded, and replaced with True Details' beautiful resin example. The wheels are also from this company. The canopy is a replacement part from the Squadron range of acetate canopies, with mirrors and handles added. The huge Brewster tank is borrowed from a Tamiya Corsair kit, and the decals are from AMD 48-400 "Royal Navy Corsairs part 1". But: they were showing Corsairs as flown at war's end in the Pacific, with boring blue-white roundels. I wanted some colour on the model, and backdated JT422 to April 1944. At that time, HMS Victorious was plying the North Atlantic, and her aircraft carried the standard RAF markings. So JT422 of No. 1836 Sqn. RN was built as such! I ended up using only the codes and the serials, all the other markings came from the spare decal box. Anyway, I saved money by using the two kits, remember? 

The model was done with Xtracolor paints and suitably weathered with artist's oils. 

Robert-Jan Willekens

      

Photos and text © by Robert-Jan Willekens