1/48 Trumpeter F9F-2 Panther

Gallery Article by Winfried van Rooij on May 20 2009

 

After building kits with complex camouflage schemes, it was time for something fast and easy, straight out of the box. This is my first experience with a Trumpeter kit and did not really know what to expect form this Chinese manufacturer. It turned out to be great fun as this kit has excellent fit and parts needed only minor clean up. I think the only down part would be the painting guide. The insides of the wheel bays and doors, legs and airbrakes were mentioned as being white but US NAVY colour codes for the that era state that these parts would be the same colour as the undersides of the aircraft. I decided to deviate form the painting guide and sprayed everything dark sea blue.

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The whole aircraft was finished first with Testors Metalizer aluminium prior to applying the blue, followed by some chipping with an exacto #11 blade, which gives a much better result than painting chips afterwards. After applying a few coats of Tamiya gloss, I applied the decals which are very thin, but somewhat translucent. Only minor weathering was done as I wanted to depict a relatively new aircraft. I even removed most mission markings to be in line with that!  A final coat of 80% gloss and 20% flat Revell airbrush color was mixed to create a just “off gloss” finish.

I decided to go for folded wings, the way the aircraft would have looked when parked on an aircraft carrier. Finally I armed my bird with 4 off 20mm cannons in the nose, 2 off 500 pound bombs and 6 off HVAR rockets. For references I used Squadron publications 1051 F9F Panther and Cougar in action.

Winfried van Rooij

Photos and text © by Winfried van Rooij