1/48 Monogram vs. Trumpeter F-9F Panther comparison?

[tko24]

I'm looking for some opinions about the accuracy of these two kits before I make a decision about which ones to build. The reviews I've seen online are all pretty old, maybe some new errors in both kits have come to light? I know that the Monogram kit is an F9F-5 and that the vertical stabilizer is suppose to be taller and that the Monogram kit has raised panel lines which doesn't bother me. But outside of that I'm looking for opinions about the accuracy of shapes and canopies etc. I plan on building two, one in flight and one with gear down. I already have a few of the Monogram kits but I don't mind buying two of the Trumpeter kits if it is more accurate for an F9F-2.     

Edited August 1, 2018 by tko24

[Darren Roberts]

The biggest problem with the Monogram kit is that, IIRC, the framing on the windscreen is too wide. It may also be a bit flat. However, that's nothing compared with the Trumpeter kit. The canopy on that just doesn't look right. I believe the drop tanks are too small as well. I've built both, and enjoyed both builds. If it doesn't matter whether you build a -2 or a -5, I'd go with the Monogram kit. It's one of my favorite ones to build.

[Tailspin Turtle]

For what it's worth: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-panther.html

[jpk]

The Monogram Panther is a very nice kit and accurate as well. The too thick windscreen framing was corrected. Pick up the Golden Dragons/Revell boxing to be sure to get a corrected one. Also, it's molded in gray and not the original blue. I have both the Monogram and Trumpeter kits. If you want to do a 1/48 early -2 Panther currently the Trumpeter kit is the only one available, however be advised the canopy is incorrect, it has fictitious panel lines, the tip tanks are too small, the fuselage is too long and the nose is too pointy. Other than those issues it goes together well and has an accurate early Panther cockpit. I kit bashed mine with the Monogram kit. I shortened the fuselage and grafted on the monogram nose and tip tanks.

[sierrascale]

17 hours ago, tko24 said:

I'm looking for some opinions about the accuracy of these two kits before I make a decision about which ones to build. The reviews I've seen online are all pretty old, maybe some new errors in both kits have come to light? I know that the Monogram kit is an F9F-5 and that the vertical stabilizer is suppose to be taller and that the Monogram kit has raised panel lines which doesn't bother me. But outside of that I'm looking for opinions about the accuracy of shapes and canopies etc. I plan on building two, one in flight and one with gear down. I already have a few of the Monogram kits but I don't mind buying two of the Trumpeter kits if it is more accurate for an F9F-2.     

 

I got around the canopy issue on the Trumpeter kit but grafting in the cockpit coaming from a spare Monogram -5 with windscreen and canopy. At first I thought I could use the spare glass from the KH -8 Cougar, as they give you two clear sprues, but it was much smaller than the Trump cockpit opening and it would have been a much more expensive kit to cut up. 

Not my best job, as it lanquished on the shelf of doom and suffered through a couple repaints.

 

 

Edited August 2, 2018 by sierrascale

[Darren Roberts]

10 hours ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

For what it's worth: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/10/grumman-panther.html

When you post information, it's not just worth a lot, it's priceless. You are the go-to source for NavAir info. BTW, in looking at your link, you have a picture of a VF-51 Panther showing the engine area. That looks like the one we have at Combat Air Museum in Topeka, KS. That's actually a combat veteran. What's really cool is that the guy who flew it in combat lived just an hour or so away in a small Kansas town. When the restoration was done, we had a big ceremony with him as the keynote speaker. Hearing his stories was amazing. Sadly, he passed on shortly after that. 

[Paul Boyer]

Another consideration is that if you're wanting to do a Korean-War Panther, nearly all of them were -2/3. Some units got the -4/5, but not many.

 

The main bugaboo with the Trumpeter canopy (and the HobbyBoss 1/72 which is related) is the angle of the bow at the junction between the windscreen and sliding canopy. Out-of-the box, the bow appears to be 90º to the ground, while on the real jet, it is around 90º to the lower canopy frame rails. If you carefully sand the bow at the back of the windscreen so that you are taking more material from the top and very little from the bottom, and then sand the front bow of the sliding canopy, taking more material from the bottom corners of the bow and little from the top, it will look a lot better. Posing the canopy opened will help, too.

[Charlie D.]

On 8/1/2018 at 3:14 PM, Darren Roberts said:

The biggest problem with the Monogram kit is that, IIRC, the framing on the windscreen is too wide. It may also be a bit flat. However, that's nothing compared with the Trumpeter kit. The canopy on that just doesn't look right. I believe the drop tanks are too small as well. I've built both, and enjoyed both builds. If it doesn't matter whether you build a -2 or a -5, I'd go with the Monogram kit. It's one of my favorite ones to build.

The too wide framing was fixed after the first boxing. 

[tko24]

Thanks for all the replies. That's why I love message forums like this one and the ship modeling forums I'm on. There's a wealth of information  from posters and a willingness to answer questions and help with in progress builds. My two Monogram Panthers are the Golden Dragons versions, I decided that I'm going to go ahead and build those two first, but I also decided to go ahead and buy and build two of the Trumpeter Panther jets. I purchased two of them this morning. I'm going to use the Golden Dragons decals in the Monogram kits, but for the Trumpeter Panthers I'm going to search for a pair of after market decal sheets to use on those. Since I decided to build the Trumpy and Monogram kits I'd still love to hear about any other issues with the kits as well as building and correction tips for any inaccuracies in the kits. I'm still active duty Coast Guard, between that and my family, the biggest challenge for me is finding time to work on model kits. I'm on a big Korean War/1950's era aircraft kick at the moment, I hope the new Kitty Hawk 1/48 FJ-3M Fury kits get released soon, I'm also hoping that somebody will produce a 1/48 F-86H Sabre Hog. I have two of the 1/48 Collectair kits, but they look like difficult kits to build. I might end up selling them.

Edited August 3, 2018 by tko24

[jonbryon]

12 hours ago, jpk said:

the fuselage is too long

 

Has this ever been definitively established? As per Tommy's post, this was asserted when the kit was released, but there were conflicting results from different people. Because of the breakdown of the fuselage it is not simple to measure the length of the Trumpeter kit. When (if?) I get round to building mine I intend to measure it in various ways, but I am open-minded at this stage as to whether there is actually a length error.

 

As per other's comments, the main visual error to me is the canopy. I have the PJ Productions correction, although I've no idea how much of a fix that provides.

 

Jon

[seawinder]

1 hour ago, jonbryon said:

 

Has this ever been definitively established? As per Tommy's post, this was asserted when the kit was released, but there were conflicting results from different people. Because of the breakdown of the fuselage it is not simple to measure the length of the Trumpeter kit. When (if?) I get round to building mine I intend to measure it in various ways, but I am open-minded at this stage as to whether there is actually a length error.

 

As per other's comments, the main visual error to me is the canopy. I have the PJ Productions correction, although I've no idea how much of a fix that provides.

 

Jon

I took part in a thread several years ago in which I asserted, after measuring both the Monogram and the Trumpeter fuselages, that the Trumpeter isn't actually too long, but that there's a problem in the proportions of the fuselage ahead of the wing. Trumpeter apparently got the overall length pretty close by fudging proportions elsewhere. In any case, the Trumpeter fuselage is definitely shorter than the Monogram. IMHO the problem with the canopy and the misshapen intake openings are much more glaringly obvious issues than that of length/proportions.

Edited August 3, 2018 by seawinder

[jonbryon]

9 hours ago, seawinder said:

I took part in a thread several years ago in which I asserted, after measuring both the Monogram and the Trumpeter fuselages, that the Trumpeter isn't actually too long, but that there's a problem in the proportions of the fuselage ahead of the wing. Trumpeter apparently got the overall length pretty close by fudging proportions elsewhere. In any case, the Trumpeter fuselage is definitely shorter than the Monogram. IMHO the problem with the canopy and the misshapen intake openings are much more glaringly obvious issues than that of length/proportions.

 

That matches my memory of the discussion; thanks for confirming.

 

Jon

[jpk]

I don't have Ginter's book but here are the dimensions as listed in Bert Kinzey's book.

 

F9F-2/3      Actual: 37'11.31" = 455.31"

        In 1/48 scale: 9.49"

 

F9F-4/5     Actual: 466.06" = 38.83'

            Drawing 1: 38'+10 1/2" convert to decimal?

           Drawing 2: 39'+1 1/2" 

     In 1/48 scale: 9.71"

 

In 1/48 the Trumpeter kit "should" be around 0.22" or roughly 1/4" shorter. Please check my math as I'm really not that good at it.

 

The difference between the two -4/5 drawing numbers is that the first is the length as measured from tip of nose to aft most point while the second longer one would be measured as sitting on the ground. The Monogram kit measures out at 9 & 5/8th inches. Converted to decimals, that is 9.625". So as you can see there are some differences but the books 1/48 at 9.71" and the kit's 9.625" are fairly close. I don't have the Trumpeter kit unbuilt so I can't do a measurement for comparison. 

 

If one wants to revisit the original discussion it is in the HS archives and is back in and around February 2007.  

[vgmodels62]

Ok so tell me about the Hobbycraft offering, the good the bad and the ugly

 

[Darren Roberts]

On 8/9/2018 at 5:54 PM, vgmodels62 said:

Ok so tell me about the Hobbycraft offering, the good the bad and the ugly

 

I believe the Hobbycraft kit is the same as the Trumpeter. kit.

[tko24]

I bought two of the Trumpeter F9F-2 Panther kits yesterday since deciding to build my Revell/Monogram "Golden Dragons" and the Trumpy kits. I should have them in a few days, it'll be interesting to compare the canopies side by side. I also watched "Bridges at Toko-Ri" for the first time in a long time to get psyched up for these builds. Lol I'll probably end up buying the Kitty Hawk Cougar kits as well. Has anyone here built the Fisher Models 1/32 F9F-5 Panther kit?   

[Charlie D.]

On 8/10/2018 at 4:37 PM, Darren Roberts said:

I believe the Hobbycraft kit is the same as the Trumpeter. kit.

Yes, same kit. 

[Darren Roberts]

13 hours ago, tko24 said:

I bought two of the Trumpeter F9F-2 Panther kits yesterday since deciding to build my Revell/Monogram "Golden Dragons" and the Trumpy kits. I should have them in a few days, it'll be interesting to compare the canopies side by side. I also watched "Bridges at Toko-Ri" for the first time in a long time to get psyched up for these builds. Lol I'll probably end up buying the Kitty Hawk Cougar kits as well. Has anyone here built the Fisher Models 1/32 F9F-5 Panther kit?   

I built the Cougar. If the Panther is anything like the Cougar, it's a joy to build. It's as good as an injection-molded plastic kit.

[tko24]

On 8/12/2018 at 2:14 PM, Darren Roberts said:

I built the Cougar. If the Panther is anything like the Cougar, it's a joy to build. It's as good as an injection-molded plastic kit.

Thanks, that's good to know. I've read good things about the Fisher Panther kit, but was curious if anyone on this forum had ever built any of their kits. I'll probably pull the trigger and get one, I'm also interested in their 1/32 Sea Fury kit. When I get the Trumpy Panther kit I'm going to measure the fuselage length to compare against the Revell/ Monogram kit.

[scorvi]

The 1/32 Fisher F9F Panther is probabaly the definitive Panther in ANY scale.  Accurate and nicely done.  Not a hard build for a resin kit.   Presently OOP and hard to find.

 

Steve,

 

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by scorvi

[GeneK]

Excellent build and great post, Steve.

 

Gene K

 

[scorvi]

Thanks   It was a nice build 

 

Steve

[Jon Krol]

Nicely built Steve.