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Kitty Hawk 1/48 F9F-8 Cougar....


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This kit is beating the crap out of me... What a turd for fit.... I got it from a friend and I fear it will send the rest of my life on the shelf of doom or thrown very hard into the nearest concrete wall... 

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On 2/20/2021 at 12:23 AM, CreepyGuy said:

This kit is beating the crap out of me... What a turd for fit.... I got it from a friend and I fear it will send the rest of my life on the shelf of doom or thrown very hard into the nearest concrete wall... 

I made the mistake of building one after making the Tamiya Tomcat. Big mistake. Keep fighting it!

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Just out of curiosity, what's wrong with it? Like Paul, I too am mainly a 1/72 builder but some 1/48 & 1/32 kits have been known to catch my eye once in a while and the Kittyhawk Cougar is one of them.  Liked the boxart and thought of pulling the trigger to buy & build that one.  Any glaring inaccuracies or things to look out for?

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Kitty Hawk has a tendency to over engineer their kits. Combine that with some interesting solutions to a build like the wing fold on the Cougars. Just strange.  However, I find their kits a bit of a challenge but overall can produce a really nice looking kit with modeling skills applied. They get a lot of props for their 1/35 and 1/48 helicopter kits. I haven't heard too many complaints on their military vehicle kits either. They are certainly not Tamiya. KH designs their kits with details that Tamiya just would not include or just simplify as much as possible. 

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On 2/21/2021 at 4:08 AM, JackMan said:

Just out of curiosity, what's wrong with it? Like Paul, I too am mainly a 1/72 builder but some 1/48 & 1/32 kits have been known to catch my eye once in a while and the Kittyhawk Cougar is one of them.  Liked the boxart and thought of pulling the trigger to buy & build that one.  Any glaring inaccuracies or things to look out for?

The one real issue with the Cougar is the nose gear strut. The oleo is too short. An easy fix or use a strut from the Monogram F9F Panther.

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2 minutes ago, Paul Boyer said:

Forgot about that. Yes, I fixed mine by replacing the oleo with a longer piece of SS tubing.

I have a doner Panther so I will use that part. I personally really like their Cougars. They are not perfect but they are pretty much correct overall. I may be an outlier but I even like their Banshee. The Michael Rieth correction set pretty much takes care of the most glaring issues with the kit being the intakes.  

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6 hours ago, CreepyGuy said:

I have put it back on the shelf of doom... I have great Furball decals for it... and I want it to be done, but I have no interest in building it right now because it is fighting me...

 

It does test patience. But it does look good finished and on the shelf.  I think it must be an early effort by KH, I remember the sprue trees being the thickest I have ever seen in a kit like a limited run thing. The newer KH Flankers I've built are pretty good. 

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5 hours ago, paulsbrown said:

It does test patience. But it does look good finished and on the shelf.  I think it must be an early effort by KH, I remember the sprue trees being the thickest I have ever seen in a kit like a limited run thing. The newer KH Flankers I've built are pretty good. 

Yes, their sprues were quite thick. If IRC the Cougs were their second and third 1/48 kits released after their F-94 Starfire. I recall having a conversation with the then Kitty Hawk rep at the Orlando Nationals in 2012. The Starfire was their only kit out then. He told me they were going to release two USN 50's jet kits. I asked if one was going to be a Tiger and he said no. I was disappointed but glad they didn't in retrospect. I think their kits have improved quite a bit since. The Coug sprues are very thick but I think the kits are fairly accurate if somewhat overly complex. However in their defense they chopped up the fuselage to produce the two versions with a minimum of having to create totally new molds. They are not the only manufacturers to do that.  

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I try to be working on a couple of "great fitting" and a couple of "lousy fitting" models at the same time to keep the hard to build ones off the shelf of doom.  

 

I was thinking the Cougar would be my next ill-fitting kit in rotation.  Is there a guide to assembly to minimize the worst of the problems?

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3 hours ago, kozlok said:

I try to be working on a couple of "great fitting" and a couple of "lousy fitting" models at the same time to keep the hard to build ones off the shelf of doom.  

 

I was thinking the Cougar would be my next ill-fitting kit in rotation.  Is there a guide to assembly to minimize the worst of the problems?

I do the same thing... but kits like this keep me humble!!!!

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I have only started to assemble the two seat Coug. I do have both the two seat and single seat Cougs. I'm not very far along as I have other kits I would rather be doing right now. However, I did test assemble the aft fuselage halves. I then assembled the mid fuselage part to the aft assembly. Take care to align the seams. I used shim plastic inside the seam to give more surface reinforcement to the joint. If you take your time, test fit you will have a pretty good joint. The fillet along the mid fuselage part will need a little filler but nothing drastic. If I recall you will need to trim a couple of the tabs that slot into the fillet. That is as far as I have gotten because I wanted to see how well this area assembled. I think the kit is actually quite nice. Certainly far better than what existed before in 1/48. I would say just test fit and adjust before applying glue. 

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On 2/19/2021 at 7:23 PM, CreepyGuy said:

This kit is beating the crap out of me... What a turd for fit.... I got it from a friend and I fear it will send the rest of my life on the shelf of doom or thrown very hard into the nearest concrete wall... 

Want to sell it?

Bob in Louisville

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  • 2 months later...
On 3/13/2021 at 1:23 AM, paulsbrown said:

Considering that those are designed for the Trumpeter F9F-2 Panther, they may not even fit the Kitty Hawk Cougar. An expensive "experiment".

Plus, it looks like it would just be "Putting lipstick on a pig", IMHO.

Larry

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43 minutes ago, Sabrejet said:

Being reported on Facebook that KH is closing down. Time to get some F9Fs in?

I bet that "second-hand-market" kit prices will surge as people try to take advantage of the expected panic buying. :hmmm:

I will just have to "make do" with the 9 1/48 & 3 1/32 Kitty Hawk kits I have in my stash.

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On 2/20/2021 at 1:23 AM, CreepyGuy said:

This kit is beating the crap out of me... What a turd for fit.... I got it from a friend and I fear it will send the rest of my life on the shelf of doom or thrown very hard into the nearest concrete wall... 

Just call me ‘unbuildable’.

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