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Chance Vought XF5U-1 - Kitty Hawk


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"And now for something completely different..." You have paper panzers and Luft '46. Why not BuAer '46?
 
This is Kitty Hawk's 1/48 scale Chance Vought XF5U-1 done up as if it was serving on the Hornet, CV-12 and the invasion of the home islands was underway.
 
This was meant to be a fun build where I didn't need to stress about accuracy or perfection. As Kitty Hawk kits go, it's not bad, but it certainly still has the KH "aroma" (sprue gates badly located, odd part breakdown, fit was difficult in places, awkwardly placed surface detail, canopy a bit wavy, iffy instructions, etc.).
 
I blocked off the gun ports from behind with semi circles of laminated Evergreen and added hypo tubing .50s. I didn't like the bombs from the kit so I modded the racks for 75 gallon drop tanks from the spares box. I also had to get busy with Evergreen to close up the arresting gear doors as the kit parts would be really "gappy." Serials and nose art are from a Yellowhammer Corsair decal sheet. Tail markings and walkways are painted.
 
I was well into the build and had already put down the sea blue, and felt that this thing would look better in-flight. So I cut a leftover resin pouring block and epoxied it into the tail wheel well and had at it with K&S brass tubing and rod. It couldn't be posed in-flight with an empty cockpit, so I pulled my Monogram Devastator pilot out of the spares box. He was originally painted with Pactra square bottle enamels (the textured plastic ones) when I was probably 10 or 11 years old. After some amputation, reposing, pegging, putty and re-painting I was able to get him in the cockpit (h/t to Shepard Paine).
 
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On 4/17/2021 at 8:41 AM, dekon70 said:

Very nice!  I have the same kit and am thinking of doing it in the grey and white scheme with maybe a reserve band around it.

That sounds cool!  It was fun deciding which tail symbols I was going to choose for it even though at this fictional point in the war the USN would've been using letter codes on the tail. But where's the fun in that?

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9 hours ago, southwestforests said:

That head on view, yes!

😎

Hmm, so just how, exactly, would such a thing be painted in the yellow wings era livery & what tail parts would get painted the carrier color?

Google the Vought V-173; that's what it would look like in "Yellow Wings".  The vertical stabs and the horizontal stabs extending from the disk would get the carrier colors.  The section colors, I don't know how that would be handled...

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