8 September 2024
Grumman F9F-8 Cougar Model
21 November 2022
Kaman UH-2A Seasprite Model
1. Introduction
1.1. Aircraft
Kaman UH-2A Seasprite
Rescue and utility shipboard helicopter (information in Wikipedia)
U.S. Navy. BuNo 149778 / HU05. HU-2 squadron.
USS Forrestal (CV-59), at sea, 1964.
1.2. Story
A UH-2A Seaprite of Utility Squadron 2 aboard the USS Forrestal supercarrier is being prepared for a routine "plane guard" mission. Flight deck crewmen begin to unfold the main rotor blades. An NC-1A mobile electrical power unit is standing by to start the Seasprite's engine later on.
1.3. Model Kit
UH-2A Seasprite from ClearProp (kit # 72002), 1:72 scale.
2. Kit Overview
The ClearProp team deserves immense praise for tackling a subject not previously "kitted" in any scale, presumably with rather limited reference material, and for bringing us a model with very good overall accuracy and commendable level of detail out-of-the-box.
Features like full cockpit interior, cabin doors presented as separate parts, well-detailed rotor heads and landing gear are noteworthy.
The quality of molding is generally good, yet the plastic is not without some glitches such as visible seam lines and slight misalignment of halves.
There are some accuracy issues, all relatively minor:
- The assortment of various antennas (bulges, blades, etc.) on the fuselage bottom is not entirely correct for the UH-2A/B variant.
- The blue of the U.S. national insignia is not accurate on the decal – it is too light.
- Incorrect or insufficient recommendations on painting / colors are given in the instruction booklet (I will address this in section 3.2 of my article).
3. Construction
3.1. Building
This is the list of enhancements that I have made to what was in the box.
Firstly, we have to address a number of minor inaccuracies of the kit:
1) The suit of antennas (bulges, raised panels, blades) on the fuselage bottom was corrected in accordance with historical photographs (such as this). I have sketched the correct configuration on a diagram given below.
2) Excessively sharp creases were smoothed on the landing gear forward fairings and along some bulges of the engine compartment.
3) Some spurious raised lines were removed from the left side of the aft fuselage.
Secondly, to get an accurately looking model you have to add a number of details – either simply too small to be molded in plastic, or just omitted in the kit:
4) The cabin interior is good out of the box, yet the webbed seats must be thinned and the area below the instrument panel needs more detailing as it is clearly visible through the lower cabin windows.
5) Several fuselage inlets and vents were cut out, with fine grilles placed over the openings where appropriate. Note that on the tail rotor shaft fairing the grilles must be vertical and not horizontal, as molded in the kit's plastic.
6) Some improvements had to be made to the landing gear wells to mask the excessively visible seams between the plastic parts that comprise the wells.
7) Brake lines were imitated on the main landing gear legs.
8) Fuel lines were added, connecting the fuel tank pylons to the fuselage.
9) Clearly seen gaps were ensured between the main rotor blades and their respective blade flaps, as it should be on a real Seasprite.
10) As usual, external lights required considerable attention. These included the following:
a) clear white navigation light and red anti-collision light on the tail rotor pylon fairing;
b) ventral anti-collision light, clear red;
c) a collection of four circular landing lights and floodlights in the lower forward fuselage, all clear white;
d) clear red and green navigation lights, teardrop shapes on small pedestals each side of the engine compartment.
11) Wire aerial was imitated. Normally it was stretched between the aft fuselage and the left horizontal stabilizer tip, but when the rotor blades were folded and their support rods were installed, it was apparently unhooked and hung along the fuselage side.
Finally, a fair amount of work was required to get the configuration that I wanted to have:
12) The early Seasprite's retractable rescue hoist is a unique feature, so I wanted to showcase it – by scratchbuilding the hoist in the deployed position, obviously. This necessitated the scratchbuilding of the interior that is left visible by the opened rescue hoist hatch, and that required way more work than the hoist itself.
13) As I intended to present my helicopter as being parked on the flight deck, the main rotor blades had to be folded, and required rotor blade support struts had to be scratchbuilt and attached.
14) The Seasprite's main rotor blades are folded and unfolded manually, and the groundcrew need access to the rotor head while doing so. To facilitate this, the engine bay side panels open as platforms. And one of these panels, on the left side, I wanted to showcase as open and ready for the rotor unfolding procedure. Which inevitable meant that I had to scratchbuild the interior, including a part of the turbine and respective driveshafts.
3.2. Painting & Markings
As a prototype for my model I wanted a colorful Seasprite – with bright Red Orange hi-viz markings – covered by at least one good and clear historical photograph, and therefore I selected the BuNo 149778 assigned to the HU-2 in 1964. Here's the photo: link.
Here are some guidelines applicable to the Engine Grey-camouflaged single-engine Seasprites:
- Interior: light bluish gray (most probably Light Ghost Gray); instrument panel: black; pilot seat cushions: orange-red; cabin webbed seats: khaki or light gray.
- Top cabin windows: clear green.
- Fuselage: Engine Grey (FS16081), with the following additional markings:
-- Wide Orange-Yellow (FS13538) band across the tail rotor pylon.
-- Between 1962 and 1965, Fluorescent Red Orange (FS28913) high-visibility markings were applied as follows: fuselage nose section, fuselage top section, tail rotor pylon (either full or from the Orange Yellow band upwards). From 1966 onwards, the Red Orange has disappeared from all "line" Seasprites (those serving in HU and HC squadrons that deployed on ships) and may have remained only on some of the shore station machines.
-- Alternating diagonal stripes in red and yellow on one or both of the horizontal stabilizer planes – from 1965 onwards, on some machines only.
-- Black anti-glare panel and "mask" around the front windows.
-- Thin white outlines around the side windows on some machines – seek reference photos for your BuNo.
- Wheel bay interior, main landing gear legs, wheel hubs: Insignia White (FS17875), most common by far, or Engine Grey – seek reference photos for your BuNo.
- Tail landing gear leg: Engine Grey.
- Antenna housings on the fuselage bottom: black, Radome Tan or Engine Grey – see my diagram for the most typical layout.
- Engine exhaust pipe: dull steel / burnt metal.
- Main rotor head and tail rotor head: Engine Grey (absolutely not "silver", as suggested by the kit's instruction).
- Main rotor blades, top: Light Gull Grey (FS36440) with aluminum leading edge separated by a very clearly seen longitudinal black stripe.
- Main rotor blades, bottom: black with aluminum leading edge.
- Tail rotor blades, from hub to tip: red band, then black, then red, white and red stripes.
- External fuel tanks: Insignia White or Engine Grey – seek reference photos for your BuNo.
It is worth noting that the U.S. Navy's Engine Grey is a "tricky" color. It looks quite differently under different lighting condition, and it appears that it also could change hue with weathering. Take a look at these historical photographs: photo 1, photo 2, photo 3, photo 4.
All these helicopters are absolutely standard and painted in the prescribed Engine Grey, although they look very differently due to lighting conditions and, possibly, due to different photographic film processing techniques.
Also note how on each of those photographs the Insignia Blue of the U.S. national insignia is invariably much darker than the Engine Grey of the helicopter fuselage. Which is as it should be – as opposed to the very light blue color that we see on the ClearProp's decal sheet (see, for example, here)
On my model, the national insignia decals came from a generic sheet by Techmod, while the rest of the markings are from generic Microscale decal sets. Only the small technical stenciling is used from the kit's decal.
Short articles in general reference books (e.g. "Illustrated Guide to Military Helicopters") and aviation magazines do exist. However, they do not usually spend more that a couple of lines on the early version of the Seasprite, concentrating instead on the SH-2F and G submarine hunters. So don't expect any service details, configuration notes, dimensions, drawings or photographs of the UH-2A/B in such books. Furthermore, you won't meet a single-engine Seasprite in any museum, and no walkaround-style photographs can be found. This is because, most probably, no single-engine Seasprites have survived: every frame was either converted to the later twin-engine version or lost in some accident.
Wikipedia article (already referenced above in section 4) offers a good overview of the Seasprite. Most of the other articles available on the Internet appear to repeat of rephrase the short excerpts from some of the general reference books, or simply to copy one another.
5.2. Like many aviation pioneers, Charles Kaman, the founder of Kaman Aircraft Corporation, strove to innovate. Although Kaman did not invent the intermeshing rotors, his helicopters utilizing this design were the first ones (and remain the only, as yet) to be in mass production and in successful operational service. As evaluation concepts, Kaman flew the world's first gas turbine powered helicopter (a modified K-225 model) and arguably the first unmanned helicopter. All of this is mentioned fairly often. But there is another innovation – not very important perhaps, but still curious – that appears to be forgotten: the Kaman UH-2A seems to be the first (and possibly the only) helicopter with a fully retractable rescue hoist (photo). Just like the retractable main landing gear, this feature was obviously incorporated to reduce drag. It did not survive for long, and the next variant of the Seasprite, the twin-engine UH-2C, was equipped with a conventional hoist, fixed externally. Yet the fact remains.
26 December 2021
Grumman XF5F-1 Skyrocket Model
1.1. Aircraft
Grumman XF5F-1 Skyrocket
Prototype carrier-based fighter (information in Wikipedia)
U.S. Navy. BuNo 1442.
Grumman factory, Bethpage, USA, 1940.
The XF5F-1 is being prepared for yet another test flight at the Grumman factory airfield. Its pilot is already in the cockpit. A ground crewman is standing by, close to the factory's improvised fire engine, a Cushman scooter.
3.1. Building
2) Landing gear legs and struts.
3) Landing gear door interior and hinges.
4) Propeller hubs.
5) Instrument panel and cockpit interior.
6) Fuselage downward-vision window.
7) Catapult bridle hooks.
8) Clear external lights, including:
a) Clear white dorsal and rear navigation lights.
b) Red and green navigation lights – two wingtip ones plus two on the upper wing surface.
c) Landing light and approach light on the starboard wing.
9) Fuselage-to-wing fillets added.
10) Rudder hinge lines revised (from straight ones to stepped ones).
11) One long side-mounted exhaust stack per engine replaced with 9 smaller exhaust stacks.
12) Small air intakes removed from the engine cowlings' lower lips.
13) This came in the form of two resin R-1820 engines from a set by QuickBoost (# 72059). I know that, technically, these engines are of the "wrong" version, but anything would be better than the sad pieces of plastic that came with the kit.
The top surface of the wing is Chrome Yellow (note that the yellow overlaps the leading edge). A careful study of historical photographs will tell you that this machine had its fuselage painted in Aluminium color and not in Naval Aircraft Grey, as prescribed by the Navy's official directives. The rest of the airframe is also Aluminium. The national insignia decals came from a generic sheet by Techmod, and the identification number decals are from various leftovers.
There is a couple of well-known historic photographs that show the XF5F-1 on the Grumman factory field, sitting on the concrete in front of a hangar, being readied for a flight. It is this setup that I decided to replicate. So my diorama base and the fragment of that hangar front face were scratch-built from sheet plastic in accordance with those photographs.
[2] Grumman XF5F-1 & XP-50 Skyrocket | Naval Fighters Series # 31 | Ginter Books, 1995.
[3] Grumman F7F Tigercat | Monografie Lotnicze Series # 1 | AJ-Press, 1991.
21 June 2021
North American T-2C Buckeye Model
6 August 2020
Vought F5U-1N Model
1.1. Aircraft
Vought F5U-1N
U.S. Marine Corps. VMF(N)-513 squadron.
Republic of Korea, 1950..51.
1.2. Story
The hypothesis behind my model (and attendant diorama) is as follows. Let us suppose that the XF5U-1 did manage to make its first flight in early 1947, before the project cancellation directive from the Navy, and its performance was sufficiently promising for the Navy to place a small order with Vought. The testing was hastened, the teething problems were addressed, and the weirdly-shaped little airplane went into serial production as the F5U-1 day- and F5U-1N night-fighter. By that time the Navy was convinced that it didn't need its escort carriers (whose shorter flight decks the F5U was intended for) anymore and was more interested in jets, but the excellent STOL characteristics of the F5U have made it appealing to the Marines, who were supposed to be able to operate from rough and inevitably short airstrips near their landing beaches. Thus (just as it was in real life with other aircraft types ordered but not really wanted by the Navy) the whole batch of produced F5Us was handed over to the Marine Corps Aviation. Once there, some found their way into the night fighter squadron 513 (VMF(N)-513), which was already operating a mix of different types, and then went on to serve in the Korean War.
My small diorama shows a VMF(N)-513 machine waiting for some maintenance on a field base somewhere in the Republic of Korea.
1.3. Model Kit
XF5U-1 from Hasegawa (kit # 51563 / SP63), 1:72 scale.
2. Kit Overview
My detailed review of this kit is available here.
3. Construction
3.1. Building
1) The kit's landing gear wells are too shallow: the wheels do not fit inside. Therefore all three wheel wells were deepened.
2) Landing gear legs got better detailing: oleos, brake lines (thin wire), scissor links and tie-down rings (photo-etched metal).
3) Main wheels hubs were replaced with custom-made PE metal item for better accuracy.
4) Engine cooling air exit flaps, scratch-built from metal foil, are modelled in the open position.
5) Prominent balance weights on the elevons (which Vought called "ailavators") were scratch-built, as the kit's items are too thick scale-wise.
6) Scratch-built elevon trim tab hinges and actuators from thin metal replaced the kit't overly thick items.
7) Ventral wire aerial was imitated, as usual, with stretched plastic.
8) Clear external lights added, including:
a) Clear white dorsal, ventral and rear navigation lights.
b) Red and green navigation lights on the port and starboard elevons.
c) Circular blue formation lights on both elevons, upper and lower sides.
Secondly, some guesswork is inevitably required to detail those areas for which no historical photographs are available:
9) A number of "guessworked" details were added to the landing gear well interior, including the landing gear door actuators.
10) I have fashioned the cockpit interior using some "quotes" from another Vought product – the F4U-5N Corsair. As for the instrument panel, I have designed it basing on the drawings from source [2], and had it custom-made in photo-etched metal.
Lastly, I've made a number of modification to make the model look like a hypothetical operational fighter:
11) Scratch-built pilot ejection seat was added to the cockpit; its design was inspired by the Vought ejection seat installed in their F6U-1 Pirate (see more on my rationale in the Notes section).
12) Vought's initial design provided for a fixed armament of either six 12.7mm machine guns or four 20mm guns. Considering the armament of the Navy's other front-line fighters of the period, the operational F5U would have certainly had the 20mm cannons, not the machine guns. I have installed the barrels made of thin syringe tubes, but – being in deep recesses – they are not visible on the finished model.
13) Obviously, a gunsight was also needed. I have scratch-built one, again taking the F4U-5N Corsair as a reference.
14) Vought's design provided for two hard points under the central fuselage. I decided that my model will carry one standard 150 gallon external fuel tank. The basic plastic parts were "donated" by the ancient Bearcat kit from Novo, and then some scratch-built details were added to make the tank more accurate.
15) Another hard point on my model is occupied by the AN/APS-4 radar pod (see more on my rationale in the Notes section). This item I had to create from scratch.
16) I don't think that the clear nose cone, seen on the XF5U-1 prototype, is functional; it does not make much sense on an operational fighter. So I had it painted over, with clear windows left for the landing light and the gun camera that were housed under the nose cone according to sources [2] & [3].
This is the first model where I have, mostly for the sake of amusement, counted all of the parts. Here is the result:
- The Hasegawa kit contained 75 parts, of which I have used 45.
- 6 photo-etched metal items were custom-made for this model.
- Another 57 parts were obtained from my box of spares; this mostly included various small items from surplus photo-etched metal detail sets, but also some unused plastic parts from my old model kits.
- Conversely, only 2 parts from ready-made aftermarket sets have found their way into this model (clear navigation lights).
- Finally, a total of 186 parts were entirely scratch-made, using plastic, metal wire, metal foil and paper.
This gives the grand total of 296.
The camouflage scheme is straightforward: for the period, it is Sea Blue overall. However, as we do not know how the various internal areas of a hypothetical operational F5U would have been painted, I decided to use the its stablemate, the Vought F4U-5 Corsair, as an analogy: these birds would have been is service during more or less the same timeframe. Therefore, on my model,
- Instrument panel and side consoles are flat black.
- Cockpit interior (including the area beneath the canopy), landing gear well interior and landing gear door inner sides are Interior Green.
- Landing gear legs and wheel hubs are Sea Blue.
Photographs of VMF(N)-513 F4U-5Ns helped me to define the set of markings and their fonts. But considering the F5U's unconventional shape, the placement of markings is, of course, different. In this case, a much later Vought F7U-3 Cutlass could serve as a partial analogy: just as the F5U, it did not have anything in the way of aft fuselage sides, and so the service name and the squadron designation went onto the vertical stabilizers below the tail codes, while the Bureau number and aircraft type text block was put onto the forward fuselage.
All of my markings decals were custom-printed, while the national insignia decals came from a generic decal sheet produced by Techmod.
3.3. Presentation
1) My small diorama is intended to replicate a fragment of the pierced-steel planking (PSP) airfield surface, typical for the U.S. air bases in the Republic of Korea. The base came from Eduard and was trimmed a little bit.
2) I have added several ground support equipment items, the presence of which on the Marine Corps air bases in the theater is confirmed by historical photographs. These include a manually operated maintenance crane, a maintenance platform, wheel chocks, a tool box and a fire extinguisher. The fire extinguisher comes from Aires/AeroBonus (set #720013); the rest of the items I have designed myself and had them custom-made in photo-etched metal.
3) The ground crewmen figures came from Hasegawa (set #X72-6) and Matchbox (from their old P-70 kit).
4. Reference Data
[1] Basic information on the XF5U in Wikipedia: link
[2] Chance-Vought V-173 and XF5U-1 Flying Pancakes | Naval Fighters Series # 21 | Ginter Books, 1992
[3] XF5U-1 Illustrated Assembly Breakdown | Chance Vought Aircraft, 1945
[4] I do not pretend to author the idea of giving a hypothetical operational F5U to the Marines of the VMF(N)-513: this model build article has served as an inspiration.
5. Notes
5.1. The XF5U-1 had a conventional pilot seat, and that was acceptable for a prototype. For an operational F5U, however, an ejection seat would have been a must: given the F5U's peculiar shape, the pilot would have had practically no chance to survive a conventional egress in an emergency. In the late 1940s, many aircraft manufacturers worked on their own variants of ejection seats (here's a reminder: the first ever aircraft equipped with an ejection seat, the Heinkel He 280, flew in September 1940, and the first operational aircraft to have an ejection seat, the Heinkel He 219, entered service in 1943), and Vought was no exception: their F6U Pirate jet fighter, first flown in October 1946, had a Vought-designed ejection seat. I hypothesized that the operational F5U, as it would have been in development during the same timeframe as the Pirate, would have had a similar ejection seat.
5.2. Since the later half of the World War II and until the mid-1950s the externally mounted AN/APS-4 radar pod was seen on many Naval aircraft types. These include F6F-3E and -5E Hellcat; TBM-3 Avenger (-3E, -3N, -3Q, -3S variants); SB2C-3..-5 Helldiver; SC-1 Seahawk; AM-1 Mauler and AD-1...4 Skyraider. Obviously, this radar pod was very adaptable, and it was in considerable demand in the years before the widespread adoption of internally mounted radars. There are also enough photographs to confirm that the AN/APS-4 was used operationally on the AD Skyraider during the Korean War. Therefore, I saw no reason why my hypothetical operational F5U-1N couldn't be equipped with this radar pod.
Interestingly, on many aircraft of the types I am listing above the radar pods were white, even though the airframes themselves were Sea Blue overall. On my model I am replicating this painting curiosity as well.
When building my model, I had hopes to source the radar pod from some of the old kits in my possession. This didn't work, though: while two of my old kits – the Airfix SB2C Helldiver and the Ace AM-1 Mauler – did have the pod, both of the items in question were oversized. Thus I had to resort to scratch-building.
5.3. Just as most aircraft do, the weird-shaped Vought F5U has a collection of external lights: the navigation lights, the position / formation lights and the landing light. And, as it is customary with practically all aircraft kits in the 1:72 scale, the model kit manufacturer provides no clear parts to imitate the said lights. For a long time, the "common wisdom" of scale aircraft modelling has been to paint the respective areas of the plastic parts clear red or clear green over silver and leave it at that. But to me, this approach is unsatisfactory: whatever the paint color, a solid piece of plastic will never be a realistic imitation of transparent plexiglas cap that covers a lighting fixture. Therefore, I always try to take the trouble to scratch-build (or source, if appropriate aftermarket items can be found) the transparent shapes to imitate the lights. I think that this small selection of photo fragments of my previous models gives a decent proof that it's worth the effort.