Dear all,
this is Ens. Elbert Scott McCuskey in his F4F-3 Wildcat from USS Yorktown (CV-5) in May 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea.
It is the Trumpeter Kit with Eduard PE and self cut masks for the markings (I never have wished to own and to be able to use a plotter like here...). There are no decals for this bird and I wanted to build a Wildcat with the huge early national markings of 1942.Trumpeter kits are generally fine, as much as I can say, but this here caused me some headache. The fit of the fuselage halves and the engine compartment was quite difficult. I added a micro engine and build it with wheels retracted which is no option in the kit and might have added to the troubles I had. The kit is fine for the F4F-3 version without foldable wings and with just 4 MGs, besides of the missing strut on the wind shield which I added from scratch.The tail wheel is scratchbuild as the kit only offers the air-filled tyre for land-based Wildcats. The base is blue painted plastic sheet with Vallejo Pacific blue ocean texture. The Japanese cruiser is 3D printed from shapeways in 1:4800 or so scale (yes, I know I messed up painting the eyes of the captain!).
I hope you like it (I really had fun with it -- and there are some great SBDs, TBDs, Vindicators, Hellcats, Helldivers, TBMs, Kates, Zeros, .... around to be build
)
Best regards
Andreas