Airfix A19004 Grumman F6-F5 Hellcat

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The next edition of Workbench is due to be published on Friday 7th June, when we will have more news and modelling features from the fascinating world of Airfix. Great instructions, although there are a few errors in Step 140 and 141. F24 is F28, F25 is F29 and F37 is F41 A very large box arrived at my front door, and an equally large colorful box was extracted. It is the same size as the Airfix 1/24 Typhoon box. I couldn’t wait to slice through the tape securing the box lid to examine the contents!

The last photo is at an angle showing the oil lines into the firewall just left of the air intake I had such difficulty in locating earlier. Thanks to Craig’s help, I think we sorted them out correctly now. The rather aggressive scheme carried by F6F-5 Hellcat ‘White 7’, which was selected by Paramjit for his second Hellcat build, is a VF-27 aircraft, which made a significant contribution during the Battle of Leyte Gulf on 24th October 1944. ‘Paper Doll’ was the usual mount of Ensign Robert ‘Bob’ Burnell, but on this fateful day, it was being flown by Lt. Carl A Brown Jr. from the US carrier Princeton, known to all who served on her as ‘Sweet P’. After taking part in effective air strikes against targets in Formosa earlier the same month, USS Princeton was part of Task Force 38.3 and VF-27 were engaged in heavy fighting with large numbers of Japanese aircraft. Determined to prevent the enemy strike planes from reaching the Task Force, the pilots of VF-27 fought heroically against superior numbers and during the ensuing dogfights, no fewer than 36 Japanese aircraft were destroyed at their hand. Astonishingly, during this fighting, five VF-27 pilots achieved the status of ‘Ace in a day’, with five aerial victories to their name, one of which was Lt. Carl A Brown Jr., who claimed five destroyed and one badly damaged during a frenetic few minutes of combat. Unfortunately, his aircraft sustained significant damage during these actions and he himself had been wounded by shrapnel, a situation made all the worse when he noticed four Zeros on his tail, all lining up for an easy victory. He immediately pushed the control column forward and entered a tight turning dive, in one final attempt to shake off his pursuers, which miraculously worked – despite the damage to his aircraft, the manoeuvre could not be matched by the Zeros, who were later engaged by other US Navy Hellcat pilots. I ignored steps 44 to 51 as these pertain to building the aircraft in flight with the wheels up. However, in step 46 the main wheels are assembled for all versions. The hubs look great, but the tires could have better crosshatch tread detail. After joining the two tire halves together and dealing with the seam, I used my razor saw to reinstate the lost or soft tread pattern.For such a significant project as the Hellcat, our lead researcher arranged to scan a preserved example of the F6F-5 variant of the aircraft, at a museum in North America Thats it for now.............more to come..............thinking I have lots of 'free time' due to the current corona situation The history of Grumman’s F6F Hellcat fighter has been discussed and rediscussed now for decades, and launching into a detailed history of this big, tough fighter is redundant here, other than to say that the Hellcat, along with the Vought F4U Corsair helped the Allies finally gain complete air superiority over Japan’s much vaunted A6M fighters. In another exclusive first for the Workbench blog, this next series of images feature all the component frames which make up the new 1/24th scale Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat kit

The replacement tyres from Aerocraft are cast in one piece with no centreline cleanup required. They will simply be fitted to the kit's plastic hubs. This fuselage ‘slice’ image shows the correct placement of components which will all need additional attention as the project progresses On the market for 80 years now, the Airfix brand has been one of the leaders in modeling in Great Britain. It is none other than the oldest manufacturer of plastic model kits. The British company was founded in 1939 by Nicholas Kove,a Hungarian businessman. In the early days, Airfix only manufactured inflatable rubber toys.Another view of Paramjit’s latest impressive Hellcat build, featuring the scheme worn by Lt. Carl A Brown Jr. when he downed five Japanese Zeros in the same sortie, to gain the coveted ‘Ace in a day’ status According to the paint instructions the sliding part of the canopy is a single colour slate grey and doesn't follow the airframe camouflage.

This scan image shows the Hellcat displayed with one wing in its stowed position and several of the access panels removed

Who is the manufacturer Airfix and what are its specificities?

Going to be doing it in the "Operation SUNFISH" scheme, (only just because I think the other schemes look less interesting, just being blue [;)]) Exploded view of the engine assembly detail, which would almost make an attractive model display in its own right There are a lot of parts and detail that will never be seen again unless you open up extra panels, etc. (eg. Behind the seat radio and tanks) The instructions should alert to this, before you put in a lot of wasted effort This next series of images help to illustrate how Chris developed this Hellcat fuselage side piece from the basic, accurate shape, gradually building up ‘layers’ of additional surface detail