Grumman F-4 “Wildcat”

Le Wildcat fut le premier monoplan de la firme Grumman. Il avait été conçu en 1935, en même temps qu’un biplan qui possédait déjà un système de roues escamotables dans le fuselage. Le Wildcat fut livré à la RAF à partir de 1941, où il reçut le nom de Martlett. Malheureusement, lors de l’attaque japonaise contre Pearl-Harbour, l’aviation américaine ne disposait que de quelques appareils de ce type, si bien qu’au début de la guerre du Pacifique, ils furent heureux de pouvoir se servir, dans les Philippines, de vieux chasseurs Boeing P-26, à train fixe. Le Wildcat, qui fut opposé au Zéro japonais, eut beaucoup de mal à s’imposer à ce diable de chasseur. Les pilotes américains avaient beau chercher toujours la rencontre dans le plan vertical, ils n’en essuyaient pas moins des pertes sévères. Il leur fallut étudier une technique particulière de combat, dont la mise au point coûta bien des vies humaines. Le Wildcat resta néanmoins en activité jusqu’à la bataille des îles Salomon et de Guadalcanal pour être relevé finalement par le Grumman Hellcat et par d’autres appareils de performances plus brillantes. Le Grumman Wildcat avait été conçu pour effectuer d’éventuels amerrissages forcés en pleine mer. C’est pourquoi ses ailes avaient été remontées au centre du fuselage afin de permettre à ce dernier de faire l’office de coque.

 

Caractéristiques : Envergure : 11,6 m. – Longueur : 8,5 m. – Moteur : F4F-4 : 1 moteur Pratt et Witney R-1830 de 1.200 C.V. – F4F-7 : 1 moteur Wright ” Cyclone ” R-1.820 de 1.200 C.V. – Armement : F4F-4 : 4 mitrailleuses de 12,7 mm. – F4F-3 et F4F-7 : 6 mitrailleuses de 12,7 mm. – Vitesse maximum : F4F-3 et F4F-4 : 531 km/h. – F4F-7 : 523 km/h.

Given that there are 60 entries in my Voir et Savoir project, I never really expected that I would build them in numerical order.  After all, they’re more or less a jumble of fighters and bombers, from all the axis and allied powers, organized primarily by the year they first saw action.  However, I didn’t really expect to start with the Grumman F4F “Wildcat” either.  So what was the deciding factors?  You guessed it, price and availability.

Academy’s slightly old offering might not match up to the newer Airfix kit in terms of details and engineering, but finding a bunch on the shelf for around $3 each made them too attractive and offer to pass up.

At first I couldn’t decide if I wanted to try to build them with the wings folded or not.  Of course the Academy kit doesn’t offer that as an option, but that’s never stopped me before.  The main problem was that the Voir et Savoir kit is show wings extended in full flight, so it seemed somehow “wrong” to build it drastically different.

In the end, I decide to compromise and just build two kits simultaneously.  I didn’t really need a reason other than I wanted to, but the excuse I gave myself (not that I really needed that either) was that the folded wings version would be part of my Area 88 project.   As such, a few of the images in the gallery below are actually from my “reinterpretation” of the jets featured in the Area 88 manga as WWII-era propellor planes – in specific the F4F-4 “Boris”.  Other than the folded wings, I basically did the same thing to both planes in terms of add-ons, so the pics are largely interchangeable.

Given how cheap the kits were, I decided to take a few chances with this dual build.  Besides chopping the wings off the “Boris” to be able to fold them, I also scratchbuilt the entire wheel well assembly… and even though I said I wasn’t going to, given the really limited view of the inside, I decided to spend some quality time scratch building the cockpit as well.

What really stands out for me on this duo-build was the fact that it was the first (semi) successful implementation I’ve ever done using the “hairspray” weathering technique.  If you’re not familiar with it, you basically lay down a base coat of bare metal (in this case Tamiya XF-16 Aluminium) and then cover it with a coat of hairspray (the cheaper the better!).  Then you paint your top coat of camouflage on top and once it’s all dry, you carefully chip away at the paint using a cotton swab or a brush.  The hairspray coat dissolves in the water and destabilizes the paint that’s sitting on top of it.

I have more to say about it over on the Area 88 F4F-4 “Boris” entry, but for this side of the build I was quite happy.  Less is more as they say, and I did end up taking off a bit more of the paint than I intended, but it’s on the light underside and much less noticeable.

At least that’s my opinion.  Feel free to tell me what you think though.