Vought F4U-4 Corsair, Hasegawa 1/48
May 21, 2017 in Aviation
First completed build of the year. It wasn’t supposed to take this long! Having pulled this one out of the stash last November thinking it would be a quick build, I wasn’t expecting life to intervene as much as it did.
This is the old Hasegawa kit with a True details cockpit and exhaust stacks fabricated from small pieces of brass tubing. The cockpit is a major improvement over the kit offering and was well worth the investment. Kit went together very well with minimal filler needed. The only problem I ran into was the kit decals, which carried the markings I wanted for VMF-323, the Death Rattlers, operating in Korea. Unfortunately, the decals decided not to cooperate, first not wanting to come off the backing, then disintegrating when they did come off. Finally found a set on evil bay that came from an old Mongram offering that worked just fine after an application of Microscale decal film and a lot of Solvaset. Paint is Model Master dark sea blue weathered by drybrushing and light washes. I had intended to hang a napalm tank and 500-pound bomb underneath, but I liked the clean look better , so I left it unladen. The Death Rattlers squadron patch was given to me by a pilot friend who I met while working on a Corsair restoration a few years back. He flew with the squadron in Viet Nam.
Hopefully, the next one won’t take so long.
10 additional images. Click to enlarge
Drew Tarter on May 21, 2017
Terrific work on your Corsair, Jaime!
Joe Caputo on May 21, 2017
Beautiful ! All those lessons are paying off ! Congrats, Jaime !
Craig Abrahamson on May 21, 2017
Nice build, Jamie….a scheme we don’t often see (love that “nose art”).
Louis Gardner on May 21, 2017
Looks fantastic Jaime !!!! Having the patch is even better …….. Awesome buddy.
Louis Gardner on May 21, 2017
I plane on building a few Corsairs later on this year, providing that nothing happens or gets in the way. Like you, I like the way the F4U looks when it’s clean. My Dad was a Korean War vet and he told me several times later in his life that he watched these planes drop their ordnance right on the intended target and that the Corsair pilots were very good. He also added that he has seen these planes fly so heavily loaded with underwing stores that he was surprised that they could remain airborne. He said they “looked as if they would fall out of the sky since they were flying so slow”. One last comment he made about them was that when they were fully loaded, the F4U looked like it would be lucky to fly at a top speed of what he guessed would be around 250 MPH or so.
Thanks for building a Korean War F4U. You don’t see them build as often, which is a shame considering what they did for our grunts………………
Jaime Carreon on May 22, 2017
Korea is often forgotten by many. Doing research for this build piqued my interest enough to want to do another Korea build, possibly a Skyraider or an F-84…
Louis Gardner on May 23, 2017
I have been thinking about building a few Korean War Corsairs too. Possibly a Panther jet as well.
Robert Royes on May 21, 2017
Excellent Corsair! Marine Air are definitely experts at close air support. Did the pilot you know fly F-4’s?
Jaime Carreon on May 22, 2017
He flew F-8 Crusaders and the F-4. The squadron still exists today flying FA-18’s….
Morne Meyer on May 22, 2017
Fantastic!! You did an amazing job on this one!!! Subtle weathering and stunning paint finish makes this Corsair stand out!!!
Gary Brantley on May 22, 2017
Very nice indeed Jaime! Beauty mate. 🙂
Marvin Reyes on May 22, 2017
Jaime: that old Corsair kit never looked better. You did a terrific job on it.
Jim Sullivan on May 22, 2017
Hello Jaime…Always good to see a nicely done Corsair. You did a fine job of building that old Hasegawa kit. The nose trim with the rattler certainly grabs your attention. Well done.
Greg Kittinger on May 22, 2017
Great job! Just when you think you’ve run out of interesting schemes to apply to a Corsair – you see another one like this! I may need to add another to the stash…
Terry Schuler on May 22, 2017
Jaime, good looking Corsair, I have to admit I never really cared for the rattle snake art work on these, however, the well done model you’ve done here makes it look good. Well done !
George Williams on May 22, 2017
We see so many very weathered Corsairs (and very good they are, too) it makes a nice change to see a fairly clean one, it makes for a very attractive model, great history as well.