Louis, you have a deal!
I have the HobbyBoss 1/48 F6F-3 in the stash, and would love to build one of those Fighting 27 Hellcats with the big cat's mouth on the cowl. I know they used the drive the brass crazy with their 'non regulation' colours. It'd also do me good to get out of 1/32 for a spell and this is just the challenge I need.
Just let me know when you are ready!

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

I just finished with adding most of the decals on this one. I decided to go with "6-F-5" on this one. It should look pretty cool sitting next the my TBD Devastator "6-T-6" in Yellow Wings colors.

I'll be painting the red stripes on the rudder since most of the time I don't have good luck with decals in this area.

What do you think of this one so far ? Is it starting to look like the Wildcat in the very fore ground of the picture that Rob was kind enough to share with us ?

If you look close in the original colorized picture, they only had the number 5 painted on the upper Starboard wing, instead of both sides like it's normally found. Maybe at this point in time they had not yet had time to paint the other number on top of the Port wing ?

Where the armorers working on the Starboard wing ... It looks like the "Chief" is almost sitting on top of it. He has most of the number 5 covered...

You will see that the US National insignia is located farther outboard on the wing, just like it is in the farthest away F4F which is "6-F-2". The middle plane has the US Star Insignia located more centered on the inner aileron / wing parting line... It only has "F-3" instead of "6-F-3" ... amazing little details can be picked up from original photographs. It looks like the Enterprise didn't use hyphens ( - ) to separate the letters and numbers on the sides of the fuselage on Fighting 6's F4F's at this time like other US Carriers did.

Calling it a day. Comments are encouraged. Thanks for following along so far.

You do good work, my friend...!

Thanks gentlemen for the compliments.

I finally decided on which plane to build the second F4F as. It was determined by the decals that I had leftover from previous builds.

Looks like Joe Foss, from the " Cactus Air Force" on Guadalcanal.

Black 53.

Here's how the two planes look side by side.

There's still a lot more work to be done on these, especially the Foss plane. It's really going to be weathered and dirty since it flew from a harsh field.

Calling it a night.

Enjoy and comments are encouraged.

...maybe Butch O'Hare's bird...

I don't know - Louis, give me an idea!

Thanks for the compliments gentlemen... Life has been getting in the way of building over the last few days... Please stay tuned.

David,

Flash Gordon's plane would be cool, a very good choice.

I have a few ideas that I wanted to build my next few F6F's as... Here's what I have been thinking about.

1 Payne's #13, VF-16 from the Lexington I definitely will build this one.

2 I found a photo from a F6F that made a wheels up crash landing at the local airport, back when it was called Daytona Beach Naval Air Station during WW2. It's number #33 I definitely will build this one too. Our local area here was home to numerous Naval Air Stations. Many Naval and USMC pilots were trained here during the War. Near Orlando was quite a few US Army Airfields. The same thing happened there with Army Air Force training. I'll bet the sky was filled with quite a few planes here locally during that time...

or another local crash

or even a FAA F6F. Here's a nice one built by a fellow Imodeler I definitely will build one like it. I have a FAA decal sheet with a few US Naval planes in FAA service.

Grumman Hellcat 1 – No 800 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm (Royal Navy) – 1/32

The Post War Navy drones were colorful too... I definitely will build since I have a decal sheet with nothing but drones on it... I also have this exact Hasegawa kit of a F6F-5K drone from Guantanamo Bay as a target tow plane. I definitely will build soon. and a decal sheet for the "Blue Angels" F6F's. They used the Hellcat first before any other plane. I definitely will build sometime. But honestly the photo you provided with the patched up "O'Hare" F6F looks pretty cool ! What about a "Night Fighter" F6F-5(N) ? These are just some ideas...Hope this helps. I have a "Minsi III", in my collection. The overall Gloss Sea Blue really looks good on any F6F. I say go for any of them. As soon as the Midway Group Build is over with, I'm going to fire up the assembly line and crank out a few Hellcats... 2-4 of them ? I have 6 or 7 in my stash, all 1/48 scale along with a few wing fold sets for them.

Thanks for the photos and ideas, Louis. I'm definitely going to take a lead from you and make at least two cats. It's a great idea to get an assembly line going and save time with construction and painting. Any time I've had multiple builds going on before, it's been different subjects - which has meant twice as many paints, research material around the bench, and generally more all round effort.