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Chuck A. Villanueva
122 articles

Tamiya's 1/48th Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat,USN,WWII

June 30, 2013 · in Aviation · · 7 · 1.7K

I got this kit not long after it was first released in 1994, up until then we only had Monograms and don't recall if Otaki had one in ? Built OOB except for the decals, which were Aeromaster set #48-149C. Fun to build, just a little filler around the lower wing to fuselage join and as far as I know that was it. The model is F17 of VF8 aboard the USS Hornet CV12 as it appeared during the Battle of Midway. Flying CAP, Ens Stephen W. Groves intercepted a bomber group from IJN carrier Hiryu,shooting one down before he himself was shot down and killed. One of the unsong heroes of that day. The Wildcat is painted in Aeromaster Acrylics, USN Blue/Grey over Lt Grey. Cockpit is zinc chromate green, intermediate blue gear assy. The highlights on the scheme was taking the leftover Blue Grey and adding white making it lighter and going over some panels in the lighter shade. It turned out ok, giving some of the fading on the fabric surfaces and areas they may have been overpainted during maintenance. Really a great kit and a fun build on one of the great planes of WWII. Thanks for viewing.

Chuck

Fly Navy

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7 responses

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    said on June 30, 2013

    Great Wildcat Chuck.

  2. It looks great. Chuck, is this a recent a built!

    • Thanks George, no it was built in the mid 90's. So it is approaching 20 years on the shelf. Thinking about it, geez time does fly by. I remember clearly the excitement when Tamiya was releasing this series of WWII planes, and the Mig-15, the Fw's, Spitfires to complement the few already existing 48th scale planes that had been around for over 10 years. If I remember clearly it was a pretty wide gap.

  3. Chuck,
    Very nicely done. Great little airplane with a tremendous war record. They had an FM-2 in Atlantic colors appear at an airshow at the Hiller Museum. It has been around to numerous shows and it was real kick to see it fly. A kid about 10 said to his Dad that he had never seen one fly before. His Dad looked around and told his Son that perhaps about 90 percent of the people watching had never seen one fly either. How about an F4F series of articles like with the P-39.

    • Thanks Frank, it would be nice to see that on the Wildcat, it was an amazing series of Airacobras that was presented this past week. We see the popular Mustangs, 190's, 109's Corsairs, Spitfires. And I don't have a P-39 built yet, but I do have one. The good ole Monogram P-39. This is the only Wildcat I have. So I hope this will get some motivation. It is 10:00 am and it is already 100 here in the Inland Empire, to hot to work in the hobby shop today.

  4. Great job Chuck nice panel lines and decals are fantastic looks like they laid down nicely overall great build

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