Ira Kepford’s VF-17 F4U Corsair
I found a couple of old pics of the Corsair model that I built from the Revell 1/32 kit with that beautiful box art, I think by Jack Leynwood. This is one of those models I started in the City, and finished in the country! Many years ago.
This was Ira Kepford's bird with Tommy Blackburn's squadron, VF-17, the Jolly Rogers. I actually sent Blackburn some pics of it back then. He sent back to me, and I remember he told me that Kepford had passed away.
Shame on me, but, you know, I couldn't really live forever with those main gear doors, which I tried to do a kind of “faux painting” on the interior, to simulate the various raised (and depressed) panels, because I don't think there was any detail on them. Funny, because I seem to remember that I scratch built the main gear wells. Not to mention the scratch built cockpit (learned that the Corsair didn't have any bottom floor in the cockpit). And the canted fin, just the right amount, that was courtesy of good old Revell. But those gear doors soured me (don't know why I didn't try to do some scratch build on them!), so I don't have the model anymore, just these 3 photos.
I have always liked the F4U Corsair, and always compared it with the Hawker Typhoon and Tempest, these are more “heavy” fighters than the P-51 and Spitfire. And a very distinctive design, with its inverted gull wing, kind of graceful, in spite of its size. Even did a painting of a -2N Marine night fighter, in the South Pacific, which is one of my favorite paintings.
