Grumman Tigercat F7F-2D (1/48 AMT Ertl F7 2N – conversion)
Drone control Tigercats served the fleet along and well, their excellent performance continuing to give them capability to work with with newer hight-performance target drones as they entered service in early 1950s. on December 1956, the Chief Officer Of Naval Operation authorized retirement of all F7F-2Ds, but directed that support for those still in service could be continued until September 1957 (squadron signal publication - F7F Tigercat).
When I read the story of Tigercat on Squadron Signal book I was fascinated by by the silouette of the F7F-2D and i dreamed to build one. No aftermarket was available but Falcon gives an excellent F8fF Bearcat canopy and that's all you need to modify a F7F - 2N (if you have one) . So my dear friend Luca Monaci gave me one that was in his stash at the end of 2017 and the project started at the beginning of 2018.
During the modification of fuselage the canopy seemed to be too long looking at the pictures and I wasn't able to find technical draws or explanations to solve the problem.
Once more squadron signal has the solution but I had to read it over and over until I found these few words in the caption of the photo of the plane that wanted to reproduce :"... In this view the details of the modified F8F canopy ..." So the canopy too was modified.
And so i did this way...
I think that it is very amusing to build a very good model Out of the box, but I have a lot of fun when I can realize something that still not exist or at least not completely. I want to thank Luca for his continuous encouragement and appreciation.
14 additional images. Click to enlarge.
Beautiful work. I love the tigercat as my favorite of the Grumman cats.
Thank you Michael.
That is one unique version of the Tigercat. One of my favorite Grumman cats as well in the WWII/Korean War era. Excellent conversion. Well done and thanks for sharing.
Thank you Chuck 🙂
Excellent work, not an easy conversion despite its apparent simplicity. The drone painting is very appealing also,
Thank you Pedro actually it was not easy but gave me a lot of funny time
The quality of your photography is excellent and so is the quality of the model, including the conversion to a "2 seater." You have inspired me to send in my F7F model which I built many year's ago. Again thanks for posting an unusual model.
Rodney
Beautiful aircraft on which you made a very successful conversion. The result is very satisfactory.
Thank you Rodney . I was not very satisfied about my photography now I feel better. 🙂 even I'ld like to improve my skill.
Wonderful work. Special build.
thank you Bob
Love it! That makes a totally cool conversion - I may have to do the same in 1/72 now that I've seen this. And the drone controller scheme really pops on the usually bland Tigercat. I presume after you built up the fuselage sides under the 2nd canopy, you used putty to fill in and shape? Also be interested to know if you actually modified the canopy (per the caption you mentioned)...
I Greg yes but very little putty. I preferred to use sand paper on plastic to get the shape and then a little putty. Yes actually I modified the canopy shortening the one sliding where it connected to the fixed one (about 2 mm). If you do so the two sides still matches. sorry but my english is very poor and I have difficult to explain.
Great subject and conversion. It's too bad that AMT/Ertl went under. They where on there way to making a good line of aircraft kits.
Like the paint job, sharp and tight with no run drips or errors. The cockpits are excellent and the build photos are of great help. The weathering is well done too.
Two thumbs up Franco
A terrific Tigercat! A great job on the conversion.
Great work on this and a superb result. I always thought the drone controllers were good looking with their paint scheme, and you show that's true.
Having done this conversion myself a ways back, I know it looks easy but isn't. You did a really nice job on that.
thank you very much Tom!
Excellent result. Colourful Tigercats are a pretty rare thing.
Wonderful work!
Really nice looking this cat. Wonderfull work. Thanks for posting an unusual model and its color scheme.
This is great Franco. Something you just don’t see a lot of. Nice work. Big thumbs up. Love the grass base to.
Hey Franco - now you should get two of those KD-1 Firebee drones that ICM has just released and hang them off this beautiful model.
I Tom Happy new year, tank you very much for your reccomandatio andthanks for thinking of me.I'll see the drones and then i''let you know. thank's a lot.
I Tom, I looked at the ICM catalogue, unfortunately it appears that icm does not produce the drone KD2G that was the drone used by F7F 2D. I have no reference that show me that also kd1 Firebee was used on tigercat . can you help me? Any way I was thinking to scratchbuild one for my tigercat.