Guerre d'Indochine...1/48 Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat, Aviation Navale

5/2022

My dad finished the next French in the line.
Hobby Boss kit with Berna Decals, the nose and fuselage side numbers are a bit oversized, the missing tail "1" was taken from a French Corsair sheet. The roundels come in three pieces with extra blue dot and anchor. My dad only applied them on the fuselage, for the wings he used one piece decals from the MDC Corsair sheet. On the spine, the kit has two lights, as far as seen on pics, the -5 had only one, so my dad removed the other. Eduard seatbelts, EZ Line for the antenna wires, plastic rods for the whip antennas. Used a Hobby Boss Bearcat tank for the late style Hellcat tank, used lead wire for the fuel line and plastic stripes for the two bands. The bomb racks looked wrong, so my dad took some Eduard pieces from the sparesbox. Also the rocket racks with rails are from the sparesbox (think their are from a P-51). The kit doesn´t include gun barrels, used some plastic rods for them. Painted with a mix of Gunze H54 Navy Blue and a touch of normal blue.

Build thread here
https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235102785-guerre-dindochine148-grumman-f6f-5-hellcat-aviation-navale/

Besides Uruquay, France was also a post WW2 user of the Hellcat. The plane served in the airforce and in the navy. Whereas the airforce replaced their Hellcats with Bearcats in 1952, the navy kept them until 1955.
Model shows one of the French Aeronavale aircrafts that served with Flotille 1F (later 11F) during the Indochina War.

23 additional images. Click to enlarge.