Hasegawa 1/48 F6F-3 Hellcat

This is a nice kit and goes together well. I only had two issues. The canopy sits too high so I had to file off the bottom to make it sit lower. The bushing inside the engine did not seat properly so the propeller shaft would not insert, so I had to cut most of the shaft off and glue in place. I should have been more careful. Also I lost one of the machine gun barrels when I cut it off the sprue so I made new gun barrels out of sections cut from a paper clip.

I chose to try to replicate the plane of Hamilton McWhorter who flew with VF-9 from USS Essex in late 1943 and early 1944. His plane was white 7. McWhorter was the first Hellcat ace and also the first Hellcat double ace. He ended the war with 12 victories. I tried to show his plane as it would be in December 1943 after his first 5 victories.

I looked a a lot of photos and some showed the boundaries between the 3 colors as a hard line and some as a soft sprayed line. I went with the hard line because I was not confident enough of my air brushing ability to hand spray the 3 colors.

One comment/ the kit comes with National markings with red borders. But those were only used in summer of 1943 so I replaced those with the blue borders markings that I had.

All paints and Matt finish are Vallejo Air. Very nice kit.

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