Thanks to Erik’s group invite, the much maligned and deservingly so Trumpy approximation of the DeHavilland Sea Hornet NF.21 in 1/48 scale currently sitting on my shelf of ultimate doom will get built after all instead of being tossed in the trash or donated. Lot’s of work ahead, but I’ll try to make it look good from two feet away. Big dilemma is, wings up or down?

Hi Eric @eb801!

Welcome to this Great GB!

Well, as much as an approximation of the real thing your kit selection might be, I confess I love your choice! Inasmuch as a not properly researched "new" kit this might be, still, such kits are with "us". Definitely not promoting a bad researched kit, but, still, I love trying to bring the best out of such "misfires", even more so to see them built by skilled fellow modelers.

So, welcome on board!

Eagerly waiting to see your progress!

TC - I know. I know. It’s either build the damn thing or toss it.

Ok, here goes nothing as I venture forth to try and make this Trumpy De Havilland Hornet look, well, like a Hornet. In this case a Sea Hornet NF.21. First of all, the bizarre texture Trumpeter molded on all the surface controls looks absolutely ludicrous . When the Hornet went into production, it was an all metal plane and all the control surfaces were skinned with aluminum and not fabric - just like the NF.21 tail in this photo:

Now compare this with the kit tail halves:

Pretty sad eh? Time to get to work. I taped off and filled the valleys with white putty and then sanded trying to keep an essence of the metal ribbing still showing...

until finally I got the tails looking something like the real thing and sprayed them with Alclad light grey primer. They look good enough for now.

On to the flaps and elevators...

Eric (@eb801), with that attention to detail, it is going to look just right when you pass the flag!

Erik- as TC said I think I am "a glutton for punishment" when it comes to this kit.

Josh - No you can’t as the radome is molded to the fuselage on the NF.21 as you can see below. You would have to get Trumpy’s F.1 or F.3 Hornet kit.

A lot of quality work is put here, Eric @eb801 and it shows!
I love the cockpit!
About the Trumpeter seats (among other things), looks like Trumpeter improvises (sic) the shapes in their own interpretation, which has little to do with reality. I would really like to know what the seat designer was thinking, upon creating that seat...