Dang Louis @lgardner you are really making some rapid progress on this FM-2 and expanding my knowledge on them. Please keep going!

Tom @tcinla, so JV784 is the Wildcat VI in question with the last Luftwaffe victory?

That would be an interesting group build but not sure how it would be structured. Call it The Last Victories. For example the P-61 "Lady in the Dark" would qualify. But why limit it to only World War II. From the Great War to present day conflicts, that last aerial victory for any of the combatants before the politicians called "Knock it off." Just an idea.

I'm in. Eduard's Beeg Box trapped on the front porch this morning.

I'm using the Aeromaster sheet "Hot Rod Wildcats" to do "Mah Baby" of VC-10 at the Battle off Samar (story told in my history section of the instruction book).

And mucho thanks to our recon platoon First Sgt, @lgardner, for his detailed reports on the minefield. 🙂

I have to plead guilty to the smile that crossed my face on opening the instruction book and seeing my article there, and thinking of the heartburn that will bring to a "select few" over at The Other Place when they open the instructions. Oscar Wilde was right: "Living well IS the best revenge." 🙂

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

So great that your article is in the instructions, my friend @tcinla!
Looking forward to your build!

Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
Thank you. I think I might have accidentally reversed the parts like TC said. It's a very good possibility that I did.

John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Thank you too my friend ! Your Corsair is looking very nice too.

gary sausmikat (@gwskat)
Yes sir, there are times when it does seem like I live in a 48 hour day. Sometimes I get on a roll and things seem to happen, yet others it takes forever and nothing gets done. Luck with the dice of life. Thanks buddy.

Tom Cleaver (@tcinla)
I'm happy to see you are getting busy on yours. If you want to, please feel free to post pictures of yours here. The offer is on the table should you decide to. If not, I understand that too. I read your article that Eduard included on the instructions. Outstanding !

I also think you are on to something with the chance I could have swapped the turbo sides around inadvertently. That very well could have happened. The good thing is that by my accidentally doing this, others will know to pay close attention during this step. The rudder insert is another "trouble place", where I had to trim off the top of the insert a little in order to get the inner rudder framework to line up properly in the fuselage. If you don't check this, the rudder hinges will not line up correctly.

I have dealt with Scott on numerous occasions and he is a good guy. The next time you see him, please tell him I said hello. I am a regular customer of his on his "Evil bay" store. Occasionally he sends me emails about new kits when he gets them. He helps me to keep my wallet thin... now if I could just find an easy way to reduce my belt size a little... 🙂
I have another spot report for you. Ironically, when I was in the Army, occasionally I did train with our "Cav Scouts". We crossed trained with them on occasion.

Also mine was missing the spoked wheel covers, part # L38. They were not even molded on the tree. I have contacted Eduard about this, and I'm waiting to see what happens next. Thankfully, the version I chose to build used the solid style wheel cover, so I dodged a little bullet there.

I was fortunate enough to find 4 very good pictures of the plane I'm building from the USS Nehenta Bay. On one of them you can clearly see what you said about the fuselage insignia is spot on. There doesn't appear to be any Blue surrounds present there.

However, on the wings it looks like it does have the surrounds present. You can even see this on the instructions, where they show an overall GSB FM-2 in the form of a B&W photo. I think it was possible they had some of these insignia left over, and likely used what they had before they completely swapped over to the type you mentioned. It seems apparent in many pictures of various FM-2's I have found online.

I'll be building this one up using my HB kit. It will be part of my Florida training aircraft. This one is most likely from NAS Miami. You can see the Dark Blue surround on the upper wing surface and the fuselage.

Here's one that has been either repaired or a geodetic marking applied. It also has a Dark Blue surround on the fuselage.



Here's a few pictures showing a bad day for N27. You can see the Dark Blue surrounds on it too. They are in all four positions, wings and fuselage.

If these aircraft were built like Vought did the Corsair, they subcontracted the wing construction to someone else. These could have been delivered pre painted and ready to bolt on. Briggs was the subcontractor for Corsair wings.

Here's a few pictures showing what I'm talking about. It's possible the last FM-2's had insignia applied as you mentioned, but I don't think they all were like that.

The fuselage seems to be more consistent with what you said though. Even here it doesn't look like it was every time though.

Doug Humphrey (@eydugstr)
Thank you for the kind words. I'm happy to see this is helping. That was the main reason why I posted so many details. In order to save some time with typing, I answered some more trouble spots to look for in my reply back to Tom Cleaver. The rudder insert, and the fact my kit is missing the spoked wheel covers, part L38. This is important if you are building a plane that had them instead of the solid style wheel cover.

On the real plane, the regular wheel was spoked. There was a solid cover that was screwed on top of the wheel. When it was not installed, the wheel looked like it was spoked. It was like a hub cap on a car. Same principle.

As far as the propeller goes, there were several types used on the FM-2. Hamilton Standard, and Curtiss electric. Then to make things a little bit more interesting, one of the prop hubs used two different style center cones, one was round and slender, the other pointed. I think this was on the Curtis electric type, but I'm not 100 percent sure about this last statement. Then there was a cuffed and un-cuffed propeller too. Sounds confusing. So what Eduard has provided in the kit is excellent. It would be wise to try and locate a picture of the plane you are building just to be safe.

I have an update coming right up. So please stay tuned everyone.

Louis @lgardner all I can say is wow. From the research to how well the kit looks you are rocking. My knowledge of the FM-2 has expanded tremendously because of you and Tom @tcinla.

You are probably right with the wings, makes sense from a mass production standpoint to paint the completed wings before shipment and GM used up stock on hand instead of wasting time to repaint.

@lgardner - you're definitely right about the blue surrounds. And there are shots of airplanes without. What this means is: Check. Your. Research. It's entirely likely it began with the surround and went to the white only in later batches. I think the easy thing will be - I'm not going to question any model with whichever. 🙂

Very good progress, Louis @lgardner
Also the exhaust stains do look great, a well thought approach to apply them this way.