Looking good, John (@johnb). My canopies looked very similar. It gets to be fun when you are done painting and you have to pull off all of the micro-strips.

@gblair, thank you, George. Currently preparing the rear canop part in the same way. Works quite well this way.
@eb801, thanks, Eric. I think I will go for a closed canopy than. The flaps up will be a different story, all are glued in lowered position now already.

@johnb - that is very interesting. I have noticed that myself. We need one of our iModeler Corsair pros to weigh in on this. I bet Jim would have had the answer. My guess the flaps down on restored F4U's are for maximum visual effect. Why would a wing flap be down when the wing is in the folded position like on that first photo?

Very interesting indeed, my friends @johnb and @eb801! I also checked b/w seasonal photos, where in most, if not all cases, the flaps were up with folded wings. So, maybe, if you aim for an operational bird, you should consider the flaps-up option as more appropriate.

Going through some of my books about the F4U, not for the first time, I finally found a picture of the Corsair with folded wings and all flaps down, must have missed that before. The book containing this pictures is from the excellent Aircraft in Action series of the F4U by our well beloved friend Jim Sullivan. I do know it is an Honduras F4U-4 but I assume it sometimes also occured on earlier birds. It even has the canopy open, but the more friendly Honduras climate could be the reason for that.

Hey John, here's a couple more for confirmation.

2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
I'm sorry for the late entry. I have been working on completing the FM-2 Wildcat, and have not logged into Imodeler in a few days.

You are fine to build your Corsair with the flaps down and the wings raised. It is occasionally seen in wartime era photos where this is done. Personally I like the Corsair better with the flaps dropped. I think it looks better this way.

I have an idea as to why we often see the flaps dropped on restored Corsairs. It has to do with gaining entry into the plane. The Corsair has an entry step built into the inboard flap on the Starboard side of the aircraft. If the flaps are lowered, it is much easier to climb into the plane. It doesn't matter if the wings are folded or not.

If the flaps are raised, you have to climb up on the main wheel, and then climb from there on top of the wing in order to get into (or on) the plane. On wartime planes they were likely concerned with foreign object debris hitting and causing damage to the flaps if they were lowered and the engine was running. Plus the engine oil coolers are located in the leading edge of the wings, just ahead of the main gear wells.

It could be possible the coolers might not work as efficiently when the flaps were down. This is a guess on my part and not a known fact. I know the Spitfire was affected in this manner.

The center flap had a disconnect button on it. This would allow the ground crews to drop the center flap by disconnecting it from the linkage. This was done to perform maintenance or install the wing mounted weapons. When the flap was dropped / disconnected, this allowed the ground crews easier access to the rear portion of the weapons bay.

As far as the flaps being raised or lowered, in conjunction with having the wings folded, to my knowledge, it didn't matter. The flaps could be either raised or lowered, depending on the conditions, and usually followed the maintenance unit's SOP's. These excellent pictures that were posted by our friends show it could go either way with the wings raised or lowered.

The same thing went for the canopy, and if it was closed or not. In many pictures of Corsairs in the Pacific theater, we often see the canopies were closed. On occasion they are photographed in the open position too. My personal thought about this are weather and environment related. By closing the canopy, it helped to keep the cockpit dry and a bit cleaner too. But the trade off for closing them was the temperature often climbed to excessive heights inside the cockpit.

You could indeed cause damage if you try to remove the flaps and reposition them. I would leave them as is.

In the end, the choice is yours, and I would build it to suit personal tastes. Have fun with it... 🙂

You are doing a magnificent job with your Corsair John, and I look forward to your next installment.

Finally started with the paint preperations. A first layer of primer, also to check if some clean-ups are required. Not looking too bad I have to say.