Sooo... as someone who expects to be disappointed by Kitty Hawk - I once accused their head designer of "poisoning the well," coming up with releases everyone wants and then screwing the pooch, with the result no one else will ever try it again - I surrendered to Hope springing infernal when they announced the FJ-2 and FJ-3 series, followed by some computer design releases that showed they were paying attention to detail, then followed by some test shots that left one with room for hope. On that, I sprang for a kit a week ago when the release was announced. $50 delivered from Shenzhen China brought the kit to my doorstep yesterday.

After looking through it and finding only one "nit" -- the "ribbed" elevators and rudder - and that one not really a nit since in the late period of their operational life FJ-2s were updated with the FJ-3 control surfaces, I decided to do some test fitting.

Yes, Virginia, you will be able to assemble the wing equally well up or down - it fits nicely. The slats are down, you can lower the flaps if you want.

I spent a few hours going over the instructions and looking at the parts and decided I would do a few things "my way." You can probably do everything their way and things will work, but I think my way will lead to a better final result with less hassle.

The main decision was regarding the fuselage. I would build it as two complete halves, and attach the inner parts differently than the instructions called for.

The first thing I did was cut the frames to be inserted at the fuselage break points of the fore and aft fuselage assemblies and then glue everything into their respective fuselage parts. This allowed me to assemble the fore and aft parts of the fuselage to create two complete fuselage halves. Doing it this way allowed me to work the parts from inside and outside, to get perfect fit without having to worry later about filler.

Once that was done, I decided I was going to go with the cannon bays closed. The kit presents good basic material for the cannon bays and a super-detailer who wanted to put in the necessary wiring and such has got the basics to go for it. This also allowed me to work those cannon bay doors from inside and outside and get them perfectly aligned before applying any glue. The end of the day saw the two fuselage halves looking as the photos show them.

Today, I assembled the cannon bays - you need the bays for structural support of the cockpit - you don't need the guns since they aren't seen, I discovered. I then assembled the intake trunking and the engine. You can't see the engine unless you're going to have it with the rear fuselage pulled away for a maintenance diorama; again, what's there is good basic material for a super-detailer. However, you do need the engine in there for the exhaust. With the interior parts in the right fuselage half, I did a balance test and, yes, nose weight was going to be needed. I squashed some cannonball fishweights and put then in the space in the nose over the intake trunking and ahead of the cockpit. Just for "insurance," since it's always a pain to realize when you can't add more weight, I added two more glued to the rear cockpit bulkhead. The fuselage was definitely nose-heavy.

I then painted the cockpit Tamiya "Dark Sea Grey," a good approximation for "Dark Gull Grey," the color Navy cockpits are painted. When dry, I applied the instrument decals, which set down easily under an application of Solvaset despite the fact they are a bit thick (not Tamiya-thick). This success bodes well for using the kit decals for the exterior markings.

The end result for today will be to glue the fuselage together. Test-fitting shows the parts fit very precisely, so rubber-banding will be necessary to insure they don't move out of position while the Tamiya Extra-Thin is setting up.

Next: the wing sub-assembly and bringing the airframe together.

Overall, this is not a difficult kit. Pay attention, take care in attaching parts, and it looks like it's going to be a very nice final result. Still unsure about whether to fold the wings or extend them.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

The Navy Fury/Saber is one of my most favorite airplanes. I don't think I have seen a bad paint scheme on one yet. I have this kit in my garage, so I am really looking forward to your build.

She looks real good so far. I do believe I will take the plunge and get one. Like George, I really like the Fury family.

Day 3.

Everything is assembled, and painting will be the next big step.

Turns out this is indeed KH's best kit ever, but while you can take the boy out of the trailer park, you can't take the trailer park out of the boy. There are still some "Kitty Hawk-isms" to deal with.

As with the flaps that can only be assembled down unless you want quite a bit of hassle, the tailhook is supposed to be posed "down." Probably their way of insuring tail-sitting. It can be assembled closed, but then I had to fill the gaps in the various doors with Mr. Surfacer, sand down and re-scribe.Not hard to do, but a definite PITA.

These are niggling things, though. It's definite that the result will be pretty close to the FJ-2 Sabre fanatics have long wanted.

With more detailed initial reviews coming out, people are noting that the kit provides the J-65 engine of the FJ-3 rather than the J-47 of the FJ-2. For 99.99% of those who build the kit, it doesn't matter since no one can see the engine once the fuselage is closed up - it's just a hole in the tail.

There's a well-detailed initial review at Britmodeller, which points out that most of the kit decals are wrong in one way or the other - color, number of stars in squadron insignia, etc. I'm going to do the "Candy-Striper" airplane since the only problem there is a serial number that can be "fudged." Even this reviewer said that OOB it'll still be a wonderful result. Those who are picky about such things can wait for the inevitable aftermarket decals.

Pretty sure I am doing it wings-folded.

2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Day 4: Painted.

One bit of assembly information. As with many of the other parts, the dive brakes are designed to be displayed "open." Even doing that, however, you need to do some work with the hinges so they will fit in their slots right. Almost all FJ-2 photos show the airplane with the brakes closed. I had to file down the hinges to fit, and the brake then fitted closed without a problem. This will also make decaling easier, since the kit decals are not separated to fit the parts open.

I painted the wing center sections with Tamiya Flat Aluminum mixed with Gloss White to get the grey-silver shade I've seen on Sabre wings out at Planes of Fame. I then masked that, and gave the model an overall coat of thinned Tamiya Semi-gloss Black. When that was dry, I gave it an overall coat of Vallejo Aluminum. This was followed by brush painting White Aluminum, Dull Aluminum and Duraluminum on various panels, in line with a good color photo I found of a NMF FJ-2. The nice thing is, Vallejo paints brushpainted over Vallejo paint do not leave any brush marks. Thus, it's easy to do a multi-hue finish since you don't have to worry about masking off and risk pulling up this very thin paint.

Next step, decals. Here is where Kitty Hawk has reverted to form. There's an old saying "You can take the boy out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the boy." The decals frankly suck. Wrong colors, wrong serial numbers, wrong number of stars. Fortunately I have some USN decals I can rob for serial numbers. One can match the color for the stripes that have stars over, then cut out the stars from the decal sheet and apply them.

Fortunately, the user "Sabrejet" over at Britmodeller did a detailed analysis of what is wrong with the various options. I'll quote him here:

1. BuAer No. 132055 13/MX of VMF-334 ‘Falcons’, MCAS Cherry Point. This aircraft was with the squadron from 16May55 to 01May56. My main issue with this scheme is that the stylised ‘falcon’ motifs on the fuselage and tail fin are mid-blue and it’s debatable whether they should be black or dark blue. My feeling (lacking a period colour photo) is that the falcon motif was black (as was the case on the unit’s FJ-4s), but whether blue or black, the shade was much darker than depicted in the kit decals.

2. BuAer No. “131975” 22/WU, VMF-235 ‘Death Angels’, MCAS El Toro and Atsugi, Japan. The serial number of this aircraft should be 131979, which was one of four FJ-2s detailed for Operation Steam (often referred to as Project Steam) aboard the USS Hancock in September 1954. The operation took place in the waters off San Diego as an at-sea evaluation of its new steam catapults. BuAer No. 131979 served with VMF-235 from 23Apr54 until written off on 10Mar55. For info, BuAer No. 131975 was also a VMF-235 aircraft, and was with the squadron from 08Mar54 to 03Jul56, but was not numbered ‘22’. The kit decals have seven stars on each tail stripe: there should in fact be five per side, with a further one positioned on the leading edge of the fin (so 11 in total, not 14 as shown in the decal sheet). The number ‘22’ should also appear beneath the aircraft type/serial number block on the rear fuselage and this is not included in the kit decals.

3. BuAer No. “130257” 5/WR, VMF-312 ‘Checkerboards’, MCAS Cherry Point. The serial number of this aircraft is wrong (130257 isn’t an FJ-2); it should be 132057, which served with VMF-312 from 19Oct54 to 12Feb56. This aircraft should have the number ‘5’ repeated below the unit number on the aft fuselage but it’s missing from the kit. Note that some or all of this unit’s FJ-2s had the checkers repeated on the horizontal tail surfaces and these are not included in the kit.

4. BuAer No. “131987” 12/AM, VMF-451 ‘Warlords’, MCAS El Toro and Atsugi, Japan circa Oct 54 to Nov56. This serial number is incorrect: 131987 was not a VMF-451 machine. This scheme lacks the small ‘12’ which should be positioned beneath the tail serial number. Also the kit decals have nine stars and each fuselage band where there should only be seven. The blue band extends below the fuselage but not the stars.

5. BuAer No. “132000” 318/LC, VMF-122 ‘Candystripers’, aboard USS Coral Sea 23 March to 29 September 1955. This serial number is incorrect: 132000 was not a VMF-122 machine. I’m not 100% sure what the correct serial number of this machine should be, but photographs show what looks like ‘13xxx9’, which from aircraft on the Coral Sea cruise would make it one of BuAer Nos. 131939, 131949, 131959, 131969 or 132049. Note: the 3-digit modex numbers only applied to the Coral Sea cruise; when not aboard, they carried two-digit modex numbers, minus the prefix ‘3’. Note that the tail stripes and 3-digit number should be on a slope, not as depicted in the kit instructions.

Essentially, the VMF-122 "Candy Stripers" and VMF-312 "Checkertails" options have the least problem - just a serial number, and the 312 airplane only needs it transposed, which the 122 plane can be corrected from other serials on the sheet. The VMF-235 is the next least-problematic. I have checked the decal and the vertical fin stripe can be cut to just five stars and if you have some red decal sheet material around, you can fix the forward end of the sheet, then use one of the left-over stars. The VMF-451 option can be corrected by using some of the unused "blue" decals to go over the bottom two stars on each side and correct that. Since there is no correction for the serial, I'd just use what's there since no one is likely to notice besides you.

A big problem is the national insignia is wrong. The insignia is too big. Fortunately, I have my stash of Fundekals US National insignia, which has the right-size insignia.

The problems with the decal sheet are no "fatal flaw" to the kit. You can fix the problems with whichever choice you make.

7 attached images. Click to enlarge.

It does indeed have the "nose up" sit.

Well done. The different shades show up nicely

Can't beleive there is finally an actual 1/48 FJ-2 on the market! Thanks for the full coverage on the build, Tom!
Your build looks great as always.
Dan.