I figured it was time to crank up the Gardner Iron Works assembly line again. These are coming down the line very soon. As soon as I finish the Ki-27 "Nate's" and 1/35 Tamiya Panther D from Kursk.

Here's the first one, and how it will be finished in overall Glossy Sea Blue. I haven't decided yet on number 33 or 24. I know for a fact that #33 crashed on take off from the Daytona Beach NAS when it lost engine power and became a glider. I'll probably go with this one...

It's actually a F6F-3 that was overhauled probably at Jacksonville NAS (Naval Air Station), just before being flown down to Daytona Beach NAS, which was my home for many years. I grew up there and never knew the history behind the local "International Airport".
This is the Hasegawa kit I'm starting out with.

The next F6F is a dash 5 version and was used by the Blue Angels as their first team demonstration planes. I'll be starting out with this kit shown below.

and be using these decals:

Finally will be a target tow or a drone plane.
For starters, this is the kit I will be using.

and the decal sheet which offers a ton of choices...

So please follow along and as always, comments are encouraged.
Take care.

Awesome, Lou! I'm a fan of Hellcats so I will follow eagerly!

Thanks guys for the encouragement.

I picked up another 1/48 Hasegawa F6F the day after the decals arrived, so I might throw it in the build as well, making it a total of 4 Hellcats in this build. I'm thinking of marking the last one as a James Flatley CAG bird, or a very early "Blue Gray" over Light Gray" plane.

Nice selection Louis but a warning about the Alley Cat decals. The only one on the sheet that is a -5K drone is the one in the top left of your photo above and the one that I posted in the section of my built kits. I was greatly disappointed as I have 2 more -5s that I wanted to build as drones. Also, check your Hasegawa to see if the tail wheel has been lengthened, a feature on most Hellcat drones. The extra length made it impossible to retract as seen in the pics below.

2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Actually, the others were used as drones during the Bikini Atomic test. Each had a different color tail, they were flown thru the cloud and so on. I suspect the two tone one on the sheet could be flown either remotely or with an actual pilot, every now and then. Some had that capacity.

George & Bernie, thanks for the quick clarification. I wondered about the 5K vs. 3K thing. I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as you guys on the different models, but thanks to Tom Bebout, I'm doing a Hellcat for the group build. It's the Academy kit & it can be made as a 3 or 5 model. I chose the 3 because I like the window. LoL!

Thanks, fellers!

I wish I could help, Bernie.

Louis, you definitely got your own Iron works going, can't wait for the builds!