F4U-1D Corsair – 1/72 scale

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IMG_1387Parker and I have gotten into watching the old episodes of Baa Baa Black Sheep, Downloadand when he found an incomplete 1/72 Corsair kit in Grayson's room (a very nice 2009 Hobby Boss I later realized) IMG_1386he finished it while sitting on the couch watching the show.  The problem was that the kit was missing the engine, cowling, and propellor.  So when I was in Dallas a couple of weeks ago I picked up the cheapest Corsair kit I found, which was an old (1979) Matchbox kit, intending to use it for spares.

Incidentally, I've never built a Corsair.  I remember getting the BBBS kit shown above, but not finishing it, and I have no idea what happened to it.  So it's nice working on it, but compared to the 1/32 aircraft I had in 1976 or 1977, this thing is tiny!

Unfortunately, the Matchbox kit didn't have a separate cowling, and it was a postwar model with a four bladed propellor.  So we decided to build the Matchbox as an overall Sea Blue (late war) F4U with the Bunker Hill markings that came with the Hobby Boss kit (since as the screen shot shows, one of the Black Sheep Corsairs had the Bunker Hill arrow on its wing).  Corsair-baa1-735x413I also used the Hobby Boss split canopy so I could show the plane with the canopy pushed back.

The markings are for the F4U-1D flown by Lt. (jg) William L. Gerner of VF-84, flying from the U.S.S. Bunker Hill (CV-17) on February 25, 1945, when he scored three kills.  Coincidentally, Gerner was from Dallas, Texas man and studied at Texas A&M before entering the Navy. He was aboard the Bunker Hill with VB-17 for eight months, and came to VF-84 via VB-84. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight as Section Leader of a group of planes in VF-8 over Tokyo, on 25 February 1945.  So it's fitting that this model from Dallas was finished as the aircraft of a Dallas native. 

The Bunker Hill's Corsairs 63113cf74ce63994c1f72e6d82ec4913--fu-corsair-birdsometimes have yellow cowlings and sometimes don't, but Parker opted to include one.  (I didn't include the white markings on the fuselage – they are tape that covers the seams in the fuselage to keep aviation fuel or oil from leaking out and onto the pilot's windscreen).

This kit is sort of a warm up, as I have gotten a state of the art Tamiya F4U-1 with markings for Pappy Boyington's aircraft (at least the one that was photographed as his, even though records indicate he never flew that specific aircraft in combat) and will trying to model it with a weathered three-color camouflage circa late 1943.  8f632b2f4a5ca5fb16baa27a771cdf7cWeathering something I have not attempted with my 1/72 aircraft yet.

About Post Author

Michael C. Smith

Marshall, Texas lawyer. I post on things that attract my interest while puttering in my study. Mostly family, books, home, history, World War II and scale modeling.
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