Versión en Español

By José Luis Orgeira.

Introduction
The VF-17 Suadron (The Jolly Rogers) was the second squadron of the US Navy in entering in combat in the Pacific war with the new F-4U Corsair. Its operational base was Ondonga, in the Solomon Islands, where they settled down in October of 1943. Since then, they were assigned to different missions from attack, interception and escort, but one of the most outstanding works of this squadron was the one to demonstrate the adjustment of the Corsair for the aircraft carrier operations, that finally were authorized in April of 1944. Nevertheless, the Corsair already had gained its place in history as a land based airplane, from where it made his more successful missions against Japanese objectives.
The F-4U Corsair is one of the most controverted airplanes of the WWII. While some assure that it could probably win to any enemy or even allied airplane, others maintain that those arguments were sobredetermine the proportions. It was a great and heavy airplane, it last in his controls, which required constant muscular effort and that, in addition, it underwent of chronic problems of oil or fuel leaks. In counterpart, it could absorb great punishments on the part of the enemy (although we remember that, until the appearance of airplanes like the Ki-84, the Japanese airplanes did not emphasize indeed by their heavy armament), had an extraordinarily powerful engine (2,800 HP) and was very well adapted to the terrible operative conditions of the Pacific islands.

The scale model
            The scale model that appears corresponds to the Revell kit in 1/32 scale. Although promoted like an F4U-1D, is in fact the F4U-1A version. In my opinion its a good accomplishment. Is proportionate on scale and even making it “from the box”, without greater modifications, looks very real, very pretty and why not, very impressive. Is an old kit that Revell sent in 1970 and by more than 30 years it was the only Corsair in this scale, until the recent appearance of the Trumpeter series. I have read in any place that the kit in itself has not undergone modifications through the years with the exception of the decals, the “box art” and the instructions. Poorly, some parts must have changed because they are of terrible quality, as we will see more ahead. I believe that if did not become it, it was simply because there wasn´t another brand of the same scale that competed in the market. Because I don´t use photoetch neither resin pieces nor nothing seemed, all the rejected parts I had to construct them by hand. I wish to conserve one of the proposed versions in box, the flown by Lieutenant Merl "Butch" Davenport of the VF-17 Squadron and nicknamed "Lonesome Polecat", so that I began to collect the necessary data for its construction.

The construction
My intention was to work engine and inner, but without breaking the classic form of the beautiful profile of the Corsair. It did not want the "open throughout scale model". I decided then to begin by the fuselage, opening the left panel to show part of the engine (Figure 1), which forced me to construct a vertical panel that separe this compartment of the cockpit and on which was due to support the oil tank, the supercharger, the large stone bench, etc. Soon it touched the turn to the ventral panel of the engine hood. The idea was that the scale model could be exposed showing its enginer with and without the main fairing. Soon I constructed the side panels of the cockpit, that are fluted and heavy. They were done from a plastic card of 2 mm thickness (Figure 2).
 

Do this I continued with the work in the radial engine. Here an alternative temptress appeared to me. It happens that the engine that impelled this version of the Corsair (Pratt & Witney R-2800) was the same one that equipped the Hellcat F-6F. Excellent kit of Hasegawa 1/32 of the F-6F comes with one from the best representations of this engine, exquisitely detailed. In fact, the engine of our Corsair is not nothing bad and in fact it has received very good critics, but the one of the Hellcat is better. I have east F-6F of Hasegawa, which I have been receiving from second hand for years... and whose engine as soon as she saw since she was hidden within his fairing. I thought: "its a pity that a so beautiful engine is hidden" and I was placed it to the Corsair, whereas the engine of this one went to the Hellcat. A castling. The problem was that I wished to detail it and for that I had to dismantle it completely to begin of zero again, which was very difficult (Figure 3). Once reconstructed I made the electrical wiring, exhaust exits, etc. Clear that the change of engines forced to dedicate to it extra time to me to the Hellcat, to amend the "damages in combat", but I believe that it was worth the trouble. Finally, the Pratt & Witney R-2800 was ready for its assembly in the fuselage (Figures 4 and 5).
 

Once united both fuselage parts, I came to assembly the engine and the construction of the rest of the accessories of the engine that go located behind this one. I decided to make this passage with the fuselage already closed because due to the amount of elements that this panel contains, I didn’t want to find with the surprise that the fuselages were not united correctly. Finally, the unions did not present problems and the interiors could be appraised reasonably (Figure 6).
 

The following step was the construction of the cockpit interior; in special, of the instruments panel. In first place I scanned the plastic support of the original board to have the exact measurement of the new board that was going to construct. Soon, with the design program Corel Draw 12 I drew all the instruments one by one using as reference published photographies and schemes. This I made it on the scanned one to conserve the original measures. Soon I print in a laser printer the instruments on a transparency, to which I painted from behind with white acrylic to emphasize them. The advantage of this method is that it does not require the manufacture of "crystals" of the instruments, because that effect is obtained by the same transparency (Figure 7). Next I trimmed the contour of the panel, painted it of black and beat behind same the transparent film with the instruments (Figure 8).
 

Finally I trimmed the frontal cover of the panel perforating the orifices corresponding to the instruments. This sheet would go beaten on the transparent acetate sheet.
 

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