Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: Falcon/Revell
No: Conv. kit IX /4394
Item: Douglas AD-5W Skyraider
 
 

This will be more of a build description, than a review.

A couple of years ago I orderred a few vacuum conversion sets directly from Falcon in New Zealand.

I've already used the parts for the Greyhound and FJ-3 Fury conversions, so the conversion in turn was the AD-5W Skyraider.

When I layed my hands upon the Hasegawa Skyraider, I just had to build them both parallel side by side.

I knew that a lot of work should be needed to get a model of the same standard as Hasegawa's kit  ;-)

Well... as you can se on the images I had to remove all the weapon racks from the underside of the wings.

In the process all raised panel lines disappeared, so I decided to scribe all panel lines instead. 

When the wings were assembled! I went trough rebuilding the landing gear hatches, and  matched them with new openings in the wings,   ...plus boxed in the wheel wells!, ...this due to updated reference photos!

The engine cowl is to narrow in diameter, so I had to add styrene strips all around, plus a large amount of putty (in several steps with long drying periods and sanding between).

New cooling gills were added from sheet styrene.

There's one thing you can't see on the images! The fuselage ends in line with the cowl, so I had to build up a fictitious nose beneath, to be able to add new exhaust pipes.

Then there were some adjustments to the intakes above and beneath the engine cowl, and some thinning down of the, on Skyraiders so typical, "flame restrainers" on the forward fuselage.

All in all I came up with a cowl that matched Hasegawa's outline pretty well!

Other things I did were: reshaped the leading edge of the fin, reshaped the airscrew, applied the big belly radome and rear cockpit replacement.

On the main landing legs I added hydraulic cylinders and hooks for the wire used on catapult take offs. The wheels are temporarily made of Heller's "Tunnan/Flying Barrel" wheels, drilled out in the center to accept epoxy glue mouldings of Hasegawa's Skyraider hubs.

Eventually they will be replaced by Hasegawa wheels (donated by Chris Bucholz) which I find are the best on the market, at least compared with the: Airfix/Heller, Hobbycraft, & Monogram/Revell kits.

Finally I added new antennas, the small foot steps under the fuselage, near the wing roots, supports for the radome & new tailhook.

I painted it in a gray/white scheme using Humbrol colours.

Decals

The decals came from Superscale sheet no: 72-338 and depicts a "Guppy" from: VAW-12, USS Forrestal CVA-59

I'm quite satisfied with the result of the finished kit...
 ...I just don't know if I can come up with the same result once again when I decide to do the A-1E version, which basically needs the same modifications, minus the radome...;-)
 

If someone who reads this review has some Hasegawa wheels and hubs collecting dust in the scrapbox, please mail me!
 

 
Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: Airfix
No: 4023
Item: McDonnell F2H-2/2P Banshee
 
 

The F2H Banshee was a scaled-up development of McDonnell's FH Phantom. It was a twin-engined, straight-wing fighter that was a mainstay of the air wings aboard U.S. carriers in the early 50s. The F2H-2 version represented by the 1:72 Airfix kit saw combat in Korea in fighter, fighter-bomber and reconnaissance roles.

The Airfix kit of the Banshee is typical of the manufacturer's better efforts. It features delicate raised minor panel lines and recessed control surfaces. The cockpit sports nice instrument and console panels with raised details, and a decent representation of the F2H seat. The fuselage is split into left and right halves; separate nose pieces are included for the F2H-2P photo-recon version. The wings are split into upper and lower halves, with inserts for the inlets and exhaust cones. Horizontal stabs are one-piece affairs. All are well-molded with crisp detail.

I had no significant problems assembling the model. Fit was good virtually all around, although the tip tanks didn't want to fit snugly to the wing tips - possibly the result of some oversanding on my part. I rescribed some of the lost panel line detail, but left the bottom of the aircraft (which has a long line on each side) alone. I substituted a Squadron vac canopy for the kit canopy, and posed it in the open position.

Painting and decaling took the most time on this project. I painted the aircraft overall Model Master dark sea blue including the wheel wells and gear doors. Gear struts and wheel hubs are flat aluminum. I masked off the leading edges of the wings, stabs and tail and airbrushed Testors Chrome for a natural metal look.  I also dipped each tip tank in MM Chrome Silver to simulate the metal nose.
 
Decals

Decals: Two Korean War aircraft: F2H-2 (Navy), F2H-2P (Marines)

I wanted to model a Banshee from USS Coral Sea circa 1954 rather than the Korea birds, but some of the markings for that aircraft from Super Scale sheet 72-268  proved unusable. I switched to a USS Lake Champlain aircraft from late-1953.  The decals went on reasonably well, especially when I put a small amount of future under each decal location.  Curiously, the Super Scale sheet is missing the tail code ("F" in this case) that should be repeated on the upper right wing, so I made it from a couple of other letters. Several coats of Future finished the job.
 
All in all, a pleasant building experience that someone with a couple of kits built should enjoy, and it builds up into a nice replica of this early Navy jet.
 

Author: Les Dorr Jr
ldorr@capaccess.org