Special Hobby 1/72 scale F2G-1/2 Super Corsair

Kit: No. SH72071
Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: Special Hobby, available from Squadron Mail Order, 1115 Crowley Drive, Carrollton, TX 75011- 5010, 979-242-8663, www.squadron.com
Price: $22.50
Comments: Mixed media, 86 parts
(31 injection-molded, 41 resin, 12 photoetched metal, 2 vacuum-formed plastic, 1 photo-film), decals
Pros: Correct proportions, excellent interior details, excellent canopy, good fit
Cons: Incorrect engine, missing details

The Goodyear-built "Super Corsair" was a marriage of the classic Vought-designed F4U with the powerful Pratt & Whitney R-4360 28-cylinder "corncob" engine. The experimental fighter also featured a cut-down rear spine, bubble canopy, and enlarged fin. Seven prototypes were followed by four land-based F2G-1s and five ship-worthy F2G-2s before the end of World War II brought about the cancellation of the project.

Special Hobby's new kit captures the purposeful look of the F2G design and includes loads of resin and photoetched details for the cockpit and wheel wells. However, the resin engine is completely wrong. It represents a late-model R-2800, the standard engine of the original Corsair. The proper R-4360 had four rows of seven cylinders; the R-2800 had two rows of nine cylinders, so the difference is obvious looking into the cowl. I installed a resin Engines & Things replacement.

The kit went together with few fit problems. The resin cockpit interior and wheel wells had to be sanded down to fit. The control stick is nearly 1/4" too long and should be mounted forward of the hole in the floor to clear the seat pan.

Special Hobby was careful to include the correct tail-wheel strut and wing-root oil-cooler intakes. Provisions are made for the tail hook and different tail-wheel doors for the carrier-capable F2G-2. The vacuum- formed canopy is perfectly molded, and a spare is supplied just in case. But a few things were missing. There should be three cowl flaps under the fuselage instead of five, with two exhaust pipes under each flap. The kit doesn't include the two large underwing pylons, but they were mounted on the actual airframes. You'll have to make your own wing-mounted pitot tube and fuel tank vents. The prop hub is too small, and the span of the blades too short. If you make the prototype XF2G-1, don't mount the rocket stubs under the wings. If you model the land-based F2G-1, eliminate the outer gun port on each wing. The antenna mast for the forward fuselage was noticeably short, so I made a brass-rod replacement.

I finished my model as the prototype. The kit decals were opaque and thin, and adhered well.

I spent about 15 hours on the model, a bit longer than usual for me for a kit of this size.

- Joe Hegedus