HobbyBoss 1/72 scale F9F-2 Panther

Grumman’s F9F Panther was the only one of the U.S. Navy’s first generation of carrier-borne jet fighters to see significant production. It was the prime Navy jet fighter of the Korean War and led to the swept-wing Cougar.

HobbyBoss’ kit is well molded with finely recessed panel detail and not a lot of recessed rivets. The overall shape of the moldings is good, better, in fact, than the venerable 35-year-old Hasegawa venture with its oversized nose. It’s a bit more difficult to assemble than the old Hasegawa kit, but that’s because there are more parts. With more parts comes more detail, but everything fits well.

The kit provides optional loads of a pair of 500-lb. bombs, six 100-lb. bombs, and six 5" rockets. The cockpit includes separate rudder pedals, instrument panel, stick, and seat, but no harness.

Instead of recommending weight inside the nose, HobbyBoss has you install a small prop to hold the rear fuselage up. That is shown but not explained in the instructions, and the prop even shows up in the color drawings for paint and decal positioning as though it were an integral part of the aircraft. Instead, I added lead shot inside the nose and filled the hole for the prop.

The only disappointing aspect of the kit was the two-part canopy. Both the molding and the kit’s four-view drawing show the frames at the rear of the windscreen and front of the sliding canopy at 90 degrees to the aircraft centerline. They should be 90 degrees to the slightly inclined canopy rail. Fortunately, there’s enough meat on each piece to allow judicious sanding and re-establishment of the frame lines. That adjustment makes the canopy a tiny bit short of length when closed, but if you leave it open you’ll never notice it.

I painted the model with Testors Model Master gloss sea blue and used Alclad II polished aluminum on the leading edges. HobbyBoss’ decals were thin and a bit finicky to handle, but I managed. In addition to the VF-123 bird (the same, coincidentally as the initial boxing of the Hasegawa kit), HobbyBoss offers markings for an attractive gray and white Panther of the Argentine navy.

The finished model looks a lot like a Panther. The gun-gas purge vents on the nose were a late fit on Dash 2 Panthers and can be sanded off easily. A few unused clear parts indicate that an F9F-2P reconnaissance Panther is coming.

I spent 17 hours on this model, and recommend it to anyone with moderate modeling skills. Now I’m hoping for a Dash 5 Panther. Why not?