Revell 1/32 F4U Corsair "The Whistling Death"

By Kevin Williams

My second submission to LSP in the form of my 1/32 Revell F-4U Corsair built some nineteen years ago. As I recall, this was only my third ever contest entry in the local area, and I was very pleased with the outcome of the judging at this particular event back in 1990. It was at that time that I joined the local chapter of the IPMS, and have been a constant member ever since, meeting many good folks along the way and establishing friendships with a lot of them. I have been building models off and on (mostly aircraft); since I was a young boy, and will no doubt probably do so for the remainder of my life. Very few things in life inspire me the way military aviation does. My interests are all over the map, being particularly fond of aircraft from the WWII, Korean & Viet Nam war era time frames. I also have a "thing" for the Century series jets, as well as the first generation of jets as well. I'm also a BIG fan of all the attack aircraft types, making for a rather substantial swath through history regarding military aviation that absorbs me. Now, on to the built up.

Unfortunately, I took very few pictures of this bird while building, so I'm sort of photo poor in this respect. Cockpit was entirely scratch built, all flaps were cut loose and re-positioned, added scratch built (field modification), Brewster type bomb rack, scratch built port gun bay and ammo feed chutes, as well as gun bay doors, extra detail added to landing gear, including tension springs made from incandescent light bulb filaments, brake lines, etc. Tires were widened; wheels had lots of detail added to more accurately reflect actual wheel appearance, painted with Floquil military paints, and Superscale decals. Finish was not weathered too heavily, a decision that will be rectified on my next Corsair that I'll be beginning this autumn. Panel lines and molded on rivet detail were heavily sanded to give less contrast on finished surfaces, (in the past, I was generally less than ambitious when it came to re-scribing a kit, something for the most part that I've gotten over). This kit too now resides in the same collection of the pal that has my Revell Lightning, as well as a few others; (I think I'm starting to see a pattern here).

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© Kevin Williams

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This article was published on Friday, September 27 2013; Last modified on Monday, July 02 2018