Marine Captain, Joe Foss was credited with 26 kills and was the first ace of WWII. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions with VMF-121 flying from Guadalcanal. Interestingly, Foss and many other pilots in that theatre displayed no kill markings on their aircraft.

THE KIT

The kit consists of 6 sprues, PE detail parts, masks and decals for 6 aircraft. The instructions consist of 16 pages of excellent pictorials and 6 color illustrations of early Wildcats. The plastic was well molded with accurate rivet and panel line detail. Again, the decals were excellent and reacted well to Solvaset, settling into the panel lines nicely. I must comment that the kit box artwork of a Wildcat downing a Zero is outstanding.

The kit is for early F4F-4 Wildcats circa 1942, and a trainer from 1944. Eduard provides so many excellent details and options that if one takes their time and installs them correctly an exceptional model can be built. This kit is one of Eduard’s best in my opinion.

CONSTRUCTION

I chose to build a Joe Foss Wildcat, “White 84” one of several he flew off Guadalcanal. The biggest challenges were the tubular engine mount and landing gear that consist of many tiny and fiddly parts but with patience, went together well. The only modification as indicated in the instructions, was filling a small hole and removal of a small air scoop both on the right side of the fuselage that is not found on the early Wildcat. There are many options, specifically windshields and canopies. I don’t usually care for separate control surfaces, but these were easy and make the model look real. I chose not to include the 6 excellently molded .50 cal. gun barrels as period photos show well recessed barrels not visible as on earlier F4F -3 Wildcats and FM-2s.

The clear nav lights are a nice touch but very fiddly and were painted with clear red and green and mounted in the existing wing tip holes. Also, formation lights were painted clear blue (not red and green as incorrectly indicated in the instructions) and mounted in the existing holes in the upper wings.

The exhaust stacks cleverly marked R and L were painted gunmetal and installed in the slots provided. The pitot was painted red and chrome and mounted in place. The tail hook was installed, and the antenna mast mounted at the correct forward raked position. The antenna wire was installed including the down wire to an insulator installed in the left fuselage. The hole for this was drilled early to avoid drilling into the star decal. I installed a guitar string antenna on the belly instead of the PE part from the kit. There is an option for 2 gunsights, and I selected the older version seen in period photos of the Guadalcanal Wildcats.

COLORS & MARKINGS

Tamiya acrylics were used exclusively. XF18 Medium Blue and XF19 Sky Gray were used for the 1942 camo scheme. A dark green was mixed to match the green on the cockpit PE parts. Inside the cowling and wheel well areas a light gray was mixed to match Grumman Gray primer used on the Wildcats. A gloss coat was applied to apply decals, and a semi-gloss finish was applied to seal the decals. The cockpit PE parts make it pop with color and accurate details.

The engine cylinders were painted Silver Leaf and the lower steel section given a black wash. Pushrods were painted semi-gloss black. The crankcase was painted engine gray, and a data plate decal was added to the crankcase. The prop blades were painted flat black, except the cuffs that were painted semi-gloss. The tips were painted primer white and then yellow.

This model is part of my American Aces collection that are painted as they’d be displayed in a museum, so no weathering was done. The excellent rivet and panel lines look very accurate.

CONCLUSIONS

Eduard has outdone themselves with this exquisite kit that needs no enhancements right out of the box! A pleasurable 52-hour build!

REFERENCES

Squadron- F4F Wildcat in Action, Walk Around F4F Wildcat