F8F-2 Bearcat 1/72 Hobby Boss

   The Bearcat had a similar fate to the FH-1 Phantom from the previous article. It was too late for the war with Japan and did not see deployment in the Korean conflict, even though it was the fastest US NAVY piston fighter. The Bearcat was eventually deployed in the French Air Force colours in Indochina and possibly South Vietnam but that’s another story.

    The Hobby Boss kit is a very simple so called ” bonbonniere” but surprisingly pretty good. More ambitious modellers will probably be discouraged by ignoring the differences between the F-1 and F-2 versions in the exhaust area. The rest of the kit can be “finished” in various ways, and as it is currently the only kit available, there is no other option 🙂 I have build the kit in the spirit of simplicity and OOB. I added only the bulkhead in the undercarriage bay, antennas, missing pitot tube on the wing and separate weapon pods.

    The Bearcat is in the markings of the famous VF-17 “Jolly Rogers” from 1948 when it was re-renamed to VF-61. The decals are straight from the kit but the white line of the insignia on engine cowling needs to be retouched due to out of register. The missing white text with BuNo under the tail was added and retouched from old decal from stock.

   I could say I have started a collection of planes from the “Jolly Rogers” unit, but I still have a lot of work to do 🙂

This text was translated with help of DeepL.com (free version)