F4U-5N Corsair by Julien Haccoun (Hasegawa 1/48)

Hasegawa's 1/48 scale
F4U-5N Corsair

by Julien Haccoun

F4U-5N Corsair

Hasegawa's 1/48 scale F4U-5N Corsair is available online from Squadron.com

Introduction

The “big-nosed” Corsairs have always been among my favourite aircraft, so when Hasegawa released the –5 and –7 family I couldn’t resist buying a few of them.

The first one I finished is “red 15” operated by the VMF(N)-513 during the Korean conflict, for night interdiction strikes (among other things) hence its black overall finish.

Construction

The model was slightly enhanced with resin bits from Jaguar detail set, including the seat, instrument coaming switches, gun sight and other details.

The main issue with the aircraft itself is the molding seam around the nose, which is NOT a panel line: to get rid of it, the engraved details were accentuated then sanded and again as much as necessary to obtain a smooth finish without loosing the delicate details.

This done, the rest of the model was assembled as per instructions.

Only the main wheels were replaced with resin part from Hi Tech.

Painting and Markings

The most interesting part of the whole project was the paint job.

Contrary to some modelers who could swear black cannot be used to paint a black aircraft, I used pure flat black from Gunze. This basic coat was then slightly altered in places with clouds of a highly thinned mix of black and brown, buff or blue depending on the areas and of the desired effect. This gave interesting - although subtle - shades before applying the decals. These were sourced from the kit itself and from Superscale sheet 48-694 for the stencils.

After a good flat coat, I “chipped” the paint with touches of Humbrol 11, mainly around the engine panels and screws. I know the black Corsairs looks quite unaltered on wartime pictures, but considering the chipped look of some Navy birds I figured it could be so on Marine a/c at some point in their career. Anyway, I wanted a beaten a/c, so was it!

The whole model was then weathered with heavy applications of very thinned brown mixes of Prince August acrylics applied with a flat brush and “stretched” with a fine one along gravity lines. Mud splattered around the landing gear was achieved by a heavy coat of Surfacer textured with a hard flat brush, then sprayed over with a mix of light earth. These techniques were combined with a final brown oil wash that achieved the desired contrasts.

Finishing Touches

Rockets

The last big thing to do was to re-build proper rockets: I cleaned the basic Hasegawa elements with a Dremel then cut and glued new fins before painting them with different colors: not really a fun job!

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

A napalm tank was made from a standard 75 gallon fuel tank painted yellow and weathered with a reddish brown acrylic mix.

When all this was hung beneath the wings I realised that the attachment points of the rockets are wrong, giving them an improper length ahead of the wing: oh well, my bad, too late, I’ll know it next time when I’ll be hanging… bombs instead!

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Aerial Wires

The final touch was the antenna wire: I had to re-do it four times! I cut and burnt it twice while attaching and straightening it. Then after I showed the last-to-be sample to a friend I had to do it a fourth time after he burnt it with his cigarette!

Guys, don’t smoke. It’s dangerous for your lungs AND your/our models!

Conclusion

There it was, finished after a few accidents: I wouldn’t say Hasegawa’s Bent Wing Bird is the ultimate late-model Corsair, but it is a nice kit and with a bit of work it can be turned into a stunning model.