Airfix included a detailed cut away illustration showing their suggested route to run the electric wires from the motor to a hatch in the belly behind the cockpit. While this scheme is very popular and not very unique, it does show off a lot of contrasting white and the DN paint masks for this scheme were readily available. As capable a fighting machine as the Hellcat undoubtedly was, this was only part of the story as to why the aircraft had such a dramatic impact on the Pacific air war.

Usually, a new tooling announcement would result in a prototype model being shown at the time of the official unveiling, however in this case, we were not only able to show a fully completed and decorated Hellcat, but also several sectional builds, which effectively highlighted the impressive levels of detail incorporated into the design of this kit. The cockpit is really hard to photograph but can be seen very well with the naked eye at this large scale. It all goes together very well, a little too well at times as some of the tolerances are very tight. With one wing folded back in its carrier stowage position, many of the panels around the engine have been removed to allow all this detail to be shown and the gun access panels opened to reveal gun and ammunition detail.I needed the whole plane to be vertical till the engine gluing had time to set solid so my straps and case from my portable photo background photo shooting thingy came in handy. Maintaining their impressive criteria for naval aircraft design, what the Grumman engineers managed to produce was an aircraft which was ideally suited to the rigours of combat from the decks of aircraft carriers and operations over large expanses of ocean. All the detail applied to each individual part is applied in layers, gradually building up until the designer is happy with the accuracy of the part, knowing that this will all have to be incorporated in the model tooling block itself and subjected to the injection moulding manufacturing process.

It is critical that you trim and dry fit the navigation light lenses before painting, because they don’t fit at all without doing so. The new aircraft was also much more than just a ‘big Wildcat’, even though its similar profile may lead many to think that was the case.A wonderful build with lots of detail you have done that is impressive and, again, teases me to begin a build of this kit.