John1

That’s a bit more my speed. Just can’t fit a 4-engined heavy into my world.

Don’t think so...

I’m more excited by the fact that they apparently have a beautifully restored B-52G at this museum (with original interior)!

One photo shows the earlier 3” rockets, a predecessor to the HVAR. The other one shows some of the shaped-charge AP/anti-tank HVAR’s being loaded on an F4U in Korea. These were hurriedly deployed to counter NK T-34’s. Pretty much disappeared later in the war.

LOL.. I was thinking the same thing. Seems a bit out of place. That being said, these boys know their stuff, so I'd have to say - yes, the Lanc does really does have a yellow handrail in the nose.

I saw that Wiki. Just didn’t think the white warheads would be AP. Figured the AP ones would be different shaped (thought I saw pics of ones used in Korea, they were much longer and pointier) and not very common in the pacific theater.

You are the man! That answered all my questions.

Thanks very much guys! Getting some additional stuff done. Mounted the inboard flaps. Like the outboards, they pretty much just click into place. Barely need any glue. I really like the way the Corsair looks with the flaps dropped. After that, I moved onto the cockpit. I installed the Mk. 8 gunsight and the pilot's armored glass. Unlike the AF in 1945, the Navy/Marines were still using fixed reticle gunsights. The AF by this time had pretty much reequipped most of their fighters with the "acemaker" K-14 gunsight. This gunsight was gyro-stabilized and as a result, you could engage a target from a side angle and the sight would tell you how much lead to use. Only thing I can figure was that they thought the gyro sight might be too fragile to withstand the pounding of repeated carrier landings. Another bit of meaningless trivia - unlike most sights that had a small bit of glass that reflected the aiming "pipper", the Corsair's sight reflected the pipper directly onto the armored glass. Flaps are down, armored glass and gunsight are installed. Once the upper wings are installed, I'll add the missing hydraulic and electrical lines. Next up is the windscreen. Tamiya suggests that you add the masks and then spray the outside black first, then adding the final Gloss Sea Blue over it. I never liked this approach, the canopy interior still looks like clear plastic. I ended up somewhat roughly handpainting the interior frames (minus the front frames that won't be very visible when the windscreen is installed) with Testor's Interior Black. This is an acrylic so if I screw things up, I can quickly remove it without damaging the clear part. Doesn't have to be perfect, once the exterior paint is applied, any small gaps won't be noticeable. Couple of comments - if you recall, back when I was doing the cockpit, I noted that Tamiya neglected to have you install the rocket control box that was a fixture on the -1D. I didn't mention it but I was also disappointed that Tamiya didn't include the flap position indicator on the left side of the cockpit. This was a prominent feature on all Corsairs. I spoke too soon. Tamiya has you installing both parts onto the windscreen interior. Amazing attention to detail. One thing they did miss - when the USN developed the rocket equipped -1D, apparently they decided it would impact production if they had to install the rocket firing button on the pilot's control stick (like every other aircraft had). Instead, to keep things simple (and add to the ergonomic nightmare of this cockpit), the simply installed a crude handgrip on the left side of the cockpit with the rocket firing button included. Typical Navy solution, never mind that it mostly blocked the view of the flap position indicator. Here's a shot from Dana Bell's wonderful book that illustrates what I'm talking about. I made the firing grip out of a carved section of large diameter styrene rod. Added the firing button and attempted to replicate the instruction placard on it's front (pretty crappy but my excuse is that the details were worn away by the pilot's hand due to heavy use). I also added the Barracuda decals to the flap position indicator and the aforementioned rocket control box on the right hand side. Here are some pics of everything. Note -all the glass is just test fitted in place. All the gaps, drooping armor glass,, etc will go away when I'm done. I'll also add some wiring to the rocket control box and firing grip once they are permanently in place. In looking at these pics, I've come to the conclusion that the red firing button is too large. I'll have this resolved by the next update. One other horrible miss - the kit's flap indicator shows the flaps in the RAISED position, while on my model, they are actually in the down position! I hang my head in shame over this major miss. That's it for now. Thanks for looking.

Sounds plausible, I know that the US Army typically color-codes it's warheads and white usually meant smoke or WP. Never knew they had a WP warhead for the HVAR. Given how obsessed the USN was (is) about fire on ships, you would think this would be verbotten. I'm leaning towards the timed air-burst. Just funny that with all the googling I've done on the subject, nothing ever came up except the standard HE warhead. Anyone have a pic of the rear of the HVAR that shows exactly how the firing lead was connected to the motor? Almost looks like they had some coiled up slack in the cable.

WNW - "Go Big or Go Home" Gotta give them credit for having the drive to release these monster kits... All that being said, they are well beyond anything I would entertain purchasing (partially on cost, mainly on just not having the room to display these beasts). I hope at some point, they will go back to simpler, smaller subjects. The Junkers fighter they just released is much more my cup of tea. On a related note, is anyone else just slightly disappointed that this wasn't a Fokker Dr.1?

Got a little paint down. Slowly I am making some progress. I'm trying to replicate the worn area on the wingroot by using the hairspray technique. Not quite there yet, this is still a work in progress. Really like the way the Colourcoat paint airbrushes. That's it for now, thanks for looking.

Perfect, thanks very much!

I'm building the Tamiya -1D Corsair with a full compliment of HVAR rockets. The Tamiya rockets are truly wonderful but one thing that will be on me will be the firing leads that ran from somewhere in the wing / rear pylon into the HVAR. Does anyone have detailed info on what these looked like and where they were located? On a related note - the Fundekals instructions for my particular Corsair show the warheads to be an off/creamy white color instead of the regular OD. Anyone have any info on what that was about? Just curious, never seen that before. Wondering if they were some sort of WP or smoke warhead instead of the standard HE? Any info on all this is greatly appreciated.

Can't decide if it's overdone or just the reflection of the paint.

Very small update, been a busy week. I completed (mostly) the outer wings. No fit problems, just need to carefully read the instructions and make sure you open up a few holes. The flaps went together fine, this time no extra work was required opening up the interior frames. I've opted to install the flaps in the down position, so I went ahead and glued them into the place. They really look nice. Tamiya did a great job of having them pretty much click into place, you can also see through them, as per the real thing. They also provided full interiors for the flap bays within the wings. I still need to add some small bits such as the rocket launcher stubs (a couple of these will need to go on once the national insignia is applied to the lower wing), pitot tube, etc. One thing I did do was to lightly sand down the fabric detail. The F4U had the rear sections of the wings mostly covered in fabric and in most people's opinion, the Tamiya surface detail is a bit heavy. Nothing 5 minutes with some sanding film can't fix. The wings... Flap details. Also note that Tamiya included the aileron control linkage as a separate part. Fun Corsair fact - when they introduced the -1D, they switched from fabric covered flaps to sheet metal ones, the originals would have disintegrated under the rocket exhaust. Good factoid to throw out at your next cocktail party! Upper wing surface. Please ignore the hideous opening for the formation light. I haven't gotten around to fairing it into the wing. I show this picture just to illustrate how obsessed with detail Tamiya is. They included the access cutout for the aileron hinge linkage. When I first started building the Corsair, I assumed it was a rather boring aircraft, from a structural standpoint. In reality, it's got some really interesting, smaller features that I never noticed until I started building this kit. Kudo's to Tamiya. Keep in mind, I haven't done any final cleanup of the wing surface. Still need to hit it with some ultra fine sanding film and give it a wash to get all the dust out of the panel lines and rivet depressions. Anyways, that's it for now. Thanks for looking.