F7F-3 Tigercat - BuNo 80405 - VMF 312 MCAS - El Toro, CA 1946

[LSP_Kevin]

Excellent work, Brian! That instrument panel is terrific.

 

Kev

[Guest]

MY GOD MAN !! Just frekin awesome. What did you use for the hyd. line in the nose wheel well ? Stretched sprue ? It came out perfect......Harv

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks Dan, Vandy, K1 Harv.

Harv, the line in the nose wheel well is EZ Line, just like the wire bundles and throttle quadrant rods.

 

I actually did some dry fitting of the cockpit parts and cockpit.

Amazingly, even with all the additions to the pit made, thanks in part to scrapping off the glueing surfaces on both the cockpit and the sidewalls, the cockpit fits in its final position quite well. Although just as I had suspected, some of my work won't really be visible in the end:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end I'm still very glad I did the work I did, and am anxious to get to the point of closing the fuselage.

 

Cheers!

[Bstarr3]

Wow, such incredible work in the cockpit. It's really coming together beautifully and you have put some serious work into this thing.

-Brian

Edited January 8, 2018 by Bstarr3

[Daniel460]

Excellent work Brian! Gear and pit look fantastic! 

 

Dan

[Guest Maxim]

Nice work and an excellent solution to the nose gear.

[LSP_Ray]

Wow, beautiful work, Brian! The IP is really nice, and the cockpit and nosewell look great.

[dodgem37]

Nice detailing, and detail painting and weathering on that cockpit, Brian.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[blackbetty]

i really dig it!

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks guys. Im enjoying the work so far. I dont expect that to hold true throughout the build, as there are some up-coming sections that I can foresee some issues with, but again nothing that I wont be able to handle.

 

Having solved the nose gear issues (hopefully) I seemingly have checked off 1 out of 3 of my known major issues with the kit. There are several other much more minor issues to solve going forward, but Im hoping those will work themselves out with much less drama than the big three.

Solving the nose gear issue, leaves the MLG issue, and much more pressing and coming up much sooner, the wing re-scribe issue.

 

I still have not 100% clarified which method I will go with to fix the wing, but one way or another, it will get fixed soon, as the wing attachment stage is coming up rapidly, and I need to fix that lower wing section prior to  wing assembly, and wing attachment.

 

Cheers

[Guest Peterpools]

Hi Brian

Outstanding progress and a pleasure to follow your progress. At this point the nose gear wheel well and nose gear look beautifully done and the front office; what can I say - spot on! Just so glad you bit the bullet and litrrally took the Tiger by the tail and went to work with your majic.

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

[Thunnus]

Beautiful work on the cockpit!  I love that instrument panel... the decal + PE sandwich yielded excellent results.  The Tigercat has quite the little cockpit doesn't it?

[Out2gtcha]

Peter, John thanks for the kind words.

 

Thanks John, Yes indeed it does!  Cramped as hell, but that is nothing new to aviation cockpits since their inception it seems. It just seems like some are much more cramped than others. 
If you ever seen the F7F in person, or in flight, its a HUGE fighter. It looks especially large if you've ever seen one in formation with much of anything else from its own era such as an F4U, P-51 F6F, F5F, F8F or the like, but its cockpit is surprisingly small for such a large aircraft. John, I was just reading up on your adventures in salt weathering on your gorgeous 109.............I may have to rethink that on the Tigercat!  Actually I was thinking maybe of even making this one a bit more clean. Not shiny clean, but semi-gloss with some dirt.

 

Here is a super short (and kind of crappy) vid of a formation fly by I took at the Reno Championship air-races back in 2013, with an F7F, F6F, F8F, P-51, and a trailing Spit. Its only a few seconds long, but gives you an idea of the T-Cats enormous size compared to its contemporaries:

 

[Guest Peterpools]

Brian

Thanks for the short video. One Big, beautiful Airplane

Peter

[Thunnus]

Awesome video!  I love, more than anything, hearing that roar of those supercharged engines whenever I get the rare opportunity to see a vintage WW2 aircraft flying.  I messed up on the salt fading but hopefully I haven't scared people off from a really cool technique because of my ineptitude.  Oh and I love the throttle body... the wiring to the actuators and rods below almost seem functional... very hard to do in a 1/32 cockpit.