Hi all,

Many of you ( I hope ) may recall the TV series, Baa Baa Black Sheep ( later titled Black Sheep Squadron ). It was loosely based on the exploits of Maj. Gregory Boyintgon and his bunch of misfit pilots. I have been searching for a Corsair kit which included Boyington's markings eversince I got hooked on the series. Testors had one in 1/72 scale which I bought and later found out that Academy also produced this magnificent aircraft with just the right decals in 1/48 scale. If I'm not mistaken this is an old Arii kit. I got this one about a year ago and finally found the time to build it. I used brown paper to try and replicate the covers for the guns. PE seatbelts were added and the rest is purely an out of the box build. Instead of a darker Navy Blue I felt a faded color scheme would better represent those hard wearing Navy planes operating in the Pacific. Boyington flew 1As but Academy matched the decals to this D version so I guess it'll have to do.

Fans of the series this one's for you...and by the way, "Pappy" was invented by the press. Boyington was actually nicknamed "Gramps" and a check with the website dedicated to him revealed he was nothing at all like actor, Robert Conrad who played him.

[ [i]put

another great piece of work patrick.... BBBS was one of my favorite tv series back then. is the academy 1/48 a good kit?

btw i went through yr webshots gallery... amazing stuff. i think you shoud do a build article on yr models- yr paintjob are quite good. is the helldiver the old 1/48 monogram kit?

cheers.

I think Hasegawa has got 1 kit for it too. I remember reading the instruction sheet from my friend .It stated Boyington's name in it. But it was really X10 long time ago, when i was still in Darjah 5 .

sllim

Many thanks

Academy's offering came from an Arii kit and one can tell from the way the parts for WWII fighters are engineered. Their trademark is also fine panel lines. The Kawanishi in Webshots is also from Arii.

Overall, fit was good except the sliding canopy doesn't sit well in opened position and drastic measures like using superglue was called for. Have to be careful coz this stuff can cloud clear parts. I must get clear parts glue in future. Cockpit is reasonably detailed and should be sufficient for the out of the box builder. Decals can be tough and some experience in dealing with stubborn decals is useful.

The Helldiver is an OOP and an ex Aifix kit from MPC. It's a 1/72.

See Liang, I did a check and can't find any F4U-1s in
1/48 from Hasegawa. The one you mentioned could be OOP by now. I do have an old 1/72 Corsair from this manufacturer though. Comes with markings for USS Bunker Hill. No recessed lines.

Regards
Patrick