The Douglas Devastator TBD-1 was a US Navy torpedo bomber, modern when ordered in 1934 by the navy with many firsts:
- First monoplane torpedo bomber
- First all metal construction
- First with powered wing folding from the cockpit
First flown in June 1937, 130 aircraft of this model were built. Five years later at the battle of Midway in June 1942, it was an out of date aircraft that had taken terrible losses, 41 aircraft lunched from 3 carriers, only 5 remained at the end of the battle. The USN crews from 3 squadrons – VF-3 (USS Yorktown), VT-6 (USS Enterprise) and VT-8 (USS Hornet) have demonstrated the highest level of courage and devotion to the mission.
For a 1-33 scale model, I chose to build a VT-6 squadron model from the "golden wings" area. This aircraft was high on my to do list, and I spend a lot of time looking for pictures (walk around for this one does not excised), most of them are old black & white.
And the real aircraft
The cockpit for a crew of 3 take a 1/3 of the fuselage length, so I decided to build first the cockpit and later to add the outer skin made of two parts.
Rest of the cockpit will be build in parallel to the fuselag. The outer skin is made of two parts, and an additional part in grean color bonded to the back of the outer skin.
Shalom Mor