F4F-3 Wildcat - Kartonowy Arsenal

[mor54]

Hello and thank you for the interest, very encouraging comments and willing to help.

Did a long google search, and founa a lot of data. Prime Portal is a gold mined for aircraft walk around - he has 5 on this aircraft (links for two of them)

FM-1 (14994) Wildcat Walk Around Page 1

FM-1 (14994) Wildcat Walk Around Page 1

Another nice finding are two drawings. All of this gave a good idea how to do the landing gear. The big question is the level and depth of the detailing.





Shalom Mor

[Panda82]

Your Wildcat looks very good.
Are you going to make an complete engine?

[lairdre]

How many of you have seen the Wildcat in terminal 2 at O'Hare airport? They pulled it out of lake Michigan, refurbished it to look like Butch O'Hare's aircraft.

Ron

[Leif Ohlsson]

That is one complicated landing gear. Love those exploded views. - L.

[MrB17]

Nice job on the Wildcat, landing gear is tricky to say the least. Maybe a simple jig would help as a third hand. I remember an old Monogram 1/32 plastic model of the Wildcat's predecessor the F3F, and the landing gear operated by spinning the propellor to make them go up or down. Pretty much the same landing gear as the Wildcat. The scale fidelity suffered a lot from the ability to make them operate. Most of don't play with our models these days.

Although this is an older Halinski kit, it does look very clean and crisp in the hands of a modeler such as yourself.

Regards,
Jeff

[mor54]

Hello all, and thanks to Panda82, lairdre, Leif Ohlsson and MrB17.

Started to bened some metal clips for the landing gear, but I am at the begining.
Had some more interesting finding on google search, that show the landing gear mechnism, the first one from Airlines.com





Next picture is a scan from one of my books - The history of US naval air power . It is of VF-3's F-1 aircraft, flown by the John S. Thach.



Detailing the engine will be the next step after the landing gear, hope that next time it will be landing gear ...

Shalom Mor

[John Bowden]

The landing gear will always be the most difficult part of the Wildcat........ I know you will do a great job Mor!

I wonder why the US Flag in the second picture is upside down? That is supposed to be used to show a sign of distress.

[Formerly Styrene]

I am guessing that many of you know this, but the Wildcat soldiered on til the end of the war as the GM built FM-2 which was used on the many escort carriers for The US and GB (as the Martlet, as previously mentioned). Of course it's higher powered, better armed sibling the Hellcat had all the glory, but the Wildcat did serve, and serve well 'til the end.

David
aka Formerly Styrene

[mor54]

Hello all,

You are right David, the Wildcat deserve a lot of credit for standing against the zero in the firs years. It was even more harder, because in the first years the Japanese pilots were the elite and most experienced one.

As you saide John Bowden, the landing gear is a real challenge. Building is based on the landing gear drawings, side view and front view, and detail walkarouns. The struts are from paper clips, bended and cut to the length. Painting will be done later, after all is bonded.







And this is the last one bifore running out of clips.



In parallel to the landing gear, I am working on the engine cover, parts taken as is but bonded tip to tip without tabs. Each time a small section was bonded.



Shalom Mor

[MacSongLi]

You've done a great job on the landing gear.