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REVELL (MONOGRAM) 1:72 GRUMMAN F7F TIGERCAT |
Reviewer:
Kevin Ronayne (kevin.ronayne@nuigalway.ie)
Kit Review submitted:
28 August 2004
Date: 17th August, 2004
The Grumman Tigercat is one of those aircraft that were designed too late to see service in World War II, but had become outdated by the time of the Korean War. The origins of the Tigercat were in a 1941 requirement for a twin-engined heavy fighter that could be operated from the as yet unbuilt 'Midway' class of very large aircraft carriers. An initial requirement for 500 aircraft (designated F7F-1) was for the US Marine Corps, who wanted to use it in a land-based close support role. The war ended before any Tigercats saw operational service, and orders were subsequently scaled down. The major production version of the Tigercat was the -3 variant, of which 189 examples were built. Compared to earlier versions, this featured more powerful engines and a larger tail/rudder. Some of the -3's were modified after production for use in the photographic reconaissance role (-3P) and electronic warfare (-3E) roles. There were also batches of night fighters produced in different versions (-2N,-3N and -4N). The night fighters had the nose battery of four 12.7 mm machine guns removed, leaving just the four 20 mm cannon in the wing roots. The later night fighters had longer redesigned noses designed to house advanced radar units.
This is one of those kits that I know very little about. It is a genuine Monogram tooling (complete with a Monogram stamp on the inside of one of the wings!), and is probably quite old - perhaps the late 1960's? I bought my kit in 1995 for IR£ 6, or about STG£ 5 at the time. I had never seen the kit on sale before, nor have I have seen it again since then. The kit is quite simple, with less than 40 parts, and that includes a two-piece stand. On the plus side, the surface detail is very good for an old kit, although for some reason the panel line detailing is raised on the fuselage and nacelles, and recessed on the wings. The aileron, elevator and rudders have a 'stressed' effect. The instructions come in an 8-page A4 leaflet, with no aircraft history (shades of Revell), and an overly detailed 20-step construction guide that is pure Monogram in terms of its layout and style. Revell paint codes are quoted throughout the instructions, although the full-page paint and decal guides do quote the expected FS 15042 for the main overall colour.
Decals are included for two land-based Marine aircraft:
The first thing to be said about this kit is that it fits together beautifully - hardly any filler was required at all during regular construction. However, quite a bit of filler was needed to modify the two main problem areas, namely the cockpit and the undercarriage. Were it not for these two areas, I might well have had the kit physically built in a day.
The problem with the cockpit is that it is almost non-existent! The top of the rear cockpit bulkhead is there, along with a headrest. The pilot figure hangs off this section. Not good. I threw away the pilot and built a new cockpit floor, rear bulkhead (keeping what was there), seat and control stick. An instrument panel decal was supplied, but to use that I would have had to alter the instrument panel as well - this was crudely molded into the fuselage halves. I didn't bother, as I figured the decal might be better used on some other kit as a generic instrument panel. Most of the cockpit was painted FS34151 interior green (the discontinued Humbrol 151). The rear nose undercarriage doors were molded in the open position. I wanted to built my kit 'wheels up', so I removed the doors and reattached them in the closed positions, along with the main front door that would have been attached to the nose wheel strut. This done, I cemented the fuselage halves together - each includes one half of the centreline tank.
The main undercarriage doors are also molded in the open position, each attached to a nacelle half-section. This was where most of the work was required. Unlike the nose wheel doors, I couldn't avoid damaging the doors when I removed them - the plastic was just too thick and the molding too crude. After cleaning up the doors, I carefully reattached them in the correct position and left them overnight to set. Then I set about filling in the ugly gaps that ran along the door/nacelle hinge, filling the gap from the inside first, which gave me a base to apply a smooth finish from the outside. Naturally, all of this took some time to do properly. Once completed, all I had to do was assemble the nacelles, attach them to the wings (each with upper and lower parts), and attach these assemblies to the fuselage. Each wing was attached separately and left to set overnight. The wings are designed to attach with a fair amount of dihedral, although I think there isn't quite enough. The tail plane/elevator units were set flat on the Tigercat, so there was no such problem there.
As an aside, I should say that the undercarriage parts look alright given the age of the kit, but more work on the wheel well interiors would be needed to make these areas presentable if you wanted to build a 'wheels down' aircraft.
Each cowling is molded as a single piece complete with a crude engine block - or, at least the front of an engine block, since the Double Wasp engine had two banks of cylinders. The construction guide said that the cowling interior should be painted dark gloss blue - i.e., the same as the overall colour. I painted these surfaces Zinc Chromate primer (Hu 81) - this is one of the areas where there is quite a range of evidence, and opinions! The propeller units are deliberately designed to have the blades positioned well in front of the cowling - the front section of the propeller shaft is thicker than the rest of the shaft. As far as I know, this is wrong, and I altered the parts to position the propellers much closer to the cowling.
That is pretty much all there was to the construction! There are a few other minor parts (such as the wing gun barrels), but they hardly warrant discussion. You have to fill in a hole in the underside of the external tank if you don't intend using the stand. I have not done that for now, so I can use the stand if and when I want. I had to add weight to the base of the stand, to reduce the chance that the stand and the plane might topple over! The wings have rocket stubs and bomb pylons molded in place, but no stores are provided.
The kit was painted with Humbrol 181 (i.e., FS15042 gloss dark blue). The only problem with this was that this shade of Humbrol paint is extremely slow to dry by Humbrol Enamel standards. I suppose that different paints have different ingredients depending on the colour that is to be reproduced, and this can cause the drying time to vary significantly from one colour to another.
The decals are the German-printed decals that were supplied with Revell Germany kits up until the mid 1990's, before Revell switched to the vastly superior Italian-produced decals. The main decals (insignia, unit numbers and so on) are printed in register, and there is quite an amount of minor stencil detail supplied. However, the surrounding film is quite extensive on all of these tiny markings. The decal sheet is white, which makes it even more difficult to use these markings.
An interesting feature on the post-war aircraft is that the upper port insignia is bigger than the lower starboard insignia. All of the decals were given a coat of gloss varnish afterwards.
There are some obvious issues here that are to be expected in a kit of this vintage. The wing trailing edges are far too thick, which is a common failing in many old kits. The tank-to-fuselage attachment is solid, which is wrong - there should just be two attachment points. I could have easily corrected this if only I'd noticed it before I started building the kit. As I mentioned earlier, the wings may not have quite enough dihedral. From reference photographs, it looks as if the propeller blade tips should be squarer than depicted in the kit. However, I have at least one photograph that shows a Tigercat with similar propeller blades to those in the kit - I am in the dark as to whether different versions (or even one version) of the F7F might have used different propeller units. On the positive side, the kit seems to have the correct fin/rudder for the -3 version - later Tigercats had a bigger fin/rudder unit with a squarer profile when compared with earlier versions. The size and exact position of the under wing rocket stubs is also questionable - they look to be both too wide and (height wise) too short. Both fore and aft stubs are included - some aircraft only had forward stubs fitted. The bomb pylons are not really pylons at all - they are far too short, and serve as a mounting point for more substantial pylons.
The kit scales out well in terms of basic dimensions - it might be very slightly too long, but the wingspan appears spot on. However, if the wings had more dihedral then this would cause the kit wingspan to be slightly shorter. The aircraft profile looks to be accurate, and the amount of surface detailing is quite extensive (and accurate) for a kit this old. One issue that I am not clear on is how the -3P variant differed from the standard -3 aircraft. The -3P aircraft were modified from standard -3 aircraft - there were no production -3P Tigercat. If the -3P carried photographic equipment, then I would expect that there would be some visible sign, possibly in an altered nose with guns removed. There is no evidence of that in the kit, as it looks very much like a 'standard' Tigercat.
This looks to be a kit well worth getting, if only you can find it! The Tigercat is not a well-represented subject in any scale, which is hardly surprising given it's relatively limited service life. Pavla (Octopus) have a kit of the -3N night fighter version, but I don't know of any other kits of any other versions.
Without a specialised reference on the Tigercat, there is not too much to go - it's just not important enough an aircraft to warrant a really detailed entry in the general references that I have. An in-depth article on building the Pavla kit (Scale Aircraft Modelling, July 2003, Vol 25, Issue 5) proved really helpful in terms of fleshing out details about the Tigercat, particularly in the cockpit area.
One general reference that is certainly worth reading (and printing, and downloading!) is the Interior Colours of US Aircraft, 1941-45 which is a recently-published work on the excellent IPMS Stockholm site. Written by Martin Waligorski, this is a three-part text and photo essay that will make you question anything you thought you knew about USAAF and USN/USMC aircraft interiors during WW II!
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