¹⁄35

The 'Renee Ann', a beautiful F4U-1A

Introduction

The kit is truly a work of art in mold making. I'm sure that it lacks something somewhere, but you would be hard pressed to find it. The following is a brief synopsis of the features of the kit:

• The cockpit is very nice, right out of the box. No after-market kit could really improve on what Tamiya has provided in the kit. With some careful painting, an outstanding cockpit can be made straight from the box.

• Two canopies are provided, one with framing (typical of the F4U-1A) and one without (typical of the F4U-1D).

• The wing flaps are separate and can be attached in the lowered position.

• The wings are separated into pieces that let you display the wings folded.

• The engraving of the kit is well executed. The fabric-covered portions of the outer wing, flaps, and tails are molded with a finely engraved fabric texture.

• Under-wing pylons are provided for five inch rockets. Unfortunately, though, no actual rockets are in the kit.

• Under fuselage pylons are provide with external fuel tanks. The F4U-1 kit provides bombs, also. Unfortunately Tamiya again chose to delete these from the F4U-1D kit. The F4U-1D kit has no external weapons included, only weapons pylons.

• The landing gear is nicely molded and attaches positively and firmly for a strong joint. This is important to me as the model will sit for a long time on my display shelves and surely get bumped around more than once.

With all these great molded in details already provided in the box, I built the model straight out-of-the-box. The only extra I did was add the line antennae between the fuselage and the tail.