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A Story of a POGO

The Kit

I did the basic construction of the Pogo, to use as a scale reference for the dimensions / proportions of the equipment to be scratch built, as I had no drawing just photos to go by.

The kit as you can see in the box art photo, is the 1/72 scale Pogo XFY-1 from KP. The kit was a pretty straightforward build from the box. Many consider KP to be a “limited edition” or short run house, but most of their releases are readily available, in fact the Pogo was recently re-released with new packaging.

One major flaw was encountered during the construction, that being the inability to properly align the “tail cone” to the fuselage. This required some Squadron putty and Moto tool work. I was so confident that this would work out okay; I bought a second kit as backup. Everything did work out okay and I didn’t need the second kit.

Other than this one major flaw, there were few areas that required attention. A small mismatch in front of the “cockpit” and a little filler at the “wing roots” and to blend the “leading edges” to the fuselage were all...

Modifications

There was a modification required to the “landing gear”, not due to a flaw in the kit, but due to the way the model was to be displayed. As the aircraft was to be in both the vertical and horizontal position the gear would need to compress and relax. As with most kits the gear is supplied to be in one position or the other, in this case compressed as the typical display is as a “tail sitter”.

To facilitate both positions of the gear, I removed the kit wheels from the provided supports. Then cut straight pins to the proper length, leaving the heads on, and modified the interior of the wing and rudder assemblies.

The modifications of the wing and rudder assemblies consisted of hollowing out a groove for the pin to ride in and installing two small sleeves made of plastic tubing, one sleeve to act as a guide and stop to retain the pin by it’s head, the other to replicate the visible external structure of the gear support.

The modifications finished, the straight pins were placed in the guides and the kit wheels glued to the ends. The halves of the wings and rudders were then glued together.

The rest of the kit was pretty straightforward except for the pilot seat being too tall, for the canopy to close; only minor adjustment was needed here. Only problem was I hadn’t noticed it till I was ready to paint the NMF, I usually use the canopy as a mask for the cockpit. The kit was left unpainted during construction of all the “support equipment”, due to all the handling while using it as a scale / proportion guide.