The Little World

I have discovered a few reasons that the Academy Grumman TBF-1 was so cheap:

a. The age of the mould means that while the fit and finish are fine, the amount of detail they were prepared to make in the casting – ie time taken to inscribe things – was limited. Either that or they inherited a historic mould that they did not feel they wanted to alter…

b. There are no cooling flaps represented on the fuselage around the engine – none at all. The real Avenger has prominent ones that are open for takeoff and when the plane is warming up on deck. The fuselage of the model could be filled in and re-scribed to give some impression of this missing feature but I am not sure of my skills in this area. Leave it with me…

c. The wings are hollow. I don’t necessarily demand full spars and rigging, but the cavernous empty space around the wheel well is bothering me. I have boxed it in with a simple bit of paper scratchbuilding and this should be fine in this scale.

d. There are sink marks and missing bits in some of the mould edges. Fortunately they are all puttyable instead of pitiable.

e. The cockpit is bare, though the inclusion of the pilot should make it look full enough.

f. Have they ever seen a US Navy pilot of WW II? They moulded the little plastic guy with long flying boots and a hat that looked like the Polish Parachute Brigade. Fortunately it all filed down eventually to a better semblance. I must find more crew for the planes.

All this said I am not regretting this one at all, The wing and tail fitting is superb – I doubt that there will be any filler needed. And I’ve used the new Mr Hobby masking solution for the wheels so that the tyres look perfect on the white-painted rims. Another lesson learned.