The Little World

The Fleet Air Arm has always been a thing unto itself. Not quite the Royal Navy but certainly not the Royal Air Force. Attached to the stuffiest of the traditional services but trying to operate the newest of the weapons. While not always given the newest of the weapons.

Sort of the ” special ” cousin at the Christmas table…the one with the corks on the ends of the fork tines.

Well, they might have been condemned to endlessly repeating Trafalgar Night and saluting the yardarm and such nonsense, but they eventually they fought themselves free of the biplanes and the experimental dive bombers and graduated to Lend Lease naval aircraft. The Wildcat first and then the Hellcat. Eventually the Avenger and the Corsair. Finally they got something that was worth recovering over the stern after it had been catapulted off the bow…

It was only a small reprieve. Fairey and Westland and Hawker and Blackburn were still able to sell them whatever the Lordships of the Admiralty could be cozened into taking, but while the American planes were operating, the Royal Navy had teeth.

This is one of the free Hellcats in very clean FAA paint. It is an entire invention, as a quick Google search will prove – the vaunted cleanliness and tiddly paint jobs of the Royal Navy were not in evidence with the Grummans. As scruffy as they might have seemed, they were as nothing to the appearance of the deck crews. Go ahead…Google it for yourself. There’s nothing like plane handlers in sand shoes to give you a sense of professional pride…

All this aside. I like the Hellcat in these colours. If the paint makers ever produce a good Slate Grey in lacquer, I’ll make many more of the models. As it is, you mix at your peril.