Academy (Hobbycraft) 1/72 McDonnell F2H-3/4 Banshee

ACADEMY (HOBBYCRAFT) 1:72 MCDONNELL F2H-3/4 BANSHEE

Reviewer: Mark B (SMAKR Webmaster) (smakr1@optusnet.com.au)
Kit Built + Review Submitted: 23 April 2009

Kit Details:

Academy #1626 (F1026) F2H-3/-4 Banshee - reboxed Hobbycraft kit

Aircraft History:

The McDonnell F2H Banshee was a military carrier-based jet fighter aircraft, used by the United States Navy from 1948 to 1959 and by the Royal Canadian Navy from 1955 until 1962. The Banshee had unswept wings, a single seat, and two engines. Together with the F9F Panther, the Banshee was one of the USN's primary single-seat fighters during the Korean War. The aircraft's name is derived from the banshee or "fairy woman" of Celtic mythology. [taken from wikipedia]

[taken from Kevin Ronayne's review] The McDonnell F2H Banshee was a development of the FH Phantom, the first U.S. Navy jet fighter to operate from an Aircraft Carrier. The FH had a very limited frontline service life, being essentially an interim design - jet fighter design was still an evolving art, and carrier-based designs were an especially complicated area. The first version of the Banshee - the F2H-1 - also had a relatively short active career, quickly being superseded by the -2. This was the first important production variant, and featured variants with specially modified and extended noses for use as night fighters (-2N) and photo-reconnaissance aircraft (-2P). Both the regular and photo versions saw extensive action in Korea, mostly with the US Navy. Only one Marine unit (VMJ-1) was equipped with the Banshee during the Korean War.

The F2H-3 represented a major development of the basic airframe. In order to produce an all-weather fighter, the fuselage was lengthened by over 8 feet. The nose was lengthened to incorporate a Westinghouse radar, which meant that the rear fuselage had to be also stretched to compensate. The resulting modifications meant that the new aircraft could carry a lot more internal fuel. The capacity of the wingtip tanks was reduced, but these were apparently rarely used in actual missions. The tailplanes were also altered, and the battery of 4 x 20 mm cannon had to be relocated further back to accommodate the radar. The -4 was basically an improved version of the -3, with newer radar and uprated Westinghouse J-34 engines. These aircraft were standard USN all-weather fighters up until the end of the 1950's. Although withdrawn from US service by 1962, some aircraft were still in service with the Royal Canadian Navy, and the Banshee was allocated the designation F-2 under the new US tri-service designation scheme.

In total, some 985 F2H's were built. Compared to the Grumman F9F Panther, the Banshee was not as robust a design - an important consideration for any aircraft used in the close support and interdiction roles. However, it was a 'pilots aircraft', being very easy to fly.

The Kit:

This kit comes well packaged, with three sprues in flash-free light grey injection molded plastic contained in two separate plastic bags, and the decals and clear sprue are packed in their own separate bags as well. Although there is nothing on the kit to suggest this, it is clearly a rebox of the Hobbycraft Banshee. Academy reboxed a lot of Hobbycraft kits in the 90's and I have the identically made Hobbycraft kit in my collection (an inbox review of the Hobbycraft was written in conjunction with this one). This boxing is from 2001 and the 50 parts (including two clear) are nicely molded and look reasonably fresh with indications that Academy have cleaned up some of the parts. The surface details is quite good and all the panel lines are engraved although the surface detail is not as crisp as it could be - either way, the Hobbycraft tooling looks like it has stood the test of time quite well. Hobbycraft are one of those manufacturers (like Dragon) where you really don't know what you are going to get and how easy/hard it will be until you actually build it!

Instructions:

The instruction sheet is a fold out strip, each page a little taller but skinnier than an A5 sheet. It kicks off with a brief overview of the history of the aircraft, and on the same side of the strip are three-view diagrams plus an underwing view of the two USN versions which can be built from the kit, and a sprue map. The main spread contains 10 assembly steps which are pretty straight forward to follow and the usual modelling symbols overview plus numbered labels for painting information in generic names and usually FS numbers. Little inset diagrams provide a bit more detail on removing ejector pin lugs inside the wings (which weren't there in my kit - but interestingly were in my Hobbycraft kit) and the dihedral of the tailplanes (that's not the main wings in step 5!).

Construction:

I actually started constructing the wing sub assembly first which is made up of upper and lower halves and a tulip shaped exhaust cone and an intake fan to be inserted into their respective housings inside the wing root. First thing was to drill out the holes in the lower wing piece for the rockets later if you want these on your finished aircraft (as I did) and remove (presumably from interpretation of the instructions) any ejector pin stubs on the inside of the wings, but mine had none. It was only slightly tricky to fit the exhaust and intake fans in their respective housings and get a decent fit of the upper/lower wing halves over them. However the shape of the intake fan means it will not go all the way in as it is supposed to, leaving a rather ugly gap when the wing/intake is viewed from the front. I tackled this in the next paragraph. I found it best to install the exhaust and intake fan parts in the lower wing half (which has the double groove to align them in) and while still drying close them in with the upper wing half (make sense?). I needed to coax the top of the intake fan forward to get a snug fit, hence the glue needing to still be "wet". Since these internal parts clearly go inside one wing and not the other I only removed the side I was doing from the sprue first, tackled that wing then moved onto the next, so there was no chance of mixing the parts up. The wings are quite happy to prize apart if you let them, so some well placed clothes pegs and some masking tape were an absolute must to keep the sub assembly nice and tight overnight.

The way I tackled the unsightly gap at the intake fan (on the side closest to the outer wing tip) was to apply putty from the back of the fan (the idea was so I didn't have to sand it as it was too hard to get to) and then to use a couple of applications of superglue dobs to fill up the gap from the front. With the putty on the back and although rather crude, the glue still had something to stick to as a base. The result although a little rough, could hardly be flawed once brush painted over with aluminium (as this is more forgiving on flaws than silver is).

While the wings were drying I moved onto the cockpit. A tub is provided into which goes a seat, control stick and an instrument panel on the front. Both the side consoles and main instrument panel have very lightly raised instrumentation detail, so I painted these black and picked them out with a bit of silver dry brushing. The rest of the interior was painted interior green before it was installed into the fuselage half (again one side had the alignment tabs/grooves for installation). The other thing to be trapped inside the fuselage halves is the arrestor hook, so in preparation for this I painted the hook up in black/white stripes and silver fuselage underside where the hook rests against. Note that the boxart indicates a deployed arrestor hook panel, there is no option in this kit, the hook goes into a fixed hole inside the fuselage thus only the hook itself can be deployed downwards, not the panel with it. Unfortunately in spite of my reference collection (of which most is still in boxes in the shed) I found no pictures to confirm this (a quick search on the internet will probably reveal a deployed arrestor hook picture which I didn't do because it wasn't anything to do with my particular project).

Before I affixed the fuselage halves together, and being a wheels up modeller, I decided it was best to install the gear doors on the main (under wings) and nose wheel wells. Again, these parts are specific to the wheel well they cover, so I was careful only to remove and work one side at a time. The nose wheel doors could be attached to either fuselage half and then the halves test fitted to make sure they wouldn't result in a gap or even worse, overlap/stop the halves from affixing nicely together. I must say that being a wheels up modeller, I dread installing wheel well gear doors, they rarely if ever fit nicely without some sort of need to fill, sand and blend the section into the fuselage. You will find my Achilles Heal is always the undersides of aircraft for this reason. However, these gear doors fit as perfect as one could hope for from any kit, so I was very pleasantly surprised.

So now we could affix the fuselage halves together, and the only tricky part was getting the arrestor hook trapped correctly, but otherwise the halves went together beautifully. Against the advice of the instructions I decided to add the wing tip tanks prior to putting the wing onto the fuselage - partly due to reading Kevin's review indicating a problematic fit. This was my first hurdle of the kit, the tip-tanks need to be matched up to the wing they are supposed to be affixed to, and unfortunately did not fit. Through some careful trimming of the alignment tab and a very slight enlargement of the holes in the tanks, I actually achieved an excellent fit quite easily which surprised me. The other issue here is that if you did not want to have the tanks on your aircraft (both -3/-4's did fly without them) then you'll have a tough job of filing off the alignment tab and fixing the wing tip accordingly. I went with the easy option. I also have the original Hobbycraft F2H-3/4 in my unbuilt pile so maybe that is a project for another day.

Again I was not really following the instructions, but going ahead in sub assembly projects that often comes with the experience of building lots of kits. So it was at this stage that the intake splitter plates were painted aluminium and installed (instead of step 2 in the instructions) and they did benefit from a scrub of sandpaper on their backs given a tiny bit of flash from the ejector pin mark. Again, dare I say that the parts belong to the side they are intended for, with a slightly larger alignment pin on the upper side to help distinguish between the two if you mix up the plates.

In step 5 an inset diagram is provided of what looks like the dihedral of the main wings, but don't be fooled, this clearly relates to the tailplanes, not the wings, they just didn't have the wings in the picture! I noted from Kevin's review he had some issues with the wing fit so I was well prepared for a fight here. Thankfully the issues didn't eventuate so badly with me. Test fitting revealed the mating area between wing and the fuselage benefited from a scrape of the hobby knife. The fit was surprisingly snug and good, but there was no escaping a bit of a wing root gap on the starboard wing that had to be filled and sanded.

The tailplanes fitted like a glove, but while on the -3/-4 they're clearly upward slanted, I thought the inset diagram over exaggerated the dihedral/anhedral (whatever the correct word is!) and relied on a front on view in a book of a F-2C (F2H-3) Banshee taking off from a carrier to use as a guide.

With the tailplanes installed, the major assembly was finished, because the nose and tailfin were already molded onto the fuselage. The pylons were installed onto the underwings - again, I feel each pylon is supposed to go in the spot the instructions say and you need to "decipher" which way the pylon faces - test fitting and affixing one at a time will overcome this pretty easily. The rockets were painted and installed after the model was painted. The trap I fell in to (again) is that the pylons go over the USAF underwing roundel decal, so I had to cut the decal up and slot it in later accordingly so be aware of this. The canopy was an excellent fit, but only after test fitting revealed that a little scraping of the windscreen to fuselage was needed to match the contours.

While there was a little bit of work and lots of paragraphs written above, the project was pretty painless and straightforward, quite enjoyable actually. A lot of this I owe to Kevin Ronayne, reading his review effectively prepared me for a bit of a challenge, and I think with the knowledge of the challenges he faced, I was able to pre-empt them and fix them, which made my build experience rather easy. I didn't really experience any real issues at all, but this is more a compliment to Kevin's article because it goes to show the value of reading someone's review of a kit before building it yourself, and you know of the potential problems before they happen.

Colour Schemes:

There are two US Navy examples to build from the kit, one in the standard Gull-grey upper over white and the other in glossy sea blue finish. Respectively they are a F2H-3, VF-11, USS Coral Sea, March 1956 and a F2H-4 (as depicted on the boxart) from the same shed on the same carrier! I thought this was a bit strange but I haven't found any evidence that conclusively disputes different coloured aircraft like this on the same ship. I had the original Humbrol H181 Gloss Sea Blue enamel in my collection so I used this as the model exterior with Radome Tan nose and silver leading edges on the wings and tail fin. I also painted silver on the leading edge of the tailplanes - the instructions do not advise to do this but my sea blue Banshee photos (none are F2H-3/4 though) clearly show this, and so does the boxart! The other thing I noticed in two colour photos was that the exhaust section in the rear of the wing also appeared silver, whereas the instructions indicate gun metal - I compromised with aluminium - with old grainy photos it is hard to get an accurate picture. I could see that there were going to be decals needing to be applied around the canopy, and again with the foresight of Kevin's experiences I wasn't too keen on this so I ended up using H19 to paint the canopy, its frames and to do the work of the decals. The red is a very close but not exact match of the decals (perhaps H60 scarlett would have been a better choice). Once it was all sealed in, only a keen eye would spot the difference so I was prepared to accept it.

Decals:

The large decal sheet has a sharp but glossy finish and the decals appear quite thin on the paper. The register is excellent with only a minor amount of white edging on a couple of smaller red decals for the Gloss Sea Blue version. As far as the printing goes, my criticism is that most of the red/white striped-like decals were provided as separate red and white components (as I believe they should be) - but there were decals all printed into one, and thus the red/white was off centre. Most notably the forward fuselage lightning bolt emblem and the red bar on the USAF insignia. I replaced the latter from my spares. I didn't give my model a gloss cote because I was applying the decals directly onto a gloss sea blue painted surface and overall I didn't have any real concerns with the decals, they applied well and settled down okay. They were easy to move around and I found that it was better to apply them on water (and remove excess moisture with a dab of tissue) than apply on decal setting solution. A couple of decals, such as the intake stripes and the tail fin top would not adhere to the model surface's contours properly. So I had to paint these on. As alluded to in the above paragraph I didn't want the hassle of putting all the decals around the canopy so painted that instead, and was glad I did! The other thing to mention is that if you have rockets on the underwing, then you will have to cut up the underwing USAF roundel to fit around them.

The only real problems I struck was when two decals either joined together (eg: the rear lightning bolts), were applied very close together or when one decal was applied on the other. The essential thing to mention here is that you have to allow drying time for the first decal before applying the second one (if that makes sense). So in summary, the decals went on very well, look fantastic when they settled down but took a while to dry.

Accuracy:

The main differences between the standard F2H-2 main production Banshee and the -3/-4 variants was extension of the fuselage by 8 feet to house internal fuel, and do away with the wing tip fuel tanks (although they still often carried the tip tanks) as well as the altered placement and dihedral of the tailplanes. In the respect of the measurements of the aircraft, length appears to be right on the money and span scales down to within a millimetre, hardly any problems here. I mentioned a concern about the boxart's version of the arrestor hook deployed versus what the kit allows you to do, one or the other is obviously incorrect. Overall, it captures a reasonably convincing replica of this large early carrier based jet fighter.

Overall Recommendation:

I really enjoyed this project, overall the fit of the kit after a few minor modelling adjustments here and there was very good. I wouldn't say it would suit a beginner modeller but certainly a relatively straight forward project for those with a few kits under their belt who are prepared to check things as they go. Now to get my hand on a Demon kit to complete my collection of the F1's-F10's US Navy aircraft!

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