I saw this kit today for the first time at one of my local hobby shops and had
> a chance to pen the box and look at the parts. Overall, it seems to be nicely
> molded, though the fabric surfaces and stringers are a bit overdone, as seems
> to be a Trumpeter trademark; the surface scribing looks quite fine and petite,
> however. It has a reasonably detailed cockpit with separate sidewall framing
> that you need to glue on. The disappointment in the cockpit area is the floor.
> The kit has the rudder pedal troughs depicted reasonably well but they only
> sit a short distance above a flat floor that is incorrect for the F4U1. I
> suspect the easiest fix would be to not use the flat floor piece at all and
> construct a curved faux lower fuselage from thin plastic with plastruct ribbing
> glued to it. It shouldn't be all that difficult and it could extend up under
> the side panels and be virtually undetectable. I don't know why Trumpeter did
> it this way. It would have been just as easy to make that piece curved with a
> little bit of ribbing detail that to make it flat. Go figure.
>
> External stores are underwing rockets (I don't remember if there were 4 or 5
> per wing) two bombs and two drop tanks for the underwing pylons. There are two
> rubber tires and what looks like nice clear glazing parts in a separate box
> with a couple small rods and photo etched fret. The control surfaces are
> separate but, in the instructions they call the ailerons flaps and the flaps
> ailerons.....sigh! As I said, the flaps are separate pieces. However, by
> looking at the instructions, it appears there are only parts to mount them to
> the wing in the retracted position; if that's the case, why make them > separate???
>
> Since I was only able to look at the parts trees in the plastic bags, I can
> make no judgment as to fit or overall accuracy but it looks like it will build
> up into a nice representation of an F4U1-D. At the same time, it seems there
> is some room for the aftermarket guys to do some detail parts. I was tempted
> to buy it (it was the last one they had in the store) but I decided to hold out
> for the F4U-4 release.
I'm a Corsair virgin. Can you please offer some info as to what would be visually different enough btwn the two versions to wait for a specific version release?
thx - Craig