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- Rotating propeller, gear bay doors open and close, retractable landing gear, movable tail hook
- Meticulously recreated with highly detailed parts
- Detailed cockpit with separate pilot figure
- Waterslide decals for two versions
- Illustrated assembly instructions
Product Description
1-48 Scale. Wingspan measures 10 1/2 inches long. Molded in light gray with waterslide decals, features folding wings, retracting landing gear and doors, optional armament 3 external drop tanks, 2 -1000 pound bombs and 8 underwing rockets. Decals for VMF-214 Black Sheep squardron USS Sicily 1951 and VMA-332 USS Bairoko 1953. Skill level 2.... More >>
Posted by Irwan on December 7, 2009
This review is from a model builder’s point of view.
What I like about this model:
It is sufficiently detailed, nice to paint on.
The cockpit detail is excellent. If you put a bit of customization, such as a seat belt, it looks really good.
This is one of the few models that have retractable landing gears. The landing gear doors also work, and when they close, they fit fairly well.
The wing can be folded, which is also a rarity
The decal is very detailed. It is 3% larger in scale compares with instruction manual, but no one would noticed.
95% of the design quality is good-as in all the parts fitted as they should.
Now, what I don’t like about this model:
Parts that don’t look as good is the canopy.
The clear canopy doesn’t seem to be fitting as well as I would like to-had a hard time trying to squeeze the main canopy into position.
I also wish that you can open the cockpit canopy, so you can see inside it. With the “clear” canopy closed, it’s a bit hard to see inside.
I know the picture presented that the wings can be folded.
While that is true, I wouldn’t fold the wing back and forth too much.
The wing hinges are too weak. I personally think the hinges should be bigger thus, withstand the folding movement.
There is an instruction problem which I will email Revell after this review. If a builder follow the hinge attachment with the manual, he/she will not be able to get the outer wing fitted on correctly. The hinges are upside down. But, do play around with them before you glue. That’s how I discovered the issue.
Overall:
Good model, takes sometimes to build. With paint, a good couple weekends.
I got a 40% off from Michaels and had a great time building it.
I personally would encourage people (various ages) to build these models over electronic consoles.
p.s. I don’t know why Amazon put models under “Toys”. They should be under the category of hobbies.
Rating: 4 / 5
I bought this item as a gift and hear that he really enjoyed building this the only thing was that it didn’t come with any glue. But that is expected most do not. I, however, did not think about that when purchasing.
Rating: 4 / 5