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I built this
kit for my daughter’s birthday. She lives in Hawaii currently
and the street she lives on is named for a Navy Cross winner
from the Korean War, Lt. Guy Bordelon.
Lt.
Guy Bordelon was a Naval aviator during WWII who decided to
remain in the Navy after the war. He served in various staff
jobs after WWII. When the Korean War started he was ordered to
Composite Squadron 3 (VC-3) where he was trained on the F4U-5N
Corsair, a night fighter, and night operations. VC-3 was then
broken up into 5 plane detachments for assignment to various
carriers. Bordelon’s detachment was assigned to the USS
Princeton (CVA-37) for it’s second nine-month tour during the
Korean War.
Beginning
in late October of 1952 Bordelon’s detachment began night
interdiction missions over Korea. He flew 41 low-level missions
and earned 3 air medals. In the summer of 1953 he and three
other pilots of his detachment were assigned ashore to an
airfield near Seoul to assist 5th Air Force in
combating night intruders (Bed Check Charlies) that were
harassing UN Forces at night. On June 29th he shot
down two Yak-18s. The next night he shot down two Lavochkin
fighters. And on July 17th he shot down another
Lavochkin while dodging anti-aircraft fire. All his victories
were scored in the same F4U-5N that he had named “Annie Mo”
for his wife.
Bordelon
was the only Navy ace during the Korean War. He was also the
only all-nighttime ace and I believe the only US propeller
driven aircraft ace from that war. For this feat he was awarded
the Navy Cross (second only to the Medal of Honor). He went on
to finish a 27-year career and retire with his wife Anne in
Louisiana.
The
F4U-5N “Annie Mo” suffered a different fate. His replacement
pilot, in a landing accident, promptly wrecked it shortly after
Bordelon rotated back to the USS Princeton.
The
Kit
The kit is molded in medium gray plastic with excellent recessed
details and only a few of those pesky ejector pin markings to
deal with. There’s a slight seam line along the top middle of
the canopy. There was also a casting flaw that caused a step in
the fuselage about half way between the cockpit and nose. I
sanded this out and rescribed the lost details.
Otherwise
the assembly was straight forward and OOB with few problems. My
only problems were with the fit of the oil coolers in the wings
leading edge (required sanding) and the fit between the front
lower wing and forward fuselage halves (required more sanding)
and the fit between the cowling and forward fuselage (required
much sanding).
The
kit offers a variety of weapons to hang off of the wings (drop
tanks, rockets, & bombs, oh my!) but I chose just the drop
tanks cause this thing was going too have to be shipped to
Hawaii and my confidence level in all that other stuff making it
still attached was low. I also figured if this guy is out
trolling around at night hunting bad guys, he’s gonna want gas
not bombs and rockets.
Painting
was pretty easy. The aircraft was gloss sea blue overall
(aircraft, drop tanks, landing gear, wheel wells, landing gear
doors) with various details painted their colors as needed. I
used Model Master Gloss Sea blue. It was old (I thought I had a
bunch of this paint but a frantic search the night of painting
only turned up one OLD barely half full bottle) but still went
on very well! There was black anti glare paint on the fuselage
top from the cockpit to the front of the engine cowl and the
radar dome nose on the wing. The cockpit was green zinc chromate
w/ black instrument panels w/ prisma color pencil detailing. The
engine was metalizer with prisma color pencil highlights. The
wheels/tires and propeller were painted as instructed. Once dry
the aircraft was sprayed with MANY light coats of Future over a
two night period and left to dry only the minimum amount of time
to dry (I was getting right down to crunch time on this cause I
still had to ship it out).
The
decals were applied and this is where I have the greatest praise
for this kit!! They went on just beautifully!!!! No setting
solution was used and these markings just settled right down the
best I’ve ever seen since I started modeling. This is normally
the point in the process when I manage to botch a kit up to some
major degree but not this time. The decals get high praise from
me!!
Another
coat of future was applied, to seal the deal, again with minimal
dry time. I then masked and flat clear coated the anti glare
areas with Testors Dullcoat. Final assembly of the main wheels
and canopies and any last minute detail painting was finished
up. And I was done, with one evening to spare before the
absolute “have to” ship date. This was spent taking pictures
and parking the completed model in my traditional “just
finished model place of honor”.
Shipping
the Kit
The propeller was removed for shipping.
I
used that poly-fil material that you can get at Wal-Mart in the
craft section for filling pillows and such. Two pillow-sized
bags were maybe $4. The model was placed in a bag (one of those
plastic Food Lion bags you get your groceries in) to catch any
parts if they fall off. A small box (a shoe box actually) was
half filled with the poly-fil. The model was placed inside and
more poly-fil added till the box was filled to capacity. The lid
was placed on and taped in place. This left about one and a half
bags of poly-fil left over. The rest of this was used as packing
around the first box when I put it into a shipping box I got
from the Post Office. The box was shipped Priority with fragile
stamped on it and it arrived in plenty of time and intact. My
daughter was very happy with it and just surprised as me that it
made there intact.
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