hellcat questions

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Gidday

Just a few questions on F6F-3 hellcats. I am working in 1:48th scale.

  1. What colour should the small tanks in the hellcats cockpit be? I dont know whether they’re oxygen bottles or fire extinguishers but I cant find any colour pics of them. There is one on the port sidewall, rear bulkhead behind the seat and one in the compartment behind the rear bulkhead.

  2. How deep, approximately, were the gun bays on the hellcat? I am thinking of scratchbuilding the gunbays and dont know how deep to make them. and what is an easy way to make ammunition belts and rounds?

Thanks

2

According to the flight manual, there are three tanks in the fuselage aft of the seat. The first and smallest is directly behind the seat back, oriented horizontally about half way up, and is an air bottle for the emergency landing gear extension. It seems to be painted a darker color than zinc chromate. The oxygen bottle is near floor level on the left hand side but behind the bulkhead; It’s probably painted light green to identify it as part of the oxygen system. The third tank is the biggest and is mounted horizontally behind the bulkhead about 2/3s of the way up. It’s for the water injection system. My guess is that it’s painted green zinc chromate. The one you describe as on the port sidewall, rear bulkhead behind the seat could be a fire extinguisher, which would be red, but it’s not shown in any of the illustrations or photos that I have. It could be that the kit designer misunderstood the location of the oxygen bottle.

The gun bays are pretty close to the full depth of the wing. Squadron/Signal’s Walk Around on the F6F has some nice color pictures of a restoration in that area.

3

Thanks very much. I have the squadron/signal book but cant determine the depth of the gun bays from the pics. The cockpit I have is the Jaguar interior set and has a tank on the port sidewall just below the small control wheels. It isnt really visible so I’ll just leave it zinc chromate green.

4

Because of the thickness of the plastic, I’d suggest that you just let the interior of the lower wing be the bottom of the gunbay.

There’s supposed to be a map case down below the trim wheels, and that would most likely be canvas.