Holy Hellcat, Batman!Twenty to one? That's a pretty good won-loss ratio in anybody's league. But when it comes to life-and-death combat, that kill ratio is about as good as it gets. Few planes have done so well - not even the Zero at the very start of World War II, when that incredible fighter destroyed every plane crazy enough to challenge it for aerial supremacy - but even the Zero's unflagging supremacy in 1941 couldn't challenge the almost unbelievable win-loss record of the Hellcat.
In the 1930s, the US Navy had a strong and effective pattern - as soon as a new fighter was in production, they called for the next generation design. As a result, no sooner had the Wildcat gone into production when the Navy asked Grumman and a few other manufacturers to come up next-generation designs. Grumman had an excellent track record, going back a decade to the FF-1 and SF-1 two-seat fighters, the F2F and F3F hotrod fighters - and after a blip with the original XF4F biplane was a non-starter, Grumman was back as the Navy's pre-eminent fighter manufacturer with the F4F-3/4 Wildcat (and it's General Motors follow-up, the FM-1 and the FM2 "Wilder" Wildcat. But when the original XF4F failed, Grumman realized that they didn't have an automatic lock on Navy fighter production. Instead of playing it safe, Grumman decided to put everything they'd learned about producing fighters into the design of the XF6F Hellcat.
While the US wasn't already in the shooting war at the time they started this new design, Grumman and every other US aircraft manufacturer was carefully studying all the lessons of aerial combat coming out of France, England, Poland and the rest of the world already at war. So they knew that it had to be rugged, armored, with self-sealing fuel tanks and heavy armament. They knew it had to have long range - defending carriers was best done as far away from the ships as possible. And it had to be easy to fly - both Grumman and the Navy knew that if the US was drawn into a shooting war, the Navy would be training a lot of new pilots and pushing them into combat long before they'd had the kind of in-depth training they would have received in the pre-war Navy.
There is a widespread and hard-to-kill rumor - even alluded to in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F6F_Hellcat) - that the Hellcat was designed specifically to combat the Japanese Zero. Reality is somewhat different. The Hellcat was ordered in the summer of 1941, six months before Pearl Harbor - and it first flew on June 26, 1942 - roughly the same day that America first discovered an abandoned Japanese Zero shot down near Dutch Harbor in a sideshow to the Battle of Midway. The plane's design had been largely locked down before that damaged Zero had been repaired and put through flight tests. By the time we knew just how maneuverable and lightly-built the Zero really was, the Hellcat was already in production.
Initially, the Hellcat was designed around the R-2600 radial engine, a reliable and rugged 1,700 horsepower engine that powered Grumman's Avenger torpedo bomber, as well as the B-25 Mitchell and A-20 Havoc. However, the 2,000 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800 offered nearly 25 percent more power - and while it was new and relatively unproven, it was already powering the B-26 Marauder, the P-47 Thunderbolt and the soon-to-be-combat-ready F4U Corsair. The R-2600-powered Hellcat was test-flown in June, 1942, and the R-2800 version flew just a month later.
Because the Corsair had some initial problems with Carrier Qualifications - due largely to a too-bouncy landing gear, along with a long nose that obscured the carrier deck just before touchdown - the Hellcat was "to the manor born" - designed from the outset to be a carrier plane. So, early in 1943, the Navy gave the Corsair to Marine and land-based Navy squadrons, while the Hellcat went to the carriers. While the Corsair was far more of a handful to fly, both planes were outstanding combat aircraft, and shared similar characteristics - rugged, long-ranged, heavily-armed - and were superb as both air-combat fighters and as ground-attack aircraft.
However, the Hellcat was far slower - in part because of the very characteristics that made it a good plane to fly from carriers - and it far more quickly faded from view after the war. This is often attributed to the Corsair's superiority in several areas, but it also reflects the fact that while Chance Vought had no suitable follow-on propeller fighter - instead, they kept upgrading the Corsair -Grumman chose to focus on next-generation fighters. Grumman built the F8F Bearcat - literally the smallest plane that could be built around the powerful R2800 - as the fleet-protection hot-rod, while Grumman built the F7F Tigercat as a long-range, twin-engined air defense, ground attack and night/all-weather fighter. In any case, jets - including Grumman's own F9F Panther - quickly pushed both next-generation prop fighters onto the sidelines, while specialized ground-attack versions of the Corsair were produced right through the Korean War, 1950-53.
But in it's day, and in its war, the Hellcat was the best carrier-based plane on earth. Once the Corsair was finally carrier-qualified, it carried a full load, but it was never as forgiving for new pilots, never quite as rugged or quite as maneuverable as the Hellcat.
During the war, more than 12,000 Hellcats were produced - not bad for a fighter that didn't first fly until six months after the war started - and in that war it destroyed more than 19 Japanese planes for every Hellcat lost in air-to-air combat. It had a well-earned reputation for bringing its pilots home, and, as one Hellcat pilot put it, "if it could cook, I'd marry it."
Eduard has produced a couple of kits of the Hellcat - essentially the same in all the important particulars - one is a two-for-one (two models in one box) kit of the Royal Navy/Fleet Air Arm's Hellcat Mk. I and Mk. II - essentially the US Navy's F6F-3 and F6F-5, which had few visible changes besides a rear window. The plane was constantly upgraded during the war, but the upgrades were minor - the plane was "right," right from the start. This makes it easier for a kit manufacturer to produce a single kit that covers both major versions.
I have to admit to being an Eduard Junkie - they produce more fascinating aircraft, with more remarkable add-ons - PE, Resin, Masks, optional parts, the whole nine yards. In this kit - in both Eduard Hellcat kits - they have not disappointed. For those who like FAA aircraft, the Hellcat Mk. I and Mk. II is a significant step in the process between outmoded two-seat fighter-reconaissance fighters like the Fulmar and converted short-range land-based fighters like the Sea Gladiator, Sea Hurricane and Seafire and modern made-for-carrier single-seat fighters. While the FAA had fewer than 900 Hellcats, they fought in Norway (in a strike against the Tirpitz - one of the few times the Hellcat took on German front-line fighters), across Southeast Asia and in the approaches to Japan.
This kit offers markings for six FAA aircraft - Mk. I Hellcats from 800 Squadron flown by Lt. Blythe Ritchie when he shot down a Focke Wulf Fw 190 on May 8, 1944; another aircraft from 800 Squadron during D-Day and on through the invasion of Southern France in August, 1944; and one from 1844 Squadron fighting in the Southeast Asia/Pacific Theater. Mk. II aircraft include an 808 Squadron in the Pacific theater; an 1839 Squadron Hellcat in the invasion of Okinawa that was flown by ace Sub-Lieutenant WMC Foster and another 1839 Squadron Hellcat which saw combat over Formosa and Okinawa. Considering the limited number of aircraft in service, Eduard provided a wide variety of camouflage and markings - they would have been hard-pressed to find a better or more diverse selection of aircraft.
The Kit
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I've received the essentially identical FAA kit. Cybermodel reports: "Eduard has done an excellent job with this one!"
One of the areas that all modelers have looked at for accuracy on any new Hellcat involves the shape of the plane's rear fuselage. Eduard caught this shape right, something no other kit maker has done - not Otaki or Hasegawa or Trumpeter or any of the others who've tackled this seemingly straightforward but oddly illusive aircraft.
The Hellcat cowling is another detail that had always eluded Hellcat kit manufacturers and aftermarket accessory makers - up till now. Compound curves are hard to capture, which makes a spot-on model hard to capture, but the Hellcat's chin scoop and engine opening have never been caught quite right. However, Eduard has caught this detail in the kit. In short, this kit has it all.
Markings
Markings are provided for five aircraft:
- F6F-3, BuNo 66016 (probabe), #32, VF-16, USS Lexington, 1943
- F6F-3, BuNo 25813, #13 (33-F-13), VF-33, Ondonga, 1943, as flown by Lt. C.K. Hilderbrandt
- F6F-3, BuNo 40090, #9, VF-1, USS Yorktown, 1944, as flown by Lt William Moseley
- F6F-3, BuBo 40467, #19, VF-6, USS Intrepid, 1944, as flown by Lt Alexander Vraciu
- F6F-3, BuNo unk, #17, VF-27, USS Princeton, 1944, as flown by Lt Richard Stambook
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