HISTORY:

McDonnell’s F2H-2 Banshee served in combat in Korea for the United States Navy and was derived predominantly from the earlier FH-1 Phantom project that came to fruition during the closing year of World War Two. The FH-1 Phantom, the Banshee’s predecessor, was the first operational jet fighter to serve in the US Navy and the first jet aircraft to fly off of a US carrier. The F2H Banshee was an improved airframe with folding wings, lengthen fuselage (which housed more fuel) and more powerful engines (Westinghouse J-34 WE-34). The F2H-1 was a scaled up and better designed aircraft than the previous Phantom and it incorporated some then new technological improvements, which included an ejection seat and electrically operated landing gear, canopy, wing fold, and airbrake. The next series of Banshees, the F2H-2 began production in May of 1949 and with the outbreak of hostilities in Korea the production run was increased to 440 aircraft.

The Banshee served in many guises during the Korean conflict-in the reconnaissance role (F2H-2P), night fighter (F2H-2N) and fighter-bomber (F2H-2). This only proved the versatility of the airframe and ensured McDonnell Corporation a bid in the future of United States Navy fighter development.

THE KIT:

The kit consists of 44 resin parts, 15 white metal, 2 vacu-formed canopies, 1 clear sheet of styrene, 1 decal sheet and a comprehensive instruction sheet with detailed drawings. The Collect-Aire kit provides 3 different noses to model the F2H-2/2N/2P and it also includes two different instrument panels for all the types. This gives the modeler a wide variety of options. There is also a set of markings for each type on the nicely printed decal sheet. The kit is a full package and contains nicely molded detail parts and requires no after-market accessories-not there are many or any.

CONSTRUCTION:

Construction begins with the cockpit tub and ejection seat. The tub required little cleaning up and was painted flat black and the details were picked out with various shades of gray. The ejection seat is a fine representation of the example, consisting of resin and white metal parts. Since I had a copy of U.S. Navy Ejection Seats, volume I, I thought I would super detail the seat a bit. I added some strip styrene, which I punched out holes to represent the railing behind the ejection seat, and I added buckles from the Reheat set and made belts out of tape. I also added the backing plate that was present on the Korean War Banshees, which was constructed out of sheet card. These additions seemed to give the seat the extra bulk it required. After the ejection seat was painted in the appropriate colors it looked the part. These addition are not necessary, but I decided to go the whole nine yards since, I will not probably be building another Banshee in this scale anytime soon. The instrument panel was next and I painted it flat black to go along with the tub, and it was dry brushed with the appropriate grays.

At this juncture, I decided to assemble the canopy and framing. I carefully cut out the canopy (Collect-Aire does provide a spare so not to worry!) and fit it to the white metal framing. It was glued with super glue and put aside for painting. I decided to do the canopy now so I can fit it to the cockpit assembly.

My attention turned to the airframe construction, which is rather straightforward. The axiom that the modeler should adhere to is measure twice, glue once. It is imperative to sand and dry fit every part before committing to the super glue. The tail assembly is particularly fiddly, but once everything is dry fit it does fit well and blends in nicely with gap-filling super glue-which I used throughout the construction sequences of this kit. At this juncture, I of course decided to put on the dash-2 nose, which again fits well after some arduous sanding. One also has to add some weight to the nose to avoid tail sitting, so I drilled out the nosepiece and added some buckshot.

The wings also have to be sanded to fit the fuselage. The most important thing to do is maintain the dihedral as you glue the wings into place. I did this by marking the proper position on the fuselage with pencil. I then glued each wing into place separately. The resulting gap was filled with gap filling super glue. The gap was not very large and blended well into the fuselage-a good test of the tooling and moldings of this kit. With the tail planes, tail, wings, and nose in place the last thing to do was to add the prominent wingtip tanks. These were sanded down to get rid of the mould seam line and then fit to the wing tips. They were then super glued into place and sanded to match the rest of the wing.

The airframe was now ready for priming. I primed the whole airframe in Gunze Sangyo spray primer 500. I find this primer to cover excellent and it fills some of the imperfections on the surface. This has become my primer of choice. It also takes both enamel and lacquer paints in thin coats. Once the primer was dry I lightly rubbed down the whole airframe with a Brillo scruffy pad. This blended the surface and created a nice clean surface for painting. I then redefined some of the panel lines and let the whole airframe sit for 24 hours before painting. I also added some wire and strip styrene to the main gear wells-again not necessary but I always like to add a little extra detail.

PAINTING:

This aircraft does not have a difficult paint scheme, but there is some masking involved to get the proper unit colors. I first painted the nose and tail tip with Humbrol 89 blue (I generally don’t use Humbrol paints-except for the exceptional flesh color-I don’t like the fiddly tins-sorry). I however like the Xtracolor line and I like the British colors from Humbrol. Once this was dry, I then painted the tail planes and tail leading edge white-Xtracolor X141 (FS17875). The only area left to paint was the leading edge-which was done in Tamiya Aluminum. All these areas were then allowed to dry for 48 hours-I do this so none of the paint peels when I take off the masking.

I then proceeded to mask off the blue, white and aluminum areas and prepared the surface for painting. The whole airframe was painted with Model Master gloss dark sea blue enamel. Since this was enamel I let the whole airframe dry for 48 hours for safety sakes before I pulled the masking. At this time I also masked off the canopy and windscreen and sprayed these with gloss dark sea blue. I then decided to do something a little different this time. I sanded down the whole paint job with very fine sandpaper 4000, 6000, 8000 and, 12000. This seems to bring the paint to a nice sheen. I then proceeded to clear coat the whole airframe with Testors lacquer gloss coat. This gave the aircraft what I call the toy gloss sheen-but perfect for decalling. If I may add at his point; most judges at model shows like this (artificial) gloss like sheen. To me it is very toy like and not realistic to aircraft-especially operational and combat aircraft of this era. These airframes usually lost there gloss sheen very quickly and took on a semi-gloss to flatter finish. This is a topic on which most IPMS judges and I do not see eye-to-eye. I am glad I build for myself. They also seem to get annoyed that I add figures with my kits-Oh well. The airframe was now left to dry and cure and my attention now turned to the undercarriage.

UNDERCARRIAGE:

The landing gears were a simple affair since the wheel were one piece resin and only needed to be cleaned up and slightly weighted. The oleo struts were white metal and needed very little cleaning. I may also say that the white metal casting Collect-Aire employs is some of the cleanest and shiniest white metal I have seen in limited production kits. I polished the shiny piston part slightly and dry brushed gloss sea blue over the rest of the gear. I then drilled holes and fit the landing gear to the airframe after I painted the wheels the appropriate colors. The vertical axis must be maintained as one fits the landing gear. The airframe has some nice weight to it and makes for a substantial model!

DECALS:

The decals are printed by Scalemaster and they adhere well and leave none of the dreaded silvering. I employed Micro-set and Micro-sol and they settled down nicely to the airframe. The markings are fairly simple and did not take long to put on. I allowed the decals to dry overnight and prepared the airframe for its final coat of flat clear. I proceeded to flat coat the airframe and then added the paint chipping and typical weathering of carrier borne aircraft of this era. A good reference for this is Robert Jackson’s, Air War Korea, 1950-1953, which has some wonderful color shots of Korean war aircraft. All that was left to do was the canopy and tail pitot. The windscreen was glued into place with white glue and the area was touched up with gloss sea blue. The canopy was placed into position. I decided not to glue it into place so I could display the cockpit area more effectively, if so desired.

ACCESSORIES:

I decided to add some display accessories as usual. I used the resin carrier deck from Cutting Edge (CEC48049), which comes in both 1.48 and 1.72 scale. It depicts a carrier deck from the World War II and Korean war era. This worked perfectly. It is well cast and can be cut very easily. Unlike most other manufacturers carrier decks, the Cutting Edge example displayed very little warping. I painted the deck in the appropriate weathered dark blue and sanded off lightly some of the paint to represent a well-worn deck--of the USS Kearsarge. I also scratch built an appropriate figure. The figure was a combination of the resin Reheat USN/USMC 1.48 figure set and the Revell-Monogram 1.48 USN seated figure provided in the 1.48 F9F-5 Panther kit. Now wouldn’t it be nice if Revell-Monogram would issue a set of figures in 1.48 scale from all the past kits—especially from the F-86, Mig-15 and various WW II subjects (take a page from the Hasegawa book). I then glued the carrier deck to a stained and polyurethaned base. I feel this gives the model a complete look-a Banshee ready to turn and burn!

CONCLUSION:

This was a very enjoyable project and proved to be less arduous than the previous F3H Demon (see SAMI , volume 5 issue 5, May 1999). I find that the Collect-Aire kits are getting better and better and they represent the intended subject with great accuracy. The subject matter that Collect-Aire has chosen fills the gaps in most 1.48 collections and I feel that a reasonably competent modeler can tackle these kits and get some nice results. There is also room to super detail some of these kits if one want to guild the lily, as they say. The completed model seems to scale out nicely and has an accurate feel to it. This kit was very satisfying to build and it should be within the capability of most modelers that have fiddled with resin and want to cut their teeth on a full kit. I recommend the kits to anyone who wants to fill their collection with all the aircraft that have fell through the cracks by the major manufacturers. My next stop will be the rare and interesting Chance-Vought F6U Pirate.

REFERENCES:

Aviation Research, US Navy Ejection Seats, volume I, Memphis Tennessee, Aviation Research, 1990.

John M. Elliot, The Official Monogram US Navy and Marine Corps Aircraft Color Guide 1950-1959, Volume 4. Sturbridge, MA: Monogram Aviation Publications, 1993.

Francillon, Rene J., McDonnell Douglas Aircraft since 1920: Volume I, Annapolis: United States Naval Institute Press, 1990.

Green, William and Gerald Pollinger, The World’s Fighting Planes, Hanover House , New York, 1956.

Bill Gunston, The Illustrated History of Fighters. New York: Exeter Books, 1981.

Jackson, Robert, Air War Korea, 1950-1953, London: Motorbooks, 1998.

Mills, Carl, Banshees: in the Royal Canadian Navy, Willowdale Ontario Canada: Banshee Publications, 1991.

U.S. Navy Ejection Seats, volume I, Aviation Research, 1990.