Grumman F7F-3N Tigercat

Italeri, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Brett Green

Italeri's 1/48 scale F7F-3N Tigercat will be available online from Squadron.com
 

AMT's 1/48 scale Tigercats hailed from their brief but shining Golden Age in the 1990s, and the Tigercat family are amongst the best models to be released during this period. With the demise of AMT's aircraft kit production, these kits have been unavailable for some time.

It is therefore pleasing to see my favourite from this family, AMT's 1/48 scale F7F-3N Tigercat night fighter, now released by Italeri.

The kit comprises 108 parts in medium grey styrene and five parts in clear. Panel lines are crisply recessed. The plastic used by Italeri for this release appears to be of a higher quality than the soft material originally employed by AMT.

 

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Engine detail is good, wheels wells are boxed in and the cockpit is decent straight from the box. The complex undercarriage is well represented, even including moulded-on hydraulic lines.

Supplied stores include eight rockets, two 500lb bombs and a centreline drop tank.

One of the irritations with some of the original AMT kits, including the Tigercats, was the inclusion of vinyl tyres which were hard to paint and would eventually eat the plastic wheels! I was very pleased to see that Italeri has moulded brand new plastic tyres. No more painting or deterioration issues.

The overall shape and contours are good, but the radome nose is a bit undernourished. If this concerns you, several correction and conversion sets were available to replace the kit nose. The only other problem is the propeller assembly. The cuff is moulded on the wrong side of the propeller blades. It should be at the trailing edge but it is at the leading edge. This makes the blades look a bit like they are on backwards. A fix is also available for this, via Cutting Edge's corrected F7F propeller assembly.

The clear parts are free of distortion but the the sliding section of the of the forward canopy will ride high when in the "open" position on both variants. A vacform replacement will address this problem.

Four marking options are offered, including two in black and two in Glossy Sea Blue.



 

Italeri's release of the 1/48 scale F7F-3N Tigercat Night Fighter will be welcomed by modellers of US Navy and Marine aircraft, Korean War and Night Fighter subjects in general.

The inclusion of replacement plastic wheels and the four new marking options are nice upgrades to the original kit.

Recommended.

Thanks to Italeri for the review sample.

Review Text and Images Copyright © 2007 by Brett Green
Page Created 21 May, 2007
Last updated 24 December, 2007

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