Chance Vought P-48A Outlaw Mk.I

[Mossie]

During 1941 both the USAAF & RAF found themselves in a similar quandry.  Both found themselves with heavy fighters that were proving problematic, the USAAF with the Republic XP-47B the RAF with the Hawker Typhoon.  Republic had built several fighters of a similar design none of which were particularly successful & many were starting to believe the developmental problems of the larger XP-47B was a stretch too far.  Similarliy, Hawker had built the unsuccessful Tornado & the Typhoon was running into severe problems.

Chance Vought on the otherhand, had built a naval fighter using the same engine as the XP-47B & it's performance was proving impressive, although Naval chiefs had doubt about it's practicality as a carrier fighter.  Thinking they might loose the Navy order, Chance Vought approached the USAAF about a land based version of the F4U-1 Corsair that might fit the gap left by the XP-47B if it proved unsucessful.

The USAAF echelons needed some heavy persuading to buy an aircraft they saw as 'Navy fighter'.  The XP-48A was very similar to the F4U-1, but with the naval equipment removed & greater range given from the use of sealable fuel tanks in the outer wings.  This resulted in an aircraft that had better slightly performance than the XP-47B overall, & was particularly better at medium level.

This swayed the USAAF & the P-48A Outlaw started to enter service in 1942.  The RAF, frustrated with the Typhoon, realised that the P-48A was well suited to it's needs & ordered it as the Outlaw Mk.I until an improved version of the Typhoon was available.  The aircraft proved very capable in the fighter role, but also started to carve a new niche for itself in ground attack.  Several versions of the P-48 followed, including the P-48C Night Fighter & P-48D with a bubble canopy.

Unusually, there was another aircraft that used the same designation, the Douglas XP-48, which remained a paper design.  An administritive error is believed by some to be the reason, although others believe that Chance Vought deliberately vied for the P-48 designation as a marketing tool to compete with the XP-47A.  Douglas sued for damages & the case was dropped when the military was concerned that the affair would distract heavilly from the war effort, although there are some that believe that an out of court settlement was reached between the two firms.

[Mossie]

The kit is the Hobby Boss F4U-1 Corsair, with a few minor mods to turn it into a land based aircraft.  It was intended to be a quick build, but took me a while longer than I hoped, as always!  To portray a land based version of the Corsair, I shortened the tail wheel doors (too much in hind sight) & filled the gap that the arrestor hook would fill.  I also added a lighter set of main undercarriage, slightly modded.  These also came from a Hobby Boss kit, the P-40M that I whiffed as a floatplane & it was fortunate that these were left over as they operate in the same manner as the Corsair's undercart.  The only trouble with them is they are quite thin & have started to bend already.  I robbed some British 60lb rockets from the Airfix Beaufighter, for no other reason than to give a different look to the usual American RP's seen on bothe British & US Corsairs.  This made life a little difficult as it meant detatching the tray that was unique to the Beaufighter & filling in the location slots on the Hobby Boss kit.

I had a few problems of my own making, including thinking I could get away with priming the surface.  When I masked the undersides, I realised that paint was pulling off & I had to prime the upper surfaces, which left a paint step. It isn't too noticeable looking down at the model on the bench.  I also should have painted the yellow wing strips & the sky fuselage band first, although suprisingly these didn't cause me much bother.  Although it doesn't as look bad in the pics, believe me the canopy is a mess & it's something I want to sort out for future models.

I used some decals from the Airfix Typhoon which had a Jekyll & Hyde personality, they were beautifully matt & thin, but they were hard to budge once on the model & their thinness caused them to fold & tear easily.  This called to an end my first choice of 183 Sqn.  The B roundels had a slight white ring on one side which wasn't apparent until I got them on & an attempt to clean them up made things worse.

I had a whoops moment with the prop.  Put it down, couldn't see where it was, then I found it, right were I put my hand down!   Several attempts to glue it failed so I had to drill holes to pin two of the blades.  The only probs I had that weren't of my making were two of the cowl flaps broke off with minimal handling & needed replacing with plastic card, & the forward door for the left undercart would not go on straight no matter how much I coaxed it!





The aircraft a Chance Vought Outlaw Mk.I in the markings of 247 (China British) Sqn RAF.

[kitnut617]

I like that Simon    I think it would have been more than capably carrying a load of RP's like that.  Out of interest, when reading the P-47 in Action book it sort of insinuates that the RAF used these types of RP's on the P-47 in the Far East so I loaded one of mine out like what you have done here.  Definitely looks plausable.

[Brian da Basher]

Excellent work Mossie! That "Outlaw" looks absolutely crackerjack in RAF colors!

Brian da Basher

[sotoolslinger]

Sweet You can never go wrong with anything Corsair

[noxioux]

The bent-wing bird looks good like that.  It almost begs for an NMF bomber escort version. . .

[NARSES2]

A nice simple WIF that looks a treat  Great stuff

[Mossie]

I like that Simon    I think it would have been more than capably carrying a load of RP's like that.  Out of interest, when reading the P-47 in Action book it sort of insinuates that the RAF used these types of RP's on the P-47 in the Far East so I loaded one of mine out like what you have done here.  Definitely looks plausable.

Robert, I remember reading something similiar, basically that the ordanance would be swapped over some times & I vaguely remember reading that the USAAF used the 60lb RP on occasion, although I could be wrong.  It kind of makes sense, the US RP's & the British 25lb were designed for armour IIRC, the 60lb'ers were used if you just wanted to blow a big hole in something & I don't think the Americans had an equivalent?

The bent-wing bird looks good like that.  It almost begs for an NMF bomber escort version. . .

You know what, I've been thinking about that.  I bought the Corsair mainly because I needed the drop tanks for another project.  I need four tanks altogether, so I'll probably buy the Hobby Boss F4U-4 & do it up as an NMF SEAC bird with blue on blue roundels, maybe even pop a bubble top on it, I saw someone else did one recentley.  I picked the Airfix Typhoon up for it's decals (the kit is pretty much past it) & it might donate it's canopy.

Thanks for the comments guys!

[cthulhu77]

Great concept, fantastic build !  I like the idea of a heavy Corsair, very cool.

[Mossie]

The idea came about when I read that the Corsair had in tanks the outer wings, but that they were rarely used except for ferry flights because they were not of the self sealing variety & vulnerable in combat.  I presumed this was due to the wing fold & that a land based aircraft would not have the same problem & that range could be increased by a fair margin.  The Corsair was only slightly slower than the P-47, was a better performer at medium level & was just as capable at hauling iron, so it was quite easy to make the jump.

[Weaver]

Nice model Mossie!  The Corsair always made more sense as a land fighter than a naval one, so this is a very logical extrapolation. It could certainly carry the load: didn't Corsairs carry 2 x 1000lb bombs sometimes? 

[van883]

Nice   - I have wondered how good the Corsair might have as a land based fighter compared to the P47

Van

[kitnut617]

I was reading the Photo Recon section in my Mosquito book and it mentions that after the Mossies had found the Tirpitz that 617 Lancs went in to bomb it and FAA Corsairs were part of the fighter cover, where they aquitted themselves very well.  A question I have is:  was this the only time FAA Corsairs came into contact with the Luftwaffe which at the time were the latest Bf 109's and Fw 190's ?

[kitbasher]

Very, very nice.  Well done!

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Nice simple idea, beautifully executed. Take a bow, Simon.

Ian