Ryan FR-1 Fireball, VF-21 March 1945 *finished*

[loupgarou]

Coming along nicely 

Yes indeed. But building the cockpit interior after having glued the fuselage halves looks to me as a masochism exercise like building a ship in a bottle...
You are a stronger soul than me.

[sandiego89]

Coming along nicely 

Yes indeed. But building the cockpit interior after having glued the fuselage halves looks to me as a masochism exercise like building a ship in a bottle...
You are a stronger soul than me.

the whole effort is a bit of self-punishment!  I would have preferred to build the cockpit first, but was having a hard time figuring where the cuts for the canopy would be and where things would sit after I cut it off.  The canopy seemed to be quite important to the overall rigidity of the fuselage while mating the halves, so I didn't want to cut it off before mating the halves.

Did I mention no landing gear gear either?     

[NARSES2]

It has a fairly large canopy so you might be able to make a simple cockpit up and "drop" it in. Use a couple of pieces of sprue glued to the bottom of it to gauge the height and then fix them to the inside of the fuselage ?

[sandiego89]

The Fireball lives! scratched up landing gear from brass tube.

[Wardukw]

Great stuff Dave 😀
Love that blue ..it's a nice dark deep blue..one of my favorite colours 😍 👌

[sandiego89]

With the devastating kamikaze attacks of mid and late 1944, the deployment of the Ryan FR1 Fireball was expedited.  The Fireball was deemed to be a good candidate to intercept incomings raids, as it could loiter economically on the forward engine, or climb rapidly by engaging the rear jet engine.  VF-21 fresh off combat operations with the Hellcat was re-equipped with the Fireball and undertook a conversion course at NAAS Brown Field before deploying to the Pacific about the USS FANSHAW BAY CVE-70.  The FANSHAW BAY and her airwing of Fireballs and a small detachment of the newly radar equipped Avengers for night intercept, were purely dedicated to fleet air defense and played a significant role in fleet defense for the assault on Okinawa in March 1945. 

The Kit: 1/72 The Eagles Talon FR1 Fireball, vacuform.
by Sandiego89















 

[Vulcan7]

Great looking build           

[TomZ]

Look very good.

Hats off for creating such a good model from the vacform kit.

TomZ

[chrisonord]

Very nice, Vacdorm kits still make me want ti hide behind the couch.

[NARSES2]

Look very good.

Hats off for creating such a good model from the vacform kit.

TomZ

My thoughts exactly Tom   

[Glenn Gilbertson]

A great result from a vacform - well done! 

[Captain Canada]

Nice build of a really neat subject ! Cheers

[Rick Lowe]

 

[zenrat]

Good job Dave.

 

[Dizzyfugu]

Hats off for creating such a good model from the vacform kit.

Same here.