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Reviewed by Brett Green
CMK's 1/48 scale F4U-4 cockpit set is designed for Academy's or Hasegawa's Dash Four Corsairs. The focal point of this new cockpit is the clever cockpit tub. This is a single casting that includes front and back bulkheads, side panels, floor and a seat moulded in place! The parts suffer no loss of detail for this remarkable casting feat. The seat harness looks terrific, and there is plenty of fine detail around the harness attachments, switches, dials and even rivets on the cockpit floor.
The etched metal is also very nice. This adds a few levers and throttles as well as the customary instrument panel with acetate backing. Curiously, the etched metal fret includes the tailwheel doors, tailwheel oleo scissors and bracing strut, but the instructions do not mention these at all. In addition, I am yet to figure out where etched part 12 goes! It is pleasing to see that CMK have addressed possibly the worst aspect of Academy's kit - the canopy. Academy's attempt at the windscreen is ridiculously wide. CMK's vacform replacement looks much better, although the clear plastic is somewhat foggy. A quick bath of Future should fix this problem however. Instructions are quite good. Construction is called out in eight steps by exploded-view drawings. Colours are called out during construction. As a footnote, if you (like I) thought that this cockpit would look good in Hasegawa's new F4U-5, forget it! The Dash Five incorporated a more modern cockpit configuration. At the very least, the side consoles and instrument panel are noticeably different. This is a shame, as the CMK cockpit tub fits almost perfectly in the fuselage of the Hasegawa night fighter (I tried it already - the forward locating line would have to be removed, but a perfect apart from that). CMK's 1/48 scale F4U-4 Corsair cockpit set is very nice indeed, and at less than USD$9 it is also good value. Lets hope that Hasegawa retool their F4U-4 to the same standard as their recent Corsair variants; and that CMK produce some nice cockpits for the F4U-5 and F4U-7. Recommended. Thanks to Squadron® for the review sample.
Review Copyright © 2001 by Brett
Green
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The
remaining six resin parts comprise the sidewalls, a few minor switch panels,
gunsight and control column.