1/72 Airfix Brewster Buffalo

Gallery Article by Tigre del Aire on Aug 24 2018

 

      

Brewster Buffalo, Militaire Luchtvaart

Good morning to all from Colombia, the land of Juan Valdez; today I bring you a plane that for its time was the winner in a competition with a wild cat and who became the defender of the Finnish skies during his war with the Soviets, it is the Brewster Buffalo

But first, some history: Designed and built by the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation, it was one of the first U.S. monoplanes with an arrestor hook and other modifications for aircraft carriers. The Buffalo won a competition against the Grumman F4F Wildcat in 1939 to become the U.S. Navy's first monoplane fighter aircraft. Although superior to the Grumman F3F biplane it replaced and the early F4Fs,[2] the Buffalo was largely obsolete when the United States entered the war, being unstable and overweight, especially when compared to the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero.

Several nations, including Finland, Belgium, Britain and the Netherlands, ordered the Buffalo. The Finns were the most successful with their Buffalos, flying them in combat against early Soviet fighters with excellent results. During the Continuation War of 1941-1944, the B-239s (a de-navalized F2A-1) operated by the Finnish Air Force proved capable of engaging and destroying most types of Soviet fighter aircraft operating against Finland at that time and achieving in the first phase of that conflict 32 Soviet aircraft shot down for every B-239 lost, and producing 36 Buffalo "aces".

In December 1941, Buffalos operated by both British Commonwealth (B-339E) and Dutch (B-339D) air forces in South East Asia suffered severe losses in combat against the Japanese Navy's Mitsubishi A6M Zero and the Japanese Army's Nakajima Ki-43 "Oscar". The British attempted to lighten their Buffalos by removing ammunition and fuel and installing lighter guns to improve performance, but it made little difference. After the first few engagements, the Dutch halved the fuel and ammunition load in the wing, which allowed their Buffalos (and their Hurricanes) to stay with the Oscars in turns.

The Buffalo was built in three variants for the U.S. Navy: the F2A-1, F2A-2 and F2A-3. (In foreign service, with lower horsepower engines, these types were designated B-239, B-339, and B-339-23 respectively.) The F2A-3 variant saw action with United States Marine Corps (USMC) squadrons at the Battle of Midway. Shown by the experience of Midway to be no match for the Zero,[2] the F2A-3 was derided by USMC pilots as a "flying coffin."[9] Indeed, the F2A-3s performance was substantially inferior[10] to the F2A-2 variant used by the Navy before the outbreak of the war despite detail improvements.

(taken from Wikipedia)

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Now let's go to the model, very good fit of pieces, it is not as complicated as it was at the beginning, I could work it at the same time with another model that I will present to you; the decals of very good presentation and stuck (despite being a model that was saved long before I bought it).

I could do some detail in the cabin, but being closed and the cockpit have so many stiles can not be seen very well.

The pilot also brought the kit, however, many friends advised me not to upload it, so this boy was ready for a later project.

What they see in the photograph prior to the blue camouflage is a plasticine that I use to make the stains, it has given me very good results and allows me to reuse it.

In my "online" assembly table were two more vehicles, so while the putty, the glue and the paint of some was drying, you could work on the others, so I was able to finish 4 models without inconvenience.

I hope you enjoy this work!

Saludos desde Colombia, la tierra de Juan Valdez!

Tigre del Aire

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Photos and text © by Tigre del Aire