Small Scale Military Headquarters

when i saw it i thought HM goofed and put the old style rear windows on their McWhorter Hellcat. But all HM's other late Hellcats are correct with rear windows deleted...so that made me wonder if maybe they knew something i didn't. I went to 2 forums and nobody said anything about the canopy being incorrect on the McWhorter Hellcat.

But every drawing i can find of McWhorter's White 9 shows that there are no rear windows, as i expected. However, some of the early F6F-5's did have the rear windows, it was later in the production run they were deleted. So it is possible McWhorter's Hellcat had them, if he flew an early production F6F-5.

Did HM get it right or did they goof? Does anyone have an actual photo of McWhorter's White 9 F6F-5?

http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/mil ... a1112.html

edit: i just found this: "Of the 7,869 F6F-5 Hellcats produced, 1,404 were built before the rear windows were deleted." So about 20% had the rear windows....that's a lot more than i thought, so i have a hunch the HM may have got it right.

I have two pieces of "evidence", AF. Here's a picture showing the pilot just after his 12th kill late in the war:

Here, from another source, is the same shot showing what looks like a small window:

interesting pics Epap, thanks, but i think he's in a different plane than the one in queston. The lower picture shows part of the fuselage number but it's clearly not a 9, so it's probably a photo from 1944 when he was in VF-9 on the Essex. The HM model is for 1945 in VF-12 aboard Randolph.

Epap wrote:I have two pieces of "evidence", AF. Here's a picture showing the pilot just after his 12th kill late in the war:

Okay, I see a pic just after his TENTH kill, as that is what the caption says, plus someone scrawled on it, "VF-9".

Also, the HM version in the pic linked to is for a VF-12 plane, which as depicted does not have kill markings on the starboard side like the one in the old photos, and there are 12 kills.

So, yes, definitely not the same plane. Wouldn't he likely have been issued a new plane when he transferred from VF-9 to VF-12?

But...not of this actually tells us when these particular planes were manufactured so I guess you would need to track down the serial #'s for them and compare them to the production block numbers.

let me know what you find out...

Here's more "evidence". In this case it's a much older McWorter posing with an artist's rendition of "White 9". Would he have done this with an inaccurate depiction of the plane? Maybe so----maybe not. As Sherlock Holmes would have said----"The game's afoot, Watson".

it's possible he wouldn't even notice or remember whether the little rear windows were there or not. In fact i would be willing to bet there would be many details of the planes he flew he would not remember accurately....most people don't make note of stuff like that. For example, without looking, what shape are the door handles on the car you drive every day? What colour are they? Is your gas tank cover round or square? Which side is the aerial on?

Most people don't remember or make note of stuff liket that, and couldn't tell you when they are operating the thing, let alone 50 years later.

The only real proof would be a photo of the plane. It's possible HM got it right and it's possible the used the photos you posted as reference, in which case they were looking at the wrong plane and may have got it wrong on their White 9 model (there would be about a 20% chance they are still correct in that case).

I doubt that HM bothered to check the pictures on the net, AF, beyond those in whatever kit they used to make the toolings and the artist's rendition posted on their website. It may just be a case of having a pre-made supply of canopies and using them. I don't know. BTW, here's another picture of planes from the Mcworter unit on a carrier late in the war. Of course, his plane isn't shown but one might assume that it was like the others....none of which have the small windows.